Luna

Luna means "moon," or can mean "moon goddess." In Roman mythology, Luna was the goddess of the moon. Her Greek counterpart was Selene. Luna as a given name for girls has a certain current trendiness. It's not exactly popular, but has been used enough in the past 2 or 3 years to earn itself a place in the U.S. top 1000. Interestingly, the name is also currently very popular, as in top 10, in Belgium--or so says Behind the Name. I was mildly surprised to find that Luna was in use as a given name in the early 1900's, but I haven't yet found information about its history as a name before that--still looking. What was more surprising to me is that it didn't fade back into the top 1000 during the 1960's through the 1980's. I'd have thought that Luna would be a prime candidate for trendy popularity during those years. Go figure. I have mixed feelings about this name. On the one hand, I love the sound of it, and the meaning is good. On the other hand, as cruel as kids are, any little girl named Luna is going to be at serious risk of being called "Looney Luna." The fact that it rhymes with "tuna" probably doesn't help. So I think that even as much as I like the name, I'd have to recommend against it for a new baby. Luna is a great name for a fictional character, and I might use my newfound knowledge that the name was in use in the early 20th century myself one of these days-I love things that seem "wrong" until you find out that they aren't. I also think that Luna is a great name for a dog, but this is probably because I play The Sims and when the Unleashed expansion pack was released, it included as a character a cute little dog named Luna. That dog is now the first thing I think of when I hear or see the name. The second thing I think of is a character from the soap opera One Life To Live who was named Luna. She was cool, but she was definitely quite looney.