Names That Mean Saint

A contraction name, Sidney comes from Saint Denis and is related to Dioynsius, the Greek god of fertility and wine, although another theory is that it derived from an Anglo-Saxon place name, meaning 'at the wide island.'

Santiago is a spirited Spanish name with great crossover potential: a place-name (it's a city in Chile), a surname, and the patron saint of Spain. It's a name on the rise in the charts.

Sydney was a hot girls' name in the 1990s, but she's arguably still cool. One of the original old man names adopted for baby girls, Sydney's popularity may be down but she's not out.

A name introduced here by The Godfather: James Caan played the anything-but-saintly Santino "Sonny" Corleone, and comedian Adam Carolla used it for his son.

Tiago, also spelled Thiago, is a popular Portuguese boys' name derived from the more formal Santiago but these days usually used on its own. English speakers won't intuitively get the pronunciation but this might be a creative way to honor an ancestral James or Diego.

Also, unfortunately, better known as a chocolate syrup. Borden and Bosco could play well together.

Santi is a cute short form of these names popular in Central and South America.

Saint as a descriptive word name was first chosen by rocker Pete Wentz for his younger son (baby brother is Bronx), and now Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have catapulted the name into the celebrity stratosphere by choosing it for their baby boy. The couple called their baby "Saint" throughout the pregnancy because his conception had been so difficult. Saint was named in our predictions for the top baby name trends of 2015, on descriptive word names which also include Royal and Noble, King and Rogue. Saint is moving beyond the group of names that are only celebrity baby names and into the general lexicon.

Excellent candidate for use as an undiscovered surname name. Niven is the Anglicized spelling of the Irish name Naomhan, a diminutive of the word naomh which means saint. This handsome but unusual name was given to only six boys in the US last year. Your parents may be familiar with actor David Niven.

The Sydney spelling most popular for girls: it's in the Top 50 on the female side. Cool for a girl, still nerdy for a guy.

While Sidney in this spelling has a long history as a girls' name, it fell off the Top 1000 from the early 50s until 1990. Then it reemerged as one of the newly chic androgynous names for girls, rising into the Top 300 before falling off the Top 1000 list again in 2016. Sydney is now the more fashionable form.

Whether you pronounce it Mac-cleen or Mac-clayn, this is one of the crispest and most appealing of the Mac names. The Scottish clan Maclean is one of the oldest of the Highland Scottish clans. Trivia tidbit: Sir Fitzroy Maclean is said to have been an inspiration for the Ian Fleming James Bond character.

Classic Irish surname with a lot of character and some interesting associations: the title character of a Samuel Beckett novel and basketball great Karl Malone. Malone is a popular name for baby boys in France.

Fervent fans of The Catcher in the Rye might want to consider this as a literary tribute. More mainstream alternative: Holden.

The surname Hatton has three primary origins — English, French, and Irish/Scottish Gaelic. The English variation is a combination of compounds meaning "heather" and "settlement," while the French is derived from Germanic given names beginning with Hadu-, meaning "battle."

Santa has an appealing sound, or maybe that's sleigh bells we hear? It's difficult to separate the Italian girls' name Santa from the association to Mr. Claus, king of Christmas. The German diminutive Senta -- or Snow or even Christmas -- might be an easier name to handle.

St. Keverne is a town on Cornwall's Lizard Peninsula and also the name of an ancient saint. While the name is virtually unused for children in the modern world, it could be a Kevin update and has contemporary possibilities.

Alperen is derived from the Turkish roots alp, meaning "hero," and eren, "saint."

A rarely heard saint's name -- Saint Charles Borromeo is the patron of apple orchards and stomach diseases.

Saint went quickly from word to celebrity baby name to accepted baby boy name and now to baby girl name. And there's nothing historically or etymologically gendered about Saint, so why not?