100 Rare and Exotic Baby Boy Names From Around the World

Exotic is a feeling more than a category. It is a name your ear does not expect, carried by a word with real history behind it.

The 100 boy names below come from Hungarian, Manx, Igbo, Balinese, Amharic, Catalan and Tibetan, among a dozen other traditions. Every entry lists its origin, meaning and pronunciation, because how a name sounds at the school gate matters as much as what it means on paper.

Some belonged to gods, kings and emperors. Others are quiet nature words, and a few are rare enough that your son may be the only one in his year.

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Popularity at a Glance

The most popular names on this list in the United States, 1965 to 2025: Asher, Ezekiel, Kai, Xavier and Matias.

100 Exotic Names for Boys

Looking for a moniker that’s not run-of-the-mill? Our team chose these as our 100 favorite exotic male names.

1. Ádomás

• Origin: Hungarian
• Meaning: Pledge, toast
• Pronunciation: AAL-doh-maash

Hungarian stacks accents in places English speakers never have to think about, and this name wears two of them. The word behind it is the toast raised to seal an agreement, so the sense sits closer to a promise made out loud than to a quiet vow.

Do not confuse it with Adomas, the Lithuanian version of Adam, which means man made from red clay. The two look like cousins on paper and are unrelated underneath. Say it AAL-doh-maash and it lands softer than it looks.

2. Akio

• Origin: Japanese
• Meaning: Bright man
• Pronunciation: AH-kee-oh

Japanese is written in kanji, and one set of sounds can be spelled several ways, each carrying its own sense. Written 昭夫, Akio reads as bright man. Change the characters and the same three syllables mean something else entirely, which is part of why the name feels chosen rather than assigned. For English speakers it is an easy one: three clean syllables, no silent letters, nothing to spell out over the phone.

3. Altair

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: The bird, the flying one
• Pronunciation: al-TARE

Altair means the bird in Arabic, shortened from a longer phrase describing a flying eagle.

Look up on a summer night and you can find it. Altair is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila and the twelfth brightest in the whole sky, and it marks one corner of the Summer Triangle, which makes it one of the first stars a child can learn to pick out.

Few names come with a permanent landmark attached.

4. Alvis

• Origin: Old Norse
• Meaning: All wise
• Pronunciation: AL-viss

Norse myth gives Alvis a very bad night. The dwarf came to claim Thor’s daughter as his bride, and Thor, unwilling to hand her over, kept him talking with question after question about the names of things in every world. Alvis answered every one of them, which is how he earned the meaning all wise. He was still answering when the sun came up, and daylight turned him to stone.

It is a stark little story, and it leaves the name with a double edge: clever enough to know everything, not quite clever enough to watch the clock.

5. Anders

• Origin: Scandinavian
• Meaning: Manly
• Pronunciation: AHN-ders

Anders is the Scandinavian form of Andreas, and it has been documented in Denmark since the 12th century. It is common enough across Denmark, Norway and Sweden to feel lived in rather than invented, which is a useful quality in a name that will still sound unusual on an American roll call.

One footnote Danish children learn early: Donald Duck is called Anders And over there. Whether that is a charming association or a reason to keep scrolling is entirely up to you.

6. Arjun

• Origin: Indian, from Sanskrit
• Meaning: Bright, white, clear
• Pronunciation: AR-jun

Arjun is a modern Indian name that means white, clear. It is the current spelling of Arjuna, the archer at the center of the Mahabharata, said to be the son of the princess Kunti and the god Indra.

That is a lot of weight for two syllables, and the name carries it lightly. It is short, most English speakers say it correctly on the first try, and it is still rare enough in the United States to turn a head.

7. Asher

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Happy, blessed
• Pronunciation: ASH-er

A Hebrew name, Asher means happy, blessed. It belonged to one of Jacob’s twelve sons and to the tribe named after him.

Fair warning if scarcity is what you are after. Asher was barely used in the United States before the 1990s, then climbed hard, and by 2019 it ranked number 43 among boys born that year.

It is the least exotic name on this list by a wide margin, and it earns its place on sound and meaning rather than rarity.

8. Atticus

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: From Attica
• Pronunciation: AT-ih-kus

The anglicized form of the Greek name Attikos, Atticus means from Attica, the region around Athens. In Rome it belonged to Titus Pomponius Atticus, the friend whose correspondence with Cicero survives to this day.

Most parents are thinking of a different bearer. Atticus Finch, the small town lawyer of To Kill A Mockingbird, gives the name a steady, decent, slightly old fashioned quality that very few modern picks can match.

9. Azaire

• Origin: French, archaic
• Meaning: God has helped
• Pronunciation: ah-ZAIR

Azaire is an archaic French form of the Hebrew name Azariah. The interesting part of its history is geographic: it took shape in the French speaking parts of North America rather than in France, so the records that carry it come from Quebec and Louisiana. That makes it a genuinely useful pick for a family with Acadian or Cajun roots. It looks French, it sounds French, and it belongs to this side of the Atlantic.

10. Bacchus

• Origin: Greek, Roman
• Meaning: To shout
• Pronunciation: BAK-us

Bacchus was the Roman god of wine, the grape harvest, festivity and theater, and also of orchards and fruit, fertility, religious ecstasy and outright madness. The Greeks knew the same god as Dionysus, and the name traces back to the shout his followers raised at his festivals.

This is not a quiet choice. It suits parents who want something ancient, loud and slightly dangerous, and who are prepared to field a wine joke at every family gathering for the next eighteen years.

11. Barış

• Origin: Turkish
• Meaning: Peace
• Pronunciation: bah-RUSH

Barış is a Turkish name that means peace. Written properly it needs the Turkish dotless i and the s cedilla, and that is the one practical hurdle worth thinking about: American forms and keyboards will fight you, and Baris is what most documents end up saying.

There is a near neighbor worth knowing. The Persian word بارش is pronounced the same way and means rainfall, so the name reads as peace in one language and as weather in another.

12. Beauden

• Origin: New Zealand, modern
• Meaning: Beautiful
• Pronunciation: BOH-den

Beauden is a modern name from New Zealand, meaning beautiful. It is built on the French beau with an English style ending, which is why it reads as familiar even though it is a recent invention.

Its rise is easy to trace. The All Blacks fly half Beauden Barrett turned it into a household name at home, and registrations there climbed alongside his career. Outside the rugby playing world, almost nobody will have met one.

13. Belvedere

• Origin: Italian
• Meaning: Beautiful view
• Pronunciation: bel-veh-DEER

In architecture a belvedere is the part of a building put there for one reason: to look out from. A rooftop turret, a garden pavilion, an open gallery facing the valley. The word is Italian and means beautiful view. As a first name it is long, formal and unapologetically decorative. Bel makes an easy nickname for the years before he grows into all four syllables.

14. Booker

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Maker or binder of books
• Pronunciation: BOOK-er

Booker is an English boy’s name that means the maker of books. It is an occupational surname that became a first name during the 19th century American fashion for exactly that, peaked in the early 1900s, then went quiet for most of a century.

The bearer who kept it in circulation was Booker T. Washington, born into slavery in Virginia and later the founder of the Tuskegee Institute.

The name has a plainspoken, hardworking sound and sits comfortably beside modern picks like Sawyer and Cooper.

15. Brien

• Origin: English, Irish
• Meaning: Uncertain, possibly high or noble
• Pronunciation: BRY-en

Brien is an alternative spelling of Brian, which could be related to the Celtic word element Bri, which means hill. Scholars have never settled the question, and the honest answer is that nobody knows for certain.

What the spelling buys you is a little distance. Brian has been worn smooth by generations of use, while Brien looks older and reads faintly French, without asking anyone to learn a new sound.

16. Calisto

• Origin: Spanish
• Meaning: Most beautiful
• Pronunciation: kah-LEES-toh

A Spanish name, Calisto, means most beautiful, from the Greek kallistos. It has a saintly pedigree behind it and a light, rolling sound in front.

There is also a butterfly. Forty four known species of Calisto live in the Caribbean islands, most of them on Hispaniola and Cuba and nowhere else on earth. Not many names arrive with their own genus.

17. Cathal

• Origin: Irish
• Meaning: Battle ruler
• Pronunciation: KA-hal

Cathal is an Irish name that means ruler of the battle, built from cath, meaning battle, and val, meaning rule.

The spelling is the whole problem and most of the charm. English speakers reach for CATH-all, with the th of think, and it is wrong every time. The th is silent, so it is KA-hal, two syllables, no fuss.

Expect to correct people for a few years and then enjoy the fact that they remember it.

18. Chi

• Origin: Igbo
• Meaning: God, personal spirit
• Pronunciation: CHEE

In Odinani, the traditional religion of the Igbo people of Nigeria, every person is born with a chi: a personal spirit that shapes their destiny and answers for them. The name is that word, unchanged.

One syllable is about as short as a name gets, and that cuts both ways. It travels anywhere and will never be misspelled, but it may spend its life being asked whether it is short for something longer.

19. Cowel

• Origin: Manx
• Meaning: Joint pledge
• Pronunciation: KOW-el

Manx names come from the Isle of Man, a self governing island in the Irish Sea with its own parliament, its own language and a population that goes back to before 6500 BC. In 2016 the island became the first entire territory to be adopted as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

Cowel is one of the island’s own and is close to unheard of anywhere else. It looks like Cole with an extra letter, which means it reads as familiar and searches as unique.

20. Dante

• Origin: Italian
• Meaning: Steadfast, lasting
• Pronunciation: DAHN-tay

Dante began as a short form of Durante, an Italian name that grew out of the Late Latin name Durans. The sense is of someone who keeps going.

Its fame rests on one man. Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy in his Tuscan dialect rather than in Latin, and that choice did more than any other to turn the dialect into modern Italian. The name has carried a literary charge ever since, and it still sounds warm rather than heavy.

21. D’Artagnan

• Origin: French
• Meaning: From Artagnan
• Pronunciation: dar-tan-YAHN

Alexandre Dumas built this name for the hero of The Three Musketeers, borrowing it from Artagnan, a town in southwest France that the character was said to come from.

Dumas did not invent the man, only the legend. There was a real Charles de Batz de Castelmore d’Artagnan, a Gascon soldier who commanded the King’s Musketeers and died at the siege of Maastricht in 1673. The name is a commitment on a birth certificate, with the apostrophe and the silent letters to explain forever, but Art and Tag both make workable everyday nicknames.

22. Dechen

• Origin: Tibetan
• Meaning: Great happiness
• Pronunciation: DEH-chen

Transliterated from the Tibetan བདེ་ཆེན, Dechen carries the sense of great bliss, a term that turns up throughout Buddhist writing rather than only in everyday speech. It is used for boys and girls alike, and it is common in Bhutan as well as Tibet.

Two even syllables, no awkward clusters, nothing for an English speaker to stumble over. For a name this rare in the United States, that combination is unusual.

23. Deshal

• Origin: Hindi
• Meaning: Nation
• Pronunciation: DEH-shal

Deshal is a Hindi name that means nation, built on desh, the word for country or homeland. That gives it a quiet patriotic weight without any of the flag waving that an English equivalent would carry. Its gender is genuinely unsettled. Some sources list it for boys, others for girls, and both are in use, so treat the label as a suggestion rather than a rule.

24. Dilshad

• Origin: Urdu, Persian
• Meaning: Happy heart
• Pronunciation: dil-SHAAD

An Urdu name with Persian bones, Dilshad joins the Persian words دل (del), which means heart, and شاد (shad), which means happy. Put them together and you get a heart that is glad, which is about as warm as a meaning gets.

It is used freely for boys and girls. Dil works as a nickname and sounds close enough to Dylan that an English speaking classroom will take to it without any coaching.

25. Ebrima

• Origin: Gambian, Mandinka
• Meaning: Father of many
• Pronunciation: eh-BREE-mah

Ebrima is the West African form of Ibrahim, which is itself the Arabic version of Abraham, a name that also travelled into Dhivehi and Albanian. It is common in The Gambia and among Mandinka speakers across the region.

What you get is a name with the reach of Abraham and none of its familiarity. The meaning, father of many, comes down through the same line, so the substance survives even though the sound has changed completely.

26. Efrain

• Origin: Spanish
• Meaning: Fruitful
• Pronunciation: eh-fra-EEN

Efrain is a Spanish name that means fruitful, taken from the Hebrew Ephraim, the name of one of Joseph’s sons in the book of Genesis.

The two versions sound nothing alike. Ephraim in English lands as EEF-ree-am or EEF-ram, while the Spanish runs eh-fra-EEN, with the stress right at the end. Pick the one you actually want to hear called across a park, because both spellings will draw both pronunciations.

27. Elías

• Origin: Spanish, from Hebrew
• Meaning: Yahweh is my God
• Pronunciation: eh-LEE-as

Elias means Yahweh is my God. It is the Greek and Latin form of the Hebrew name Elijah, which is how it reached Spanish, and Yahweh is the name of the Hebrew God.

The accent on the i is doing real work: it pulls the stress onto the middle syllable and keeps the Spanish shape intact. Long popular across Europe, the name has climbed steadily in the United States too, with 5,690 American boys given it in 2019.

28. Émile

• Origin: French
• Meaning: Rival
• Pronunciation: ay-MEEL

Émile is the French form of the Roman family name Aemilius, and it has the soft landing that French gives almost everything: two syllables, no hard consonants, an accent that tells you where to lean.

The bearer worth knowing is Émile Zola, the novelist and journalist who failed his Baccalauréat twice, lost his shot at law school because of it, and started writing while working as a clerk. He went on to publish twenty novels in a single sequence and to force open the Dreyfus affair with a front page open letter. Not a bad patron saint for a late bloomer.

29. Evander

• Origin: Greek, Scottish
• Meaning: Good man, or bow warrior
• Pronunciation: ih-VAN-der

Evander is a rare case of one spelling arriving twice by different roads. The Greek version joins eu, meaning good, to aner, meaning man, and belonged to an Arcadian hero who founded the city of Pallantium on the hill where Rome would later stand. The other is a Scottish name drawn from the Old Norse Ivarr, which means bow warrior.

Either way the sound is the same, and it is a good one: familiar enough to spell on the first hearing, uncommon enough that he will not share it. Van makes an unforced nickname.

30. Ezekiel

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: God will strengthen
• Pronunciation: eh-ZEE-kee-el

Ezekiel is an Ancient Hebrew name meaning God will strengthen. The prophet it belongs to is recognized in Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike, which makes it one of the few names that reads as devout in three traditions at once.

That shared standing is worth something to a family of mixed religious heritage. It is also simply a striking name, with Zeke waiting underneath it for the days when four syllables are too many.

31. Fabian

• Origin: Latin, Roman
• Meaning: Bean grower
• Pronunciation: FAY-bee-an

Fabian comes from the Roman family name Fabius, which traces back to faba, the Latin word for bean, and probably marked a family that grew them. Farm produce is a humbler root than most ancient names can claim, and the name itself sounds anything but humble.

It also had a short career as a storm. Fabian replaced Frederic on the Atlantic hurricane naming list, and was retired after Hurricane Fabian killed four people in Bermuda in 2003. Fred took the slot instead.

32. Faustus

• Origin: Ancient Roman
• Meaning: Auspicious, lucky
• Pronunciation: FOW-stus

Faustus was an Ancient Roman name meaning lucky or auspicious, used first as a cognomen. A cognomen followed the given name and the clan name and started life as something closer to a nickname, though over time these hardened into inherited surnames.

Several early Christian saints carried it. So did the scholar of the German legend who sold his soul for knowledge, retold by Marlowe as Doctor Faustus, which is the association most people will land on. A name meaning lucky, attached to literature’s most famous bad bargain, has a certain irony built in.

33. Felipe

• Origin: Spanish
• Meaning: Friend of horses
• Pronunciation: feh-LEE-peh

A Spanish name, Felipe means friend of horses, from the Greek elements philos and hippos.

It has been the name of three kings of Portugal and six kings of Spain, including the current one, whose full name runs Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos de Borbón y Grecia. Alongside a list like that, most first names look understated.

34. Firdaus

• Origin: Arabic, Urdu
• Meaning: Paradise
• Pronunciation: fir-DOWS

Firdaus is an Arabic and Urdu name that means paradise, and it points somewhere specific. In Islamic tradition Firdaus is the highest level of Jannah, the garden at the very top. The word itself travelled from Persian into Arabic and shares an ancestor with the English word paradise, by way of Greek.

If you like Heaven as a name but feel it does not suit a boy, or that it has been used too heavily, this is the alternative with older roots and far less company.

35. Florian

• Origin: Latin, Roman
• Meaning: Flowering
• Pronunciation: FLOR-ee-an

Florian comes from the Roman name Florianus, built on florus, meaning flowery, and it stayed in steady use across Austria, Germany, France and Romania long after it faded elsewhere.

The bearer who kept it alive was Saint Florian, a Roman officer martyred by drowning, who became the patron saint of firefighters. His image still hangs in fire stations across central Europe. The name has a second, stranger claim to fame too, since Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong is the full name of the singer known to everyone as Dido.

36. Fujin

• Origin: Japanese
• Meaning: Wind spirit
• Pronunciation: FOO-jeen

Fūjin is the Japanese god of wind, and Japanese art has pictured him the same way for centuries: a wild haired figure striding across the sky with the winds bundled in a bag slung over his shoulders. He is usually paired with Raijin, the thunder god, one on each side of a temple gate.

The name suits a family drawn to weather, motion and open sky. It is also short, which stops the mythology from feeling like too much to carry.

37. Gallus

• Origin: Ancient Roman
• Meaning: Rooster, or a man from Gaul
• Pronunciation: GAL-us

Gallus was a Roman cognomen meaning rooster in Latin. The same word could also mark someone from Gaul, so the name has carried two quite different senses since antiquity.

Its most famous holder was a 7th century Irish monk, a companion of Saint Columbanus, who left the mission and lived out his life as a hermit in what is now Switzerland. The town that grew up around his cell became St. Gallen, and the surrounding canton still bears the name.

Not many boys’ names come with a Swiss canton attached.

38. Girish

• Origin: Indian, from Sanskrit
• Meaning: Lord of the mountain
• Pronunciation: GEE-reesh

Girish is the modern Indian form of the older Girisha, one of the many names of the Hindu god Shiva. He earned that particular title because his home is Mount Kailash in the Himalayas, so the name literally places him on the mountain.

It reads well in English, with a soft opening and a clean finish, and it holds a serious piece of mythology behind a very manageable two syllables.

39. Gracian

• Origin: Occitan
• Meaning: Grace
• Pronunciation: GRAH-see-an

Gracian comes from a Spanish family name and is used as a given name by speakers of Occitan, the Romance language of southern France that is also called Provençal and is still spoken in pockets of Spain and Italy. That regional footing is the appeal. It sits between Spanish and French without belonging fully to either, and it shares a root with grace, which gives it a gentleness that most rare names have to work for.

40. Guillermo

• Origin: Spanish
• Meaning: Determined protector
• Pronunciation: gee-YER-moh

Guillermo is a Spanish name meaning determined protector, the local form of William, and the double l gives it the soft y sound that English speakers most often get wrong on the first attempt.

The obvious modern bearer is the Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who has moved between low budget Spanish language films and Hollywood productions, co-written a novel series, adapted it into graphic novels and television, and made stop motion animation for Netflix. Memo is the standard Spanish nickname if the full four syllables ever feel long.

41. Harith

• Origin: Arabic, Malay
• Meaning: Plowman, cultivator
• Pronunciation: HAA-rith

In Arabic, Harith means plowman or cultivator, from the root that gives the word for tilled ground. It is used across the Arab world and just as widely in Malaysia and Indonesia, which is a reach very few names on this list can match.

Occupational names travel oddly. Harith is unremarkable in North Africa and reads as genuinely unusual on an American class list, while still meaning something plain and useful. Two syllables, a soft opening, and no spelling to explain.

42. Hugh

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Heart, mind, spirit
• Pronunciation: HYOO

Hugh comes from the Germanic element hug, meaning heart, mind or spirit, and it has been in continuous use for well over a thousand years. Hugh Capet took the French throne in 987 and founded the dynasty that ruled France, in one branch or another, for the next eight centuries.

Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation will know a very different Hugh, the Borg drone rescued by the Enterprise. Cut off from the hive mind, he slowly worked out that he was a person. For a name that means mind and spirit, it is a fitting piece of casting.

43. Idris

• Origin: Arabic, Welsh
• Meaning: Interpreter or teacher, or ardent lord
• Pronunciation: ID-riss

Idris is an Arabic name which may mean interpreter, from a root meaning to study and to learn. The prophet Idris of the Quran is traditionally identified with the Hebrew prophet Enoch.

There is an entirely separate Welsh Idris, meaning ardent or impulsive lord, and he left a mark on the map. Cadair Idris, one of the best known mountains in Wales, is named for a giant who supposedly used it as a chair.

Between a Quranic prophet, a Welsh giant and the actor Idris Elba, the name arrives with more history than most people realise.

44. Ignatius

• Origin: Roman
• Meaning: Uncertain, associated with fire
• Pronunciation: ig-NAY-shus

The name began as the Roman family name Egnatius, of unknown meaning, and was later respelled to look like the Latin ignis, meaning fire. The fire is therefore a beautiful accident rather than the real root.

Its best known bearer is Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the wounded Basque soldier who founded the Jesuits and set up the schools that still carry his name worldwide. Iggy is the ready made nickname, and it lightens four fairly formal syllables considerably.

45. Innes

• Origin: Scottish
• Meaning: One strength
• Pronunciation: IN-iss

The anglicized form of the Irish name Aonghus, Innes means one strength, from the elements oen and guss. It doubles as a Scottish surname and a place name in Moray, which is how it filtered into use as a first name.

If rarity is the goal, this is one of the strongest picks here. Innes is virtually unheard of in the United States while being reasonably well established in Scotland, where 77 baby boys were given the name in 2019. It also spells itself, which is more than most of its neighbors on this list can manage.

46. Iokua

• Origin: Hawaiian
• Meaning: God is salvation
• Pronunciation: ee-oh-KOO-ah

Iokua is the Hawaiian form of Joshua, and strictly speaking the meaning belongs to the original rather than to the Hawaiian spelling. Hawaiian has a small alphabet and no s or j, so imported names get rebuilt from the sounds that are available, which is why the two look so different on paper.

Four vowel heavy syllables give it a rolling, unhurried sound. Io works as a short form, and Joshua is always sitting there as the everyday equivalent if he ever wants one.

47. Isander

• Origin: Ancient Greek
• Meaning: Equal of the man
• Pronunciation: eye-SAN-der

Isander appears in Homer’s Iliad as a son of the hero Bellerophon, the rider of Pegasus. His story is brief and grim: he is killed by Ares during a war against the Solymi, one of the misfortunes that break his father in the end.

The name itself has aged far better than the tale. It sounds like Alexander with the edges filed off, shares the same ander ending, and almost nobody is using it.

48. Ives

• Origin: English, from French
• Meaning: Yew
• Pronunciation: EYEVZ

Ives is the English form of Yves, from a Germanic root meaning yew, the tree that medieval bowyers prized above all others. It became attached to Saint Ives, also called Ivo, a semi legendary English bishop, and the Cambridgeshire town of St Ives still carries his name.

One syllable, one clean sound, no pronunciation lesson required. It fits the current taste for short surname style names while being far older and far rarer than most of them.

49. Jabari

• Origin: Swahili, from Arabic
• Meaning: Almighty, powerful
• Pronunciation: jah-BAH-ree

Jabari comes into Swahili from the Arabic jabbar, meaning almighty or powerful, and the sense of unshakeable strength carries over intact.

Its American history is unusually easy to date. The name spread among African American families after a nationwide newspaper article on African baby names ran in 1973, and it has stayed in quiet use ever since. Three syllables, a strong middle stress, and a meaning that needs no softening.

50. Javier

• Origin: Spanish, from Basque
• Meaning: New house
• Pronunciation: kha-BYEHR

Javier began as the surname of a noble family from the Basque region straddling northern Spain and southwestern France, taken from their castle at Xavier. Their most famous son, Saint Francis Xavier, turned the place name into a given name used worldwide.

The pronunciation is where English speakers slip. It is kha-BYEHR in Spanish, with a throaty opening and the stress at the end, though ha-vee-AIR is what he will usually get on this side of the Atlantic. Decide early which version your family will insist on.

51. Joaquin

• Origin: Spanish, from Hebrew
• Meaning: Raised by Yahweh
• Pronunciation: wah-KEEN

Joaquin is the Spanish form of Joachim, a Hebrew name meaning raised by Yahweh. In Christian tradition Joachim was the father of the Virgin Mary, which is how the name spread through Catholic Europe and then into Latin America.

The Academy Award winning actor Joaquin Phoenix was born Joaquin Bottom. His parents changed the family surname to Phoenix after leaving the religious group they had belonged to, choosing a word that meant starting again. The name is spelled with a j and begins with a w sound, so plan on correcting people indefinitely.

52. Jothi

• Origin: Tamil
• Meaning: Light, flame
• Pronunciation: JOH-thee

Jothi is a Tamil name meaning light, the regional form of the Sanskrit Jyoti. It is found mainly in Sri Lanka and southern India and is used for boys and girls alike. Light is one of the most heavily used ideas in naming worldwide, which makes a form this unfamiliar genuinely useful. Two syllables, a soft th, and a meaning that needs no explanation at all.

53. Kai

• Origin: Chinese, Hawaiian, Frisian
• Meaning: Triumphant music, or sea
• Pronunciation: KY

Kai is a Chinese name that means triumphant music, and that is only one of the doors it comes through.

As well as being a Chinese boys’ name, Kai is a gender-neutral Hawaiian name meaning sea, an Estonian nickname for girls named Kaia, and a Frisian boys’ short form of Gerard, Nicholas, Cornelius and Gaius. Very few names arrive independently in that many languages and land on the same single syllable each time.

That is exactly why it works for a multicultural family, and also why it is no longer rare.

54. Kalei

• Origin: Hawaiian
• Meaning: The flowers, or the child
• Pronunciation: kah-LAY

Kalei joins ka, the Hawaiian word for the, to lei, which covers both a garland of flowers and a beloved child. Both readings are correct, and Hawaiian naming tends to be comfortable holding two senses at once.

It is treated as gender neutral in Hawaii. Worth weighing before you commit: in American ears it sits very close to Keighley, Callie and Kaylee, so a boy called Kalei may be assumed to be a girl on paper more often than you would like.

55. Kofi

• Origin: Akan, Ghanaian
• Meaning: Born on Friday
• Pronunciation: KOH-fee

Kofi is an Akan day name from Ghana and means born on a Friday. Akan tradition gives every child a name for the day of the week they arrived, so the name is a fact about the birth rather than a wish for the future.

It is conferred at Outdooring, the ceremony held eight days after birth when the parents carry the baby outside for the first time. The most famous Kofi, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, was indeed born on a Friday. If you like the sound but your son arrives on another day, the tradition has a name waiting for that one too.

56. Kurō

• Origin: Japanese
• Meaning: Ninth son
• Pronunciation: KOO-roh

Kurō is one of the old Japanese numbering names, given traditionally to a ninth son, in the same family as Taro for a first son. Nine children is a rare household now, so the literal use has mostly fallen away.

The number can still mean something, though. A boy born on the ninth of the month, or in September, has a quiet claim on it. The macron over the o marks a long vowel, and most American paperwork will quietly drop it.

57. Lazar

• Origin: Slavic, from Hebrew
• Meaning: My God has helped
• Pronunciation: LAH-zar

Lazar is a Russian name meaning my God has helped, a variant of Lazarus that turns up in Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia and North Macedonia. It is most common in Eastern European countries, where Prince Lazar of Serbia, who fell at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, made it a national name.

Two blunt syllables and a hard z give it real weight. It is also short, which keeps a heavy history from feeling like a burden.

58. Maleko

• Origin: Hawaiian
• Meaning: Hawaiian form of Mark
• Pronunciation: mah-LEH-koh

Maleko is the Hawaiian form of Mark, a name that traces back through the Latin Marcus to Mars, the Roman god of war. Hawaiian has no r or c, so the sounds were rebuilt with the letters the language does have, which is how Mark became three flowing syllables.

That gives you something worth having: an unmistakably tropical name with a plain, familiar equivalent sitting right behind it. If he ever wants something ordinary for a resume or a first day at a new school, Mark is already his.

59. Malik

• Origin: Greenlandic, Arabic
• Meaning: Wave, or king
• Pronunciation: MAH-lik

Malik is a Greenlandic name that means wave, sometimes spelled Malick, and Maligiaq is the related word for a mid sized one. Given how much of Greenlandic life has always been shaped by the sea, that is a name with real local weight.

The identical spelling exists in Arabic with a completely different sense: king. Al-Malik is counted among the ninety nine names of God in Islam, and the name is used across Arabic, Urdu, Malay and Indonesian. Wave or king, both readings are legitimate, and only one of them will be on the birth certificate.

60. Matias

• Origin: Spanish, Finnish
• Meaning: Gift of God
• Pronunciation: mah-TEE-as

Matias is the Spanish form of Matthias, the disciple chosen to replace Judas among the twelve, and it means gift of God.

Its second home is a surprise. The name is popular enough in Finland to hold an official name day on February 24th, which means a Finnish Matias gets a small celebration every year on top of his birthday. If your son arrives on that date, the name comes with the calendar already sorted.

61. Mikel

• Origin: Basque
• Meaning: Who is like God
• Pronunciation: MEE-kel

A Basque name, Mikel, means who is like God. It is the Basque form of Michael, and it stays close to the original Hebrew question the name was built on.

This is the answer to a common bind. Plenty of families feel obliged to name a child after a relative, and a regional form honors the same name without producing a fourth Michael at the dinner table. It is a top choice in the Basque Country, where the footballer and manager Mikel Arteta is probably its best known bearer abroad.

62. Mohan

• Origin: Indian, from Sanskrit
• Meaning: Charming, bewitching
• Pronunciation: MOH-han

Mohan is the modern form of Mohana, a descriptive title rather than a name of its own, applied at different times to Kama, Krishna and Shiva. The idea behind it is charm strong enough to enchant, which is a lot to hand a newborn. For English speakers it is remarkably low friction. Two syllables, phonetic spelling, no sounds that are not already in the language, and still almost unheard of on an American playground.

63. Murad

• Origin: Arabic, Turkish
• Meaning: Wish, desire
• Pronunciation: moo-RAAD

Murad means wish or desire in Arabic, and it is one of the few names whose meaning speaks directly to how the child was longed for. For parents who took a hard road to get here, that is not a small thing.

It also has serious history behind it. Five Ottoman sultans carried the name across four centuries, so it is used from Turkey through the Caucasus and South Asia, and it has never sounded soft.

64. Nevan

• Origin: Irish
• Meaning: Little saint
• Pronunciation: NEV-an

Nevan is from an Irish name that means little saint, the anglicized form of Naomhán, which is built on naomh, the Irish word for holy.

It solves a problem a lot of parents have. You want a name with roots rather than one that could have been invented last year, but you do not want to spell it out at every appointment for the rest of your life. Naomhán does the second thing constantly. Nevan looks like Evan with an N and reads correctly on the first pass.

65. Ossian

• Origin: Irish, literary
• Meaning: Little deer
• Pronunciation: OSH-un

Ossian is the spelling James Macpherson used for the Irish name Oisín in the epic poems he published in the 1760s and claimed to have translated from ancient sources. In the poems Ossian is the son of Fingal and the voice telling the story.

Scholars have argued about how genuine that material was ever since. What is not in doubt is the effect: the poems swept across Europe, shaped a generation of Romantic writers and painters, and were carried around by Napoleon himself. The underlying meaning, little deer, is gentler than any of that suggests.

66. Osten

• Origin: Swedish
• Meaning: Island stone
• Pronunciation: UH-sten

Osten is a Swedish name that means island of stone, from the Old Norse Eysteinn, and it is used in Finland as well as Sweden. If exotic means palm trees to you, this is not your name. If it means a cold northern coastline and a word built out of two hard nouns, it is exactly right. Sten works as a short form and sounds like nothing else on an American register.

67. Pavel

• Origin: Russian, Slavic
• Meaning: Small, humble
• Pronunciation: PAH-vel

Pavel is the Slavic form of Paul, and both come from the Roman family name Paulus, which means small or humble. Given how many emperors and generals are on this list, a name that means modest makes a nice change. It is ordinary in Russia, Belarus and the Czech Republic and unusual almost everywhere else, which is the ideal position for a name to be in. Rooted somewhere real, rare where you live.

68. Pherick

• Origin: Manx
• Meaning: Nobleman
• Pronunciation: FER-ik

Pherick is the Manx form of Patrick, and the meaning, nobleman, comes down from the Latin patricius by way of the saint. The ph at the front is the Manx language quietly rewriting a familiar name into something unrecognisable.

The Isle of Man still carries traces of it. Cabbal Pherick was a small chapel, known there as a keeill, and its ruins sit inside a burial ground in a quiet glen. For a family with Manx roots, this is Patrick with the island left in.

69. Phineas

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Uncertain, possibly Nubian
• Pronunciation: FIN-ee-us

Phineas is the form of the Hebrew Phinehas used in some English translations of the Old Testament, and its meaning has never been settled. It may mean Nubian, referring to the people of what is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt, or it may come from a Hebrew phrase read as serpent’s mouth.

American history knows one enormous Phineas: Phineas Taylor Barnum, the showman behind the circus that bore his name. Modern children know a rather different one, so expect Phineas and Ferb jokes for at least a decade. Finn is the escape hatch.

70. Proinsias

• Origin: Irish
• Meaning: Frenchman
• Pronunciation: PRIN-shus

Proinsias is the Irish form of Francis, which began as a nickname meaning Frenchman and only became a given name after Saint Francis of Assisi made it one. There is a small irony in an Irish spelling of a name that means French.

That doubling is the point for some families. If your household is both Irish and French, this is a single word that says so. Be ready for the spelling: it looks nothing like it sounds, and PRIN-shus catches most people off guard.

71. Rafael

• Origin: Spanish, from Hebrew
• Meaning: God heals
• Pronunciation: rah-fah-EL

Rafael is the Spanish and Portuguese form of Raphael, meaning God heals, and it belongs to one of the named archangels, the one associated with healing.

Two bearers made it famous in very different centuries. The painter Raphael was one of the three great figures of the Italian High Renaissance alongside Leonardo and Michelangelo. The Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal won the French Open fourteen times, more than any player has won any single Grand Slam event.

Rafa is the standard nickname and needs no explanation anywhere.

72. Ramzan

• Origin: Chechen, from Arabic
• Meaning: Parched, scorched
• Pronunciation: ram-ZAAN

Ramzan is a transliteration of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and the month of fasting. Transliteration is the practice of rewriting a word from one writing system into another so that a non native speaker can say it correctly, and the small spelling shift is exactly that at work.

It is used widely in Chechnya and across the Caucasus and South Asia. The meaning traces back to an Arabic root connected with scorching heat, from the season the month originally fell in.

73. Rasmus

• Origin: Scandinavian, Finnish
• Meaning: Beloved
• Pronunciation: RAS-moos

A Scandinavian name, Rasmus means beloved. It is the Nordic short form of Erasmus, used in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Estonia, and the Greek original carries the sense of loved or desired.

The pronunciation shifts as you cross borders. Most English speakers say RAZ-mus, Danish gives RAS-moos, Swedish and Norwegian land nearer RAS-muys, and Finnish makes it RAH-smoos. Any of them will do, and the name stays friendly in all of them.

74. Rasul

• Origin: Arabic, Avar
• Meaning: Messenger, prophet
• Pronunciation: rah-SOOL

Rasul is an Arabic name that means messenger or prophet, a word that carries real religious weight in Islam, where it is used for those sent with a revelation.

It is also an Avar name, used by the Avar people of Dagestan, a small republic of Russia on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. Their best known writer, the poet Rasul Gamzatov, wrote in Avar and was read across the Soviet Union, which kept the name in wide circulation there.

75. Raul

• Origin: Spanish, Italian, Portuguese
• Meaning: Wolf counsel
• Pronunciation: rah-OOL

Raul is an Italian and Portuguese name meaning wolf’s counsel, a Romance language reshaping of the Germanic Radulf, which also gave English the name Ralph. Advice from a wolf is an unusual thing to wish on a child, and it has kept the name from ever sounding soft.

It has quietly been part of American naming for over a century, appearing in the top 1,000 boys’ names in the United States since 1910, with 550 boys given the name in 2019. Familiar enough to spell, uncommon enough to notice.

76. Roark

• Origin: Irish, Old Norse
• Meaning: Famous ruler, or rainstorm
• Pronunciation: RORK

Roark has two possible parents and no way to choose between them. It may be an anglicized form of the Old Norse Hrœrekr, which means famous ruler, or it may come from the Irish word ruarc, meaning rainstorm.

Literature settled its character regardless. Howard Roark, the uncompromising architect at the center of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, is what most readers will hear in it. One blunt syllable, no soft edges, and it works as a first name or a middle.

77. Ruben

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Behold, a son
• Pronunciation: ROO-ben

Ruben is the shorter form of the Hebrew name Reuben, which means behold, a son. In Genesis it belonged to Jacob’s firstborn and to the tribe descended from him. This spelling is the standard one in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain, and it has a practical advantage in the United States too. It puts a little daylight between your son and the sandwich.

78. Sláine

• Origin: Irish
• Meaning: Health
• Pronunciation: SLAW-nya

Sláine shares a root with sláinte, the Irish word raised in a toast, so the name effectively means good health.

The first bearer sits at the very start of Irish legend. Sláine mac Dela was said to be the first High King of Ireland, a leader of the Fir Bolg, a mythical people who left the island for Greece and came back generations later to rule it. The pronunciation, SLAW-nya, bears no resemblance to the spelling, which is the price of admission for most old Irish names.

79. Somerled

• Origin: Scottish, from Old Norse
• Meaning: Summer traveller
• Pronunciation: SUM-er-led

Somerled is the anglicized form of the Old Norse Sumarliði, meaning summer traveller, which was what the Norse called a man who went raiding in the warm months and came home for the winter.

The historical Somerled was a 12th century Norse Gaelic warlord who took the Isles from Norse control and ruled Mann and the Hebrides, and Clan Donald traces its descent from him. For a family that moves, or that has Hebridean roots, few names are a better fit.

Sorley is the Scottish form if the full three syllables feel like a lot.

80. Soulougue

• Origin: Cajun, Haitian
• Meaning: Uncertain
• Pronunciation: soo-LOOG

Soulougue is thought to be a respelling of the Haitian surname Soulouque, and its meaning has never been established.

The man behind it had a remarkable run. Faustin Soulouque was born into slavery, rose through the Haitian army, was elected president in 1847, and two years later crowned himself Emperor Faustin I. He ruled until he was overthrown in 1859. As a given name it is vanishingly rare, and it comes with a full biography attached.

81. Suijin

• Origin: Japanese
• Meaning: Water spirit
• Pronunciation: SOO-ee-jeen

A Japanese name, Suijin means water spirit. Suijin is the guardian of pools, lakes, wells and springs, and of the people who make their living from the water, which is why small shrines to him stand beside fishing harbors and irrigation channels all over Japan.

For a family with a history on boats, or simply one that cannot stay away from the water, the name says it without a word of explanation.

82. Sulaiman

• Origin: Arabic, Indonesian
• Meaning: Man of peace
• Pronunciation: soo-lay-MAAN

Sulaiman is the Indonesian form of Solomon, meaning peace, and it is also the standard English transliteration of the Arabic name, where the sense is closer to man of peace.

Its grandest holder was Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled the Ottoman Empire for forty six years in the 16th century, longer than any other sultan, and was known at home as the lawgiver. Between the biblical king and the sultan, this is a name with two golden ages behind it.

83. Tafari

• Origin: Amharic, Ethiopian
• Meaning: He who inspires awe
• Pronunciation: tah-FAH-ree

Tafari is an Amharic name usually translated as the man who inspires awe. Lij Tafari Makonnen, born in 1892, took the throne name Haile Selassie I when he was crowned and became the last emperor of Ethiopia, ruling until 1974 and dying the following year.

Before his coronation he was known as Ras Tafari, meaning Prince Tafari, and that title gave the Rastafari movement its name. Followers regard him as a divine incarnation. Few given names have a world religion built on top of them.

84. Tāne

• Origin: Maori
• Meaning: Man
• Pronunciation: TAH-neh

Tāne is a Maori name meaning man. In Maori mythology Tāne is the god of forests and birds, and in the founding story it is he who forces apart Ranginui the sky father and Papatūānuku the earth mother, letting light into the world between them. Some accounts credit him with making the first human as well.

New Zealand’s largest living kauri tree is named Tāne Mahuta in his honour. On Tahiti the same name belongs to a god of peace and beauty. The macron marks a long a, and the whole thing is two syllables.

85. Taranis

• Origin: Gaulish, Celtic
• Meaning: Thunder
• Pronunciation: TAR-uh-nis

Taranis comes from the old Celtic root toranos, meaning thunder, and belonged to the Gaulish thunder god, whom the Romans matched with Jupiter. That same root is a cousin of the Norse Thor, so the two gods are linguistic relatives as well as thematic ones.

The name has since gone considerably further from home. Taranis Patera is a volcanic crater on Io, the most volcanic body in the solar system and one of Jupiter’s moons, which puts a Celtic thunder god in permanent orbit around the Roman one.

86. Taro

• Origin: Japanese
• Meaning: Eldest son
• Pronunciation: TAH-roh

Taro is the classic Japanese name for a first son, so common historically that it works in Japanese roughly the way John Doe does in English, standing in for the ordinary man in examples and textbooks.

It is also a crop. The taro plant is grown across the tropics for its starchy root and is thought to be one of the earliest vegetables humans ever cultivated, which gives the name a second life in Hawaii and the Pacific.

87. Tau

• Origin: Tswana, Sotho
• Meaning: Lion
• Pronunciation: TOW

Tau is a Southern African name that means lion, used in Tswana and Sotho, two closely related languages of the Bantu family spoken across Botswana, Lesotho and South Africa. One syllable, one animal, no ambiguity. It is also the nineteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, which gives it a quiet second life in mathematics and among engineering families.

88. Teague

• Origin: Irish, anglicized
• Meaning: Poet
• Pronunciation: TEEG

Teague is the anglicized form of the Irish name Tadhg, which means poet, and it is worth knowing the history before you use it.

Tadhg itself has grown steadily more popular in Ireland. Teague has not, because the anglicized spelling was used for the stage Irishman, the stock buffoon of 18th and 19th century English theatre, and it hardened into an ethnic slur that is still in use in parts of Ireland and Britain today. In North America the association is largely unknown and the name reads as a soft surname style pick, but it is not a neutral word everywhere.

89. Tómi

• Origin: Old Norse
• Meaning: Thunder
• Pronunciation: TOH-mee

Tómi started life as an Old Norse byname rather than a given name, and it carries the same thunder sense that runs through the Thor family of names. It has been revived in Sweden in recent years, this time as a proper first name. To American ears it will simply sound like a version of Tommy with an accent on it, which is either the appeal or the problem depending on what you are after.

90. Ulrik

• Origin: Scandinavian
• Meaning: Prosperity and power
• Pronunciation: OOL-rik

Ulrik is the Scandinavian form of the Germanic Ulrich, joining elements meaning heritage or prosperity to one meaning ruler. It has been a royal name in Denmark for centuries.

Its fortunes vary by country. Norway has taken to it again in recent years, while in Sweden it stays rare, even though the feminine Ulrika has never gone away there. Two syllables, hard consonants, and nothing for an English speaker to trip over.

91. Vancho

• Origin: Macedonian
• Meaning: God is gracious
• Pronunciation: VAHN-choh

A Macedonian name, Vancho, means God is gracious. Trace it back far enough and it is John, arrived at through a long chain of Slavic short forms, each one wearing the original down a little further.

That makes it useful for a family that wants to honour a John or an Ivan without repeating the name outright. The ch ending gives it a warmth that the shorter Slavic forms do not have, and nobody in an American classroom will have heard it before.

92. Varam

• Origin: Georgian, archaic
• Meaning: Victory over resistance
• Pronunciation: VAH-ram

Varam is an archaic name from Georgia meaning victory over resistance, which is a considerably more specific idea than the usual victory names offer. It is not simply winning, it is winning against something that pushed back.

The same letters mean other things elsewhere. Varam is we can in Latvian, preferably or rather in Sanskrit, a boon in Tamil, and better in Pali. If you want a name that means something almost everywhere, this one has an unusual amount of coverage.

93. Wayan

• Origin: Balinese
• Meaning: Eldest, first child
• Pronunciation: WY-ahn

A name from Bali, Wayan means first child, from the Balinese wayah, meaning old or mature, which itself goes back to the Sanskrit vayas, meaning energy, strength and age.

Balinese custom names children by birth order rather than by choice, and Wayan is the name of the eldest. It is not gender specific in itself: I is added at the front for a boy and Ni for a girl. There are only four birth order names in the set, so a fifth child starts the cycle again at Wayan.

94. Wynfor

• Origin: Welsh
• Meaning: Fair, white, blessed
• Pronunciation: WIN-for

Wynfor is a Welsh name that means fair, white or blessed, built on gwyn, the element behind a whole family of Welsh names including Gwyn and Winifred.

Welsh spelling defeats most English speakers, and this is one of the few Welsh names that does not. It looks the way it sounds, it fits on a form, and it is still rare enough that your son will almost certainly be the only one. Win is the obvious short form.

95. Xaloc

• Origin: Catalan
• Meaning: Sirocco, southeast wind
• Pronunciation: shah-LOK

Xaloc is a Modern Catalan name beginning with X that means sirocco. Catalan sailors named the winds by the direction they arrived from, and this is the one that comes off the Sahara.

The sirocco carries desert dust north across the Mediterranean, and when that dry sandy air meets the damp air over the sea it can come down over southern Italy as blood rain, a shower that leaves everything coated in red grit. In Catalan the x is pronounced sh, so the name opens with a hush rather than the hard sound the spelling suggests.

96. Xavier

• Origin: Spanish, from Basque
• Meaning: The new house
• Pronunciation: shah-vee-EHR

Xavier is an Archaic Spanish name meaning the new house, taken from the Basque castle where Saint Francis Xavier was born.

Nobody agrees on how to say it. The X-Men made ex-ZAY-vee-er the default for English speakers, while native Spanish speakers say shah-bee-EHR, European Portuguese gives shu-vee-EHR and French turns it into GZA-VYEH.

Pick your version early and be prepared to repeat it, because all four are correct somewhere.

97. Yakob

• Origin: Cornish, Hebrew
• Meaning: Supplanter
• Pronunciation: YAH-kob

A name from Cornwall, Yakob means supplanter and comes from the same Hebrew root as Jacob and James. In Genesis the name refers to Jacob taking his older brother’s birthright.

The split between those two English forms was religious for centuries: Jacob was read as the Jewish version and James as the Christian one, though both descend from the identical original. The Cornish spelling sidesteps that history entirely and simply looks like what it is.

98. Yasin

• Origin: Arabic, Turkish
• Meaning: Quranic, from the letters ya and sin
• Pronunciation: YAH-seen

Yasin is a Turkish name beginning with Y, and it is not a word that was adopted as a name. It comes from two Arabic letters, ي pronounced ya and س pronounced sin, which open the 36th chapter of the Quran.

That chapter is named Ya-Sin after them and is one of the most frequently recited in Islam, often called the heart of the Quran. Nobody knows what the two letters were meant to signify, which is part of their standing. The name is common across Turkey, the Arab world and Muslim South Asia, and rare almost everywhere else.

99. Zelek

• Origin: Aramaic, Hebrew
• Meaning: To cleave, to split
• Pronunciation: ZEH-lek

Zelek comes from an Aramaic verb meaning to cleave. In the book of 2 Samuel, Zelek the Ammonite is listed among David’s thirty mighty warriors, which is notable because Ammon was a neighbouring people rather than an Israelite tribe. He was an outsider counted among the king’s closest men.

That is a good story for any family formed across a line someone else drew. The name is short, it is sharp, and almost nobody has it.

100. Zubair

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: Strong, wise
• Pronunciation: zoo-BAYR

Zubair is an Arabic name that means strong, powerful or wise. Its best known bearer, Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, was a cousin and companion of the Prophet Muhammad and one of the most prominent figures of the early Muslim community.

There is a geographic Zubair too. The Zubair Group is a cluster of uninhabited volcanic islands in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, where an eruption in 2011 pushed a brand new island up out of the water. A second one followed in 2013.

Not many names can point at land that did not exist a generation ago.

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