Some rather awesome names to add to the list!

GIRLS

Hermelinda

Iraida - Arabic, meaning "seeker".

woman seeking knowledge

BOYS

Kenton - English. The second part of the name refers to 'town'. The first element, 'ken', could refer to
the river Kenn, thus, a town near this river. The Old English surname Cena referred to someone from the town of this name, according to the website babynamespedia. The website also points out that the Old English 'cyne' is another possible source for 'Ken', and meaning 'royal' and that 'tun' can mean 'homestead' as well as 'town' or 'settlement'. In this instance Kenton then means "royal manor". The website says that 'cena' as a word and personal name means 'keen'. Though, in combination with the second element it would seem the reference would be most likely to indicate a settlement named for someone named Cena, rather than the word 'cena'.

Loftus - perhaps Loftus as a first name comes from the practice of using a family surname as a child's first name. I found a very neat webpage in my search to find the origin of this name. called Surname Database. According to this site, it is English coming from "lotht" which means "upper floor" and "hus" meaning "house". It points out the rarity of such a home in the Middle Ages, and so a place that had such a thing came to be called Loftus. And from that, someone from such a place eventually had the surname Loftus. As early as 1219 A.D.

The website has some neat features. It has a map that shows the distribution of this surname in the U.S. It would seem that there is no one in Hawaii, North Dakota, or Alabama with the name, but a lot in Oklahoma (if the legend that says the high rate of occurrence for the name is shown by dark red). Or else in Illinois and Pennsylvania, if the part that says the greener the state shown on the map, the more people who live there with this surname.

It seems rather odd to me as a first name though.

Marama - name of a moon good in the Cook Islands, in the South Pacific ocean.


Noam- Hebrew, from "No-omi" meaning "pleasantness".

Joiada - Hebrew, meaning "Yahu knows", derived from Jehoiada. Wikipedia gives the pronunciation as 'Yoyada'.