Pet Names · Dog Names
By Pamela Redmond · Updated September 2026
Across 24 pages
of 24
Diminutive of Winslow, Winthrop, or Winston, English
"friend's hill or friend's village or wine town"
Win is an upbeat, can-do name that can be a short form of one of the buttoned-up British choices above or can stand on its own. Welsh Wyn is another possibility. Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell…
Scottish place name
Not yet on the place-name map, this name has Shakespearean ties via the Duke Of Albany character in King Lear .
English or Dutch
"leaper, dancer; hop grower"
Sean and Robin Wright Penn chose this name for their son to honor their friend Dennis Hopper; others might associate it with the painter Edward. Couldn't be more spirited.
English word name
"the time at which something is most powerful or successful; the point in the celestial sphere directly above an observer"
A tip-top word name—literally, Zenith means the top or apex. Zen makes a cute nickname.
Latin
"applelike fruit"
The girls have Apple, Plum, Peaches, Cherry, and Berry: here's one variety of fruit suitable for a boy.
Nature name
As likely to be tied to the detergent as to the rhythms of the ocean.
Word name
"heavy object used to moor a ship; provide with a solid foundation"
Plausible word name, denoting strength and stability, currently given to a small handful of boys in the US each year.
Bird name
From Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore , the story of a boy named Kafka -- crow in Czech.
Scandinavian
"lord, exalted one"
Frey is the handsome Norse fertility god, a worthy namesake. Frey remains rare in the US even as the similar Freya picks up in popularity.
A name with vision.
English word name, diminutive of Barbara, Latin
"foreign woman"
Baby is rarely seen as a given name — or even nickname — these days, although it did rank in the Top 1000 from 1989 to 2003. These instances can be accounted for in two ways. Firstly, infants whose…
"dusty"
Dusty first became popular as a girl's name thanks to singer Dusty Springfield - born Mary. She used her childhood nickname professionally, and many parents embraced Dusty as a name for their…
English
"peacock"
An evocative unisex one-syllable name, Poe is most distinguished by its literary reference. Edgar Allan Poe was an influential American author and poet, credited with inventing the genres of…
"jaybird"
While Jay has been long used as a stand-alone boy name, it has more recently been used as one for girls. Otherwise, it has largely been seen as a pet form of any J name, or as a singular middle name.
A rare unisex word/virtue name that is currently given to around 10 babies of each gender per year in the US. It could make for an unexpected route to bright, easygoing nickname Sol (or trendy…
"dweller near the temple"
The old word name Temple has gained some recent notice as a girls' name via admired autistic writer and inventor Dr. Temple Grandin (born Mary Temple), subject of an acclaimed biopic, in which she…
Jewel name, for the French
"pomegranate"
One of the jewel names in use a hundred years ago, for both boys and girls, due for revival along with sisters Ruby and Pearl. But interestingly, Garnet means pomegranate, the fruit who shares a deep…
Diminutive of Cameron or Camilla
A Pam for the modern age, improved by a harder edge and a tad less prissiness.
Scottish
"windy place"
Guthrie, one of the most attractive Scottish names that's also a surname, has a particularly romantic, windswept aura, with a touch of the buckaroo thrown in. Guthrie's folkie quality is tied to the…
"lord, master"
One of those ultimate cool-girl names, played by Keira Knightley in a movie about a supermodel-turned-bounty hunter, but kids might associate it with the game. High profile British designer India…
