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Yesterday we brought you our picks for best cool unusual girls’ names; today we look at the best 100 cool unusual boys’ names from the master list of names given to 25 or fewer babies last year.

Our criteria: We tried to pull out names that have genuine roots, that are attractive, and that work in the modern world.  True name nerds or obsessive name searchers can go to comb through thousands of unusual boys’ names from the entire file of all the names used every year stretching back to 1880.

Here’s our list of Top 100 unusual boys’ names:

1. AHMET
2. AMIAS
3. AZAIAH
4. BALTHAZAR
5. BARNABAS
6. BAY
7. BIRCH
8. BRANCH
9. BRECCAN
10. BRICK
11. CALIX
12. CALLOWAY

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When Henry was chosen as the #1 favorite boy’s name on the collective 5-star lists of the nameberry community, I was somewhat surprised and yet somewhat not.  Because in many ways Henry is the perfect boy’s name—as classic and historic as James and John and William –yet with a quirkier edge that makes it seem modern, and even hip.

Henry has a lot going for it.  Let us count the ways:

HENRY IS POPULAR, WELL-LIKED, BUT NOT EPIDEMICALLY TRENDY.

At #78 on the Social Security list last year, Henry was given to fewer than 4,000 boys across the country.  It was much more commonly heard in the past, having been #10 in 1900, 12 in the 1910s, 18 in the twenties, 25 in the thirties, then dipping to a low of 146 in 1994, after which it started its edge back up.

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