With the choice of the name Vale for their daughter, Savannah Guthrie and Mike Feldman have managed to pull off what’s almost impossible in the baby name world. They’ve found a name that’s at once attractive, accessible, evocative and strong, that touches on several hot trends — and yet is almost completely unique.
How to find something equally unusual? On Nameberry, people who like Vale were also found to like a wide range of uncommon monikers including Ives, Qamar, Zella, Ceola, Meade, Pella, Von, Ozella, Tesla and Ramses.
Not quite what you had in mind? One thing you might do is look at names that share some of the elements of Vale yet are equally rare:
Vale is a poetic name for valley (just as Savannah is a more poetic name for grassland), and single-syllable nature names are very much on trend. While you might hear Brook or Sage or Sky around the playground, it’s unlikely that you’ll run into another Dune, Beach, Crane, Isle, Fjord, Quartz, Shale, Grove or Spruce.
Vale’s beginning initial just happens to be one of the coolest letters around (Yes, consonants and vowels do go in and out of fashion, too), with names like Violet, Valentina, Vivian and Vita and even Viggo rising up the charts. But if you want a really unusual V-name, how about: Verve, Valley, Veer, Vine, Vega, Valor or Verdi?
Vale is also an off-the-grid word name that has historically never been used for more than a few babes (though that well may soon change). Lately we’ve seen the emergence of Aria, Arrow and Maverick as names, but there are many more undiscovered words that might conceivably work for a kid. A few examples: Early, Quarry, Karma, Camera, Sonnet, Opera — or you might even adopt a foreign one like Vrai or Galaxia.