Baby names for scientists

Apr 16, 2013

Monica Beyer is a mom of four and has been writing professionally since 2000, when her first book, Baby Talk, was published. Her main area of interest is attachment parenting and all that goes with it, including breastfeeding, co-sleepin...

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Famous scientist baby names

Science is an amazing subject. Its study changes the way we think about how the world works around us. Daily, researchers and scientists test the boundaries of what we know to find out more.

We’ve come a long way from thinking the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around us — and from doctors messing with cadavers, and then delivering babies, without washing their hands. Why not pay homage to science when you have your little one?

We picked some really inspirational and honestly quite mind-boggling genius minds to feature here. We’ve included their major contribution to science, but feel free to explore and investigate each guy or gal further to see exactly how brilliant they were, or still are. Many have had several major contributions to science. There is still much to be discovered — maybe your baby boy or girl will be on a list like this a few decades in the future.

Science names for boys

From the long-ago Greeks, men have been changing the world, one scientist at a time, over the course of centuries. Here is but a small sample of the amazing men that have changed the course of science.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955): Theory of relativity
Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778): Taxonomy and binomial nomenclature
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879): Electromagnetic field
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630): The theory of planetary motion
Jonas Salk (1914-1995): Vaccines
Joseph Lister (1827-1912): Medical sterilization
Max Planck (1858-1947): Quantum theory
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543): Heliocentric model of the universe
Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915): Chemotherapy
Robert Koch (1843-1910): Microbiology
Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902): Public health and social medicine

Science names for girls

Women have had more struggles to get recognition in the scientific world, but that didn’t stop these gals from making their own mark in research, exploration and contributing to some of the most useful and amazing scientific information we have at our hands today.

Alice Hamilton (1869-1970): Occupational medicine and toxicology
Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941): Stellar classification
Barbara McClintock (1902-1992): Cytogenetics
Dian Fossey (1932-1985): Primatology
Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842-1911): Pioneer of home economy
Ellen Ochoa (1958- ): Engineer and astronaut
Gertrude Belle Elion (1918-1999): Pharmacology
Gerty Cori (1896-1957): Biochemistry
Lynn Margulis (1938-2011): Symbiosis theory
Marie Curie (1867-1934): Radioactivity
Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958): Biophysics
Sophie Germain (1776-1831): Mathematics and a pioneer of elasticity theory