City Room has posted a chart showing the most popular baby names in New York City in 2007. Most of the popular names have the whiff of daytime dramas (Madison? Justin?), even among those from non-European backgrounds. The No. 1 name for Asian boys? Ryan. For Hispanic girls? Ashley. But, I wondered, what happens when you dig deeper into the health department's full list [pdf]? You find boys with somewhat unusual names for this day and age, like Achilles, Shemar, Shiloh, Orion; and small clusters of baby girls with names like Dakota, Essence, Heaven, Serenity, Shiloh again, Treasure, Precious and Princess.

Somewhere in this city, 13 baby girls were named Harmony (No. 148 on the list) and 12 were named Lyric (No. 149).

There were 17 girls given the name London (No. 144) and 24 named Paris (No. 137). For the city, we hope, and not the presidential candidate.

Just 18 were named for Milan (at No. 143).

And, continuing a trend first noticed a couple of years ago, there were 126 baby girls given the name Nevaeh (No. 53) last year -- "Heaven" backwards.

And, underscoring the importance of spelling even early in life, 10 were named Neveah.