Strong Yet Unusual Names for Boys

New England Patriots linebacker Adalius Thomas brought his Latinate name into the spotlight, and he has an equally unusual middle name--DONQUAIL.

Worn by several medieval troubadours, this name is still used in French, Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries.

Akira is a popular Japanese name for both sexes that's migrated to the West because of its appearance in manga and video games. Akiro is a related name popular for boys.

Most American parents would choose to use the more commonly seen variant, AXEL.

Alard looks and sounds like the name of a romantic, medieval knight. It's dashing and unusual; but still easy to pronounce and spell. Cognate Adelard might also appeal if you are considering this name.

Introduced to the lexicon by the husband of Little House on the Prairie writer Laura Ingalls Wilder, most scholars agree that this unusual name comes from the Arabic El-Mansur.

Alonzo is dashing and debonair, with a large measure of Latin flair.

A well-used Spanish saint's name with a lot of flair that could definitely cross over to more general usage. It reached its peak in the United States in 1985, when it ranked Number 456. In Spain, Alvaro is a Top 20 boys' name.

Amadeo and Amedeo are both valid Italian forms of the Roman Amadeus, most famous as the middle name of the composer Mozart as well as the title of a movie about him. Mozart's name was actually the Greek Theophilus, but he transformed it to the Latin version. Amadeo is also used in Spain, where it was the name of a 19th century king who was born in Italy.

A favorite of British novelists including Evelyn Waugh and P. G. Wodehouse, Ambrose has an air of blooming well-being and upper-class erudition. It comes from the same Greek root as 'ambrosia', the food of the gods, said to confer immortality.

Amias or Amyas is a unique name with an attractive sound and feel and a lovely meaning. Though it might sound like a Biblical name, it is not, but is a surname that may be related to Amadeus or even be a male version of Amy--which would make it one of the few boys' names to be derived from a girls'.

Amory is the kind of executive-sounding surname name that became popular in the 1990s. Amory Blaine is the protagonist of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, This Side of Paradise.

Plausible word name, denoting strength and stability.

Friendly, unusual, but a decidedly Old Country version of Andrew and one of the classic Scandinavian names. It made a brief appearance in the US Top 1000 in 2006 and then reentered in 2010. Its rising popularity could be attributed to the interest in Anderson, which has been gaining steadily over the last fifteen years.

Trivia tidbits: The patronymic Andersson is the second most popular surname in Sweden, and in Denmark, Donald Duck is called Anders.

Anderson shot up quite a bit on the popular names list in the 2000's, no doubt in large part due to the prominence of white-haired cable newsman Anderson Cooper. Perhaps surprisingly though, Anderson was even higher on the list in 1880. Actress Edie Falco named her son Anderson in 2005. Though there haven't been many first-named Anderson namesakes, there have been countless notables bearing the surname, including Hans Christian, Marian, Maxwell, Sherwood, Gillian, Laurie, and Pamela.

Andre is one international form that's been familiar in the English-speaking world for decades yet still has not been Anglicized.

Andreas is a beautiful name, with the patina of an Old Master painting, one that could make a dashing namesake for an Uncle Andrew.

Mythological name with a fabulous meaning. Sure it's weighty, but so is Aphrodite; Andy is an easy nickname choice to make this name more wearable in the classroom.

Ansel, primarily associated with the great western photographer Ansel Adams, famed for his magnificent photographs of the Yosemite Valley, could make a creative artist-hero choice. For Adams it was a family name – he was named after his uncle, Ansel Easton. And, in turn, Adams was the namesake of young heartthrob Ansel Elgort, son of a photographer.