Boy Names Lists
By Sophie Kihm · Updated September 2026
Across 4 pages
of 4
Literary name
The original Zooey, hero of J.D. Salinger's Franny & Zooey , was male, but nowadays the name is more closely associated with actress/singer Zooey Deschanel. With Zoe at number 31 for girls and Zoey…
Latin
"burning; enthusiastic, passionate"
English and Scottish
"where birches grow"
Americans may not realize Barclay is the phonetic spelling of the British Berkeley -- though both sound like old-fashioned butler names.
Gaelic
"life"
A popular name in medieval Scotland, it can be found in the surname Macbeth, meaning "son of Beathan" or "son of life." In later years it was increasingly anglicized as Benjamin.
Amharic
"growing"
Bekele is an attractive Ethiopian name prime for use in the English-speaking world, especially given the short form Bek. Pronunciation is three syllables with the emphasis on the second --…
English
"ford where barley grows"
Upper-crusty hotelish surname.
"one who lives near a stream"
A surname with more force than most.
"well where the gorse grows; bramble well"
An unexpected route to nicknames Bram or Wells, this English surname derives from a historical hamlet in England, whose exact location has been lost to time. It comes from the Old English word for…
Italian
"vivacity, zest"
Musical term with a lot of energy.
Slavic
Off-putting cousin of Bradley and Rodney.
"broom meadow"
Bromley is an English surname-name that's more possible as a first name now than ever before. The -ley suffix has been adopted for many names, and surnames such as Bromley are fashionable. A short…
"riverbank where burrs grow"
Beautiful downtown Burbank -- about as glamorous a place-name as Akron...or Detroit.
Plant name from French
"grown on Mount Dikte"
English surname
"grower of darnel"
Darnel, the plant from which this name derives, is an intoxicating plant, which used to be grown to make medicines and poisons.
Japanese
"dweller near the river where wisteria grows"
To honor the majestic mountain.
French
"brisk, high-spirited"
Best left on the old southern plantation, sipping his mint julep.
Old Norse
"mind, spirit, thought"
"Huggin? As in 'it out'?" It's probably a fatal flaw, even with Old Norse names becoming fashionable. The same evocative root word, though, forms the basis of the more familiar Hugo.
Diminutive of Hyman, Hebrew
Hy was once a nickname for Hyman, a Jewish Anglicization of Chaim. Today it has gone extinct, for obvious reasons.
Anglicized variation of Chaim
Hyman was commonly used by first-generation Jewish immigrants to Anglicize Chaim, but similarities to terms like heinie and hymen have taken it out of the realm of modern possibility. The original…
Berber
"alive"
A simple and straightforward choice from northwest Africa.
