Names That Mean Short

Once you get past thinking of it as a red-painted building where they keep cows and hay, has a nice plainspoken country-like feel and may make a cooler diminutive than the still-purple Barney.

Tassos makes this venerated Greek name more earthy and approachable.

The name recently given to their daughter by Susan and Robert Downey, Jr. is pronounced like Avery and may be seen as a kree8tiv spelling variation of that popular unisex name or a girlish short form of Avraham, the Biblical Hebrew form of Abraham.

There were no baby boys named Cay born in the US last year, but there's no reason why there couldn't be, especially with the rise in popularity of the similar Kai as well as the nouveau proper names Cayden, Cayson and so on. Cay Dose was an 18th century German architect and Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld was a German garden historian of the same era.

Nothing but a hound dog.

An lesser-known member of the John-Joan family, though popular in its native habitat, has never emigrated, possibly due to its non-intuitive pronunciation.

Pleun is a unisex Dutch name deriving from Apollonius or Apollonia, although now it ranks far higher for girls in its native land than the original form. In 2024, it ranked in the Top 140 in The Netherlands. The name is said somewhere between "plone" (rhyming with phone) and "ploon" (rhyming with moon), but it may be worth listening to it if you're unfamiliar.

Many C forms of this name are becoming more popular, from Cassia for girls to Cassian, Cassius, and Caspian for boys, so Kass feels more possible today too. And Kassia and Kassiani are both intriguing longer forms.

Trini is best known as the name of the (male) singer Trini Lopez, who sang "If I had a Hammer", but Trini is a gender neutral name that works equally well for girls or boys.

Raz, like many similar names, is used for both girls and boys in modern Israel. Simple, sleek, memorable.

If you're looking for an honor name for grandpa Tom, this could be a good choice. It's also used as a male short form of the name in Eastern Europe.

This Dutch version of Jules is used for both girls and boys. The association with the vaping product of the same name (but different pronunciation) makes this one a no-go in the US.

Kamma is an appealing Danish name signifying a combination of Katherine or Karen and Maria or Margaret. It may also be a short form of Kamilla, the usual Scandinavian spelling of Camilla.