Glance at any newsstand and you’ll spot her, along with Suri and Apple, and a host of other pint-sized celebrities.

Thanks to Urban Angel for suggesting Shiloh as our Baby Name of the Day.

Hollywood power couple Brangelina weren’t the first to use Shiloh as a given name.

About Abby Sandel

Whether you're naming a baby, or just all about names, you've come to the right place! Appellation Mountain is a haven for lovers of obscure gems and enduring classics alike.

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What do you think?

15 Comments

  1. I love this name a lot! I just worry that people will find it a tad weird or worse… I love the way it sounds and definitely prefer the name for a girl. I think it was the spelling that attracted me to the name at first- Shiloh. And I love the fact it has many biblical references.

  2. When I first heard about Jolie-Pitt naming their baby “Shiloh”, I wondered too why they couldn’t name their others Antietam, Gettysburg and Kennesaw Mountain. Then I realized that the last name had already been taken (lol).

  3. Shiloh is not my style. It isn’t really an old classic, just an odd name that doesn’t really fit in in any particular time period.

    I’ve never known one either, so I think of the celebrity baby, whom I know very little about.

  4. Shiloh is acceptable, but it isn’t one of my favorites. I like that it isn’t an “invented” name, but since it’s seen in probably every People magazine to date until Shiloh J-P’s birth, it isn’t something I adore. It would be interesting to see it used, though… maybe I’d change my mind. On a child other than Brangelina’s, that is.

    This is totally unrelated, but I’ve been lurking for a little while now and I wondered whether you’d talked about the names of the infamous Mitford sisters? They were a family of seven (six girls, one boy) and it’s quite an interesting sib-set — Nancy, Pamela, Tom (Thomas?), Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah. I’d think it would be difficult to name so large a family, especially so many girls. I wonder what the modern equivalents would be?

  5. I know a Shiloh who is in her 30’s. I asked her about her name and she told me that her parents were from the Shenandoah Valley and she was named after the battlesite. I don’t really get that. I have no desire to name my child Ypres, or Gettysburg, or Wounded Knee. Personally, I would never use this. My first thought goes to the battlefield, then to the Brangelina spawn. Both kind of ruin it for me.

    P.S. The Shiloh I know is very nice, by the way. 🙂

  6. Apart for Brangelina’s baby, when I hear Shiloh, I think “Civil War battlefield.” It was the deadliest of the war thus far.

    And a side note about toddler Shiloh, why have they cut her hair so short? She looks like a little boy!

  7. I’m not really a fan. The “shy” sound doesn’t appeal to me and it immediately makes me think “celebrity baby”.

    Though I do like Eden and Jericho, so it would be kinda fun to meet a Shiloh who was named the name as a Biblical place name.

  8. Maybe it’s because of my upbringing, but Shiloh reads far too place-name-y for me to even consider using or suggesting it as a given name. It does have a pretty sound, even though it ends with “oh”.

  9. Thanks for doing this as NOTD , Abby !

    I like Shiloh (for a girl) a lot. It has this calm and lyrical rhythm to it when I hear/say it.. It’s this really cool Biblical place name like Eden or Jericho to me. It’d also age very well. Shiloh is mentioned over a 180 times in the Bible. which is pretty cool You should see how many times it is mention in the Book of Joshua alone !

    The one thing that I do find funny is how a lot of people brand it a ‘dog’ name. I get why (though it took me awhile and I had seen the movie). That connection isn’t an irritant,as some of the most popular names in the world for human are just popular for the 4-legged variety
    I don’t have a problem with the Brangelina connection. I like the name because of the name – not because of them.On a poll done very recently regarding whether or not people would use a name, it’s was 45 % would use the celeb name if they liked i.e. Shiloh & 55 % wouldn’t because they didn’t want people to think that they are copying the celeb – not that they didn’t like the name. That’s a very close statistic. The way I look at it, some people will think Chipmunks when they hear Theodore , so ALL names have a negative connection some way or the other. In a way, I’m actually glad that Brangelina used it, as I wouldn’t have thought of using it as a name & now I would .So, it’s not a first choice, but it’d be something that could very possible be on a list of contenders one day. It not for everyone, but I just think it sounds pretty

    EISH that was long ! SORRY !!!

  10. It’s not for me. Shiloh feels a little depressing to me – as dumb as this is – it makes me thing of literally being shy and feeling low… for me it’s a downer of a name. I’m sure most people’s associations are far less pedestrian!

    1. I sort of feel the same way about Shiloh. There was a little Shiloh who rode my school bus when I was in high school (and too self-important to help to get involved.) She was teased unmercifully by her elementary-aged classmates, mostly they just called her Silo and but she was such a shy, miserable little creature and your description of the name was so apt…

      1. That’s the thing with an unusual name – either it totally suits you, or you’re doubly singled out because of it.