13 Poetry-Inspired Baby Names

For a girl

In addition to being, like, really pretty, it’s also the name of the last complete poem composed by Edgar Allan Poe.

For a boy

He can say he was named for T.S. or George, depending on his mood.

For a girl

With a namesake like Maya Angelou, she’s destined for nothing short of greatness.

For a boy or girl

Inspired by Ralph Waldo.

For a boy

Hey, did you guys know Walt Whitman was a volunteer nurse during the Civil War? Little Whit certainly will.

For a girl

Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 narrative poem  "Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie," of course.

For a boy

We having a feeling this dude—named for noted Romantic Lord Byron—will have a sensitive side.

For a girl

As in the titular character of the W.H. Auden poem, not our secret favorite Sex and the City character.

For a boy

You know, like the American expat Ezra Pound.

For a girl

An homage to American poet Gwendolyn Brooks (who was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry), you can call this little cutie Gwen.

Pablo Neruda became known as a poet when he was just ten years old, so yeah, we've got high hopes. 

For a girl

British poet Philip Larkin’s early pen name—Brunette Coleman—is a bit less practical.

For a boy

Naming your little guy after Pulitzer Prize-winner and noted feminist activist Edna St. Vincent Millay will set him up for a life of respecting *all* people.