100 Hot Boy Names, With Meanings and Pronunciations

Some names arrive with a reputation already attached. Say one out loud and it carries a mood before it carries a meaning, which is the whole premise behind every list of sexy boy names on the internet.

We took the 100 names that keep turning up on those lists and did the part nobody else bothers with. Every entry below has its origin and meaning checked against onomastic sources, a pronunciation written out, and its current US birth ranking where one exists. When a name has never charted here, we say so. You can see at a glance which of these your son would share with three boys in his class, and which one nobody has used since 1958.

Read it as a tour of sound and history rather than a shortlist. Several of these are genuinely worth considering. A few are worth knowing about before somebody else suggests one to you.

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Popularity at a Glance

The most popular names on this list in the United States, 1965 to 2025: James, Elijah, Mateo, Jack and Sebastian.

• James
• Elijah
• Mateo
• Jack
• Sebastian

100 Sexy Boy Names and Meanings

1. Aaron

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Uncertain; usually read as high mountain, exalted, or teacher
• Pronunciation: AIR-un
• Variations: Aron, Aharon, Arun
• Namesakes: Aaron Burr, third US vice president; baseball’s Hank Aaron
• Popularity: #80 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (4,041 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 25% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Aaron is one of the oldest names still in ordinary American use, and its meaning has never been settled. Hebrew scholarship offers high mountain, exalted and teacher, and none of the three has won the argument.

In the Hebrew, Christian and Muslim traditions Aaron is the elder brother of Moses, the one who speaks when Moses will not. That gives the name a specific character: the steady second voice in the room rather than the one out in front. It has sat inside the US top 100 for most of the past fifty years and ranked #80 for boys in 2025, so it reads as familiar without feeling crowded. Say it once and nobody asks you to spell it.

2. Abel

• Origin: Hebrew, via the Greek form of Hevel
• Meaning: Breath, vapor
• Pronunciation: AY-bul
• Variations: Avel, Habel
• Namesakes: Abel Tasman, the Dutch navigator who charted Tasmania and New Zealand
• Popularity: #231 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,525 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 43% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Abel comes from the Hebrew Hevel, meaning breath or vapor, which is about as delicate as a meaning gets. In the Bible he is the first child born to Adam and Eve, a shepherd whose offering pleased God and whose jealous brother Cain killed him for it.

That story is bleak, and yet the name has never carried the weight of it. Abel sounds gentle and open, all vowel, and it has been climbing steadily in American use for two decades. It landed at #231 for boys in 2025. Parents who like Gabriel or Elijah but want something shorter tend to end up here.

3. Adrian

• Origin: Latin, from the Roman family name Hadrianus
• Meaning: From Hadria, a town in northern Italy
• Pronunciation: AY-dree-un
• Variations: Adrien, Adriano, Adrijan, Hadrian
• Namesakes: The Roman emperor Hadrian, who built the wall across northern Britain
• Popularity: #74 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (4,464 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 19% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Adrian is from the Roman name Hadrianus, which simply meant a man from Hadria. The town is long gone from the coastline it named, but the name it produced outlived the empire and picked up six popes along the way.

What makes Adrian work now is the sound rather than the history. It runs three syllables with the stress up front, ends soft, and slides into Spanish, French, Italian, Polish and Romanian without needing a new spelling. Ade and Adi are there if a short form is wanted, though most Adrians go through life at full length without anyone reaching for one.

4. Alan

• Origin: Breton, brought to England by Breton settlers after 1066
• Meaning: Handsome; possibly also rock or little rock
• Pronunciation: AL-un
• Variations: Allan, Allen, Alain, Alun
• Namesakes: Alan Turing, the mathematician who broke the Enigma cipher
• Popularity: #191 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,915 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 12% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Breton name Alan is usually glossed as handsome, which is the whole reason it turns up on lists like this one. Breton soldiers carried it into England with the Norman conquest and it never left.

Its best-known bearer earned the name a different kind of appeal. Alan Turing designed the test that still bears his name, the one that says a machine counts as intelligent when a person talking to it cannot tell. He also broke the German naval cipher and was prosecuted by the country he had helped save. The name reads as a grown man’s rather than a baby’s, which is a point in its favor, and Al waits in the wings if a short form is ever needed.

5. Aldo

• Origin: Germanic, from the element ald
• Meaning: Old, in the sense of wise or venerable; sometimes noble
• Pronunciation: AHL-doh
• Variations: Aldous
• Namesakes: Aldo Leopold, the ecologist who founded modern wildlife management
• Popularity: #960 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (241 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 36% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Aldo is built from Germanic name elements meaning old, though old here means senior and respected rather than elderly. Italy adopted it early and made it sound like nothing else on this list: two beats, hard consonants, no soft landing.

Aldo Leopold gave the name its most serious bearer. He founded the discipline of wildlife management and wrote the land ethic that reframed conservation as a moral question rather than an economic one. The name peaked in American use at #430 in 2007 and has slid to #960, so it now sits right at the edge of the chart. That makes it a genuine option rather than a crowded one.

6. Alexander

• Origin: Greek, from alexein (to defend) and aner (man)
• Meaning: Defender of man
• Pronunciation: al-ig-ZAN-der
• Variations: Alessandro, Alejandro, Aleksander, Iskandar
• Namesakes: Alexander the Great; Alexander Hamilton; the actor Alexander Skarsgard
• Popularity: #30 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (7,230 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 33% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Alexander is from a Greek name meaning defender of man, and it has been in continuous use for well over two thousand years. Almost every European language holds a version of it, which is why it travels better than nearly anything else here.

The modern draw is partly Alexander Skarsgard, whose run through Generation Kill and True Blood into film work made the name a shorthand in a certain kind of magazine, and who has been voted Sweden’s sexiest man more than once.

The practical draw is the nicknames. Alex, Xander, Sasha, Sandy and Lex all live inside one birth certificate, which means your son can pick his own register as he grows.

7. Antonio

• Origin: Spanish and Italian form of the Roman family name Antonius
• Meaning: Uncertain; the Roman family name has no agreed root
• Pronunciation: an-TOH-nee-oh
• Variations: Anthony, Antoine, Antonius, Anton, Antonino
• Namesakes: The actor Antonio Banderas; the composer Antonio Vivaldi
• Popularity: #176 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (2,058 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 32% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

This Spanish and Italian form of Anthony comes from a Roman family name whose meaning nobody has ever pinned down. The old gloss of priceless was invented later by people who wanted one.

Jose Antonio Dominguez Bandera, better known as Antonio Banderas, broke into American film without speaking much English and learned his early lines phonetically. He has since played Picasso and voiced Puss in Boots, which is a range few actors can claim. It shortens to Tony or Tono without losing anything, and the full four syllables still sound deliberate rather than formal.

8. Aryan

• Origin: Sanskrit, from arya
• Meaning: Noble
• Pronunciation: AR-yun
• Variations: Arya, Aryaan, Aariyan
• Popularity: #872 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (275 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 1% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Sanskrit-derived Hindi name Aryan means noble, from the Sanskrit arya.

Its American history is short and easy to track. Aryan first reached the US top 1,000 in 2002 at #872, climbed to #613 by 2007, and has moved sideways ever since, landing at #871 in 2025. In England and Wales it is far stronger, ranking #302 in the same year. Two syllables, no silent letters, and it works in three alphabets.

9. Atticus

• Origin: Latinized Greek
• Meaning: From Attica, the region around Athens
• Pronunciation: AT-i-kus
• Variations: Attikos
• Namesakes: Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird; Atticus Turner of Lovecraft Country
• Popularity: #281 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,208 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 118% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Atticus is a Latinized Greek name meaning from Attica, the region that contains Athens. It arrived in modern use almost entirely through fiction.

Harper Lee’s Atticus Finch made it a byword for quiet moral nerve, and Matt Ruff’s novel Lovecraft Country handed it to a young Black veteran searching for his father across the Jim Crow South, the publisher of a travel guide for Black drivers. Two very different books, one name, both about doing the decent thing at cost. Atty is the usual short form, and the name takes a plain middle name well, since the first is already doing a lot of work.

10. Austin

• Origin: Medieval English contraction of Augustine
• Meaning: Great, magnificent, venerable
• Pronunciation: AW-stin
• Variations: Austen, Augustine, Agustin
• Namesakes: Jane Austen carried the surname form; Austin, Texas, carries the place form
• Popularity: #113 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (3,103 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 40% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The name Austin is a worn-down medieval form of Augustine, so its meaning traces back to the Latin augustus: great, venerable, worth respecting.

It is filed as an English name, but the contraction happened in Norman French first, which is a decent piece of trivia for anyone who assumes it is purely Texan. It ranked #113 for US boys in 2025. The one thing to weigh before you commit: for a certain generation the name still comes with a set of teeth and a question about mojo attached.

11. Balder

• Origin: Old Norse, from Baldr
• Meaning: Brave, bold; glossed as hero, lord, prince
• Pronunciation: BAWL-der
• Variations: Baldr, Baldur
• Namesakes: The Norse god Balder, son of Odin and Frigg

The Old Norse Baldr comes from baldr, meaning brave or bold, and is usually glossed as hero, lord or prince. It is one of the few names on this list that belongs to a god rather than to anybody who has actually used it lately.

The myth is worth knowing before you name a child after it. Frigg went through the whole of creation extracting promises that nothing would harm her son, and overlooked mistletoe because it seemed too small to matter. The other gods amused themselves throwing objects at Balder, knowing he could not be hurt, until Loki found the gap and handed a mistletoe branch to the blind god Hoder. Balder is not on the American chart at all, so this is a name you would be introducing rather than joining.

12. Beau

• Origin: French
• Meaning: Beautiful, handsome
• Pronunciation: BOH
• Variations: Bo, Beauregard
• Namesakes: The actor Beau Bridges; Beau Brummell, the Regency arbiter of dress
• Popularity: #60 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (5,165 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 274% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Beau is the French word for beautiful used flat out as a name, with no origin story softening it. Very few names state their case this plainly. Grammatically beau is a masculine adjective in French, and in parts of Europe the name is given to girls as well, but American usage is close to entirely male. It reached #60 for US boys in 2025, its strongest showing on record, helped along by the wider taste for short cowboy-adjacent names. One syllable, three letters of it silent-ish, and everyone still spells it right.

13. Beckett

• Origin: English surname, from Old English bec
• Meaning: Stream or brook; possibly bee cottage
• Pronunciation: BEK-it
• Variations: Becket
• Namesakes: Samuel Beckett, author of Waiting for Godot; Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury
• Popularity: #141 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (2,518 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 125% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Beckett is an English surname turned first name, most likely from bec, an old word for a stream, though a reading of bee cottage also has supporters.

The last names used as first names habit gets treated as a recent invention, and it is not: the Victorians were doing it enthusiastically, and the British actor Beckett Bould was born in 1880. What is recent is the volume. Beckett reached #141 for US boys in 2025, so the hard k in the middle now sounds contemporary rather than eccentric. Beck is the obvious short form and it is a good one.

14. Benedict

• Origin: Latin, from benedictus
• Meaning: Blessed
• Pronunciation: BEN-uh-dikt
• Variations: Benedetto, Benoit, Benedikt, Bennett
• Namesakes: The actor Benedict Cumberbatch; sixteen popes
• Popularity: #814 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (305 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 130% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Latin benedictus means blessed, and for most of its history Benedict belonged to saints, abbots and sixteen popes. That is not a background that suggests a list like this one.

Then Benedict Cumberbatch happened, and a name that had read as monastic for a millennium acquired an entirely different reputation. It is still uncommon in American use, ranked #814 for US boys in 2025, which is part of the appeal. The softer variant Bennett is far more common if you want the sound without the full weight of the original, and Ben covers you either way.

15. Blake

• Origin: English surname, from Old English blac or blaec
• Meaning: Pale, or black; the two roots collapsed into one surname
• Pronunciation: BLAYK
• Variations: Blaike, Blayke
• Namesakes: The poet and engraver William Blake; the country singer Blake Shelton
• Popularity: #316 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,080 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 58% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Blake is a rare case of a name that means two opposite things at once. Old English blac meant pale and blaec meant black, the spellings drifted together, and the surname absorbed both. Nobody can now tell you which ancestor was which.

Blake was also the family name of one of the fourteen Tribes of Galway, the merchant families who ran the city’s politics and trade from the thirteenth century to the nineteenth, so it carries a genuine Irish line as well as an English one. It is used for girls too, though the split still leans male, and the single syllable sits easily in front of a longer middle name.

16. Brad

• Origin: English, short form of Bradley
• Meaning: Broad clearing or broad meadow
• Pronunciation: BRAD
• Variations: Bradley, Bradford, Braden
• Namesakes: The actor Brad Pitt
• Popularity: #4,267 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (24 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 67% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Brad began as a clipped form of Bradley, itself from an Old English place name meaning broad clearing. Its case for inclusion here is two words long, and you already know them. Beyond that, the numbers tell a tidy generational story: Brad peaked at #98 in 1975, held on through the 1990s and dropped off the US top 1,000 entirely after 2007. It is a name for a man in his fifties rather than a newborn, which is either the problem or the point depending on your taste.

17. Bran

• Origin: Irish and Old Irish; also Welsh
• Meaning: Raven
• Pronunciation: BRAN
• Namesakes: Bran mac Febail, the seafarer of Irish legend

Bran means raven, in Irish and in Welsh alike, which is about as atmospheric as a one-syllable name gets. Bran mac Febail is its oldest bearer, the voyager who sailed west looking for the Otherworld and came back to find that lifetimes had passed. The surnames Byrne, Beirne and Burns all descend from it.

The obstacle is television. For anyone who watched Game of Thrones, Bran now belongs to one particular boy in a wheelchair, and that association will take another decade to fade. If you love the sound, the Welsh Brân and the Irish Branan give you room to move. It has never appeared on the US chart.

18. Brett

• Origin: Middle English surname
• Meaning: A Breton, someone from Brittany
• Pronunciation: BRET
• Variations: Bret, Bretton
• Namesakes: The quarterback Brett Favre; the novelist Bret Easton Ellis
• Popularity: #1,382 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (133 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 60% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Brett started as a Middle English surname for a Breton, a settler from Brittany, so it is a close cousin of Alan a few entries above. American usage tracks one clean arc. It climbed through the 1960s, peaked at #69 in 1986, and fell out of the top 1,000 after 2020, which puts it in the same generational bracket as Brad and Scott. That is not a criticism. A name that just left the chart is a name nobody in the nursery will be sharing.

19. Brody

• Origin: Scottish and Irish surname, from a place name in Moray
• Meaning: Disputed; usually read as ditch or muddy place
• Pronunciation: BROH-dee
• Variations: Brodie
• Popularity: #236 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,492 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 49% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Brody is a Gaelic name taken from a Scottish place name, and the meaning is not flattering: the likeliest root refers to a ditch or a stretch of mire. Nobody using it today seems to mind.

What it has instead is momentum and an easy sound, long o in the middle and an open ending, which is the same shape that carried Cody and Kody through the 1990s. It ranked #236 for US boys in 2025. Brodie is the older Scottish spelling if you want the version that predates the trend.

20. Brooks

• Origin: English surname
• Meaning: Of the brook, for someone who lived by a stream
• Pronunciation: BRUUKS
• Variations: Brook, Brooke, Brookes
• Namesakes: E.B. White, born Elwyn Brooks White, author of Charlotte’s Web
• Popularity: #64 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (4,877 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 365% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Brooks began as an English surname for a family living beside a brook, and the final s is what makes it work as a first name. It gives the word a snap that Brook on its own does not have.

E.B. White is the best argument for it. The author of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little was christened Elwyn Brooks White and never liked Elwyn. That final s is also the letter people drop by accident, so expect the occasional envelope addressed to Brook.

21. Caden

• Origin: Irish surname Mac Cadain
• Meaning: Son of Cadan
• Pronunciation: KAY-den
• Variations: Cayden, Kaden, Kaiden, Caiden
• Popularity: #201 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,742 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 45% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Caden evolved from the Irish Gaelic surname Mac Cadain, meaning son of Cadan.

You will find plenty of sites claiming it is also an Arabic name meaning friend or companion. That claim does not survive contact with Arabic, where friend is sadiq and companion is rafiq, and no source we could find supports it. Caden ranked #201 for US boys in 2025, though the true figure is higher once you add Cayden, Kaden and Kaiden, which the chart counts separately. That fragmentation is worth thinking about before you choose a spelling.

22. Callum

• Origin: Scottish, from the Latin Columba
• Meaning: Dove
• Pronunciation: KAL-um
• Variations: Calum, Colm, Colum, Malcolm
• Namesakes: Saint Columba, who brought Christianity to Scotland from Iona
• Popularity: #118 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (2,995 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 455% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Callum comes from the Latin name Columba, meaning dove, and reached Scotland through Saint Columba, the Irish monk who founded the monastery on Iona.

It shares that root with Malcolm, which literally means devotee of Columba, and with the considerably less swoon-inducing Colin. That makes Callum a graceful way to honor a relative called Colin without saddling a child with it.

The single-l Calum is the older Scottish spelling. Either way Cal is the short form, and it is the version most American Callums end up using day to day.

23. Cameron

• Origin: Scottish clan name, from Gaelic cam and sron
• Meaning: Crooked nose
• Pronunciation: KAM-run
• Variations: Camron, Kameron, Camryn
• Popularity: #76 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (4,348 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 24% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Scottish name Cameron means crooked nose, a clan nickname that presumably described one memorable ancestor and then outlasted him by seven centuries.

Cameron is one of the few names that holds its appeal across the board, working for a boy, a girl or a non-binary child without sounding like a compromise in any direction.

It appeared in both the boys’ and girls’ US top 1,000 for 2025, ranking #76 for boys, which still leans strongly male. Cam is the short form and it does a lot of the work.

24. Cavanaugh

• Origin: Irish surname, anglicized from Caomhanach
• Meaning: Disputed; usually read as follower of Caomhan
• Pronunciation: KAV-uh-naw
• Variations: Kavanagh, Cavanagh, Kavanaugh

Cavanaugh comes from an Irish surname whose meaning is argued over. The likeliest reading is follower of Caomhan, a personal name built on caomh, meaning gentle or beloved, though the family itself descends from the twelfth-century kings of Leinster.

As a first name it is long, four syllables, and it commits. There is no neat nickname hiding in it beyond Cav, and Americans will default to the Kavanagh spelling. It has never appeared in the US top 1,000, so it stays firmly in surname-as-first-name territory rather than mainstream use.

25. Christian

• Origin: Latin Christianus, from Greek Christos
• Meaning: A Christian, a follower of Christ
• Pronunciation: KRIS-chun
• Variations: Kristian, Christiaan, Cristian, Karsten
• Namesakes: The designer Christian Dior; Hans Christian Andersen
• Popularity: #96 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (3,641 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 47% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Christian traces to the Greek Christos, meaning anointed, and arrived in English as a plain statement of faith.

Its gender history runs the wrong way round. Most names that end up unisex start male and drift female; Christian did the opposite, serving as a name for women in medieval England and Scotland before settling as a boys’ name in modern use. It ranked #96 for US boys in 2025. The Danish royal house has used it for ten kings, which is why the name feels more Scandinavian than biblical in Europe.

26. Christos

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Anointed
• Pronunciation: KREES-tohs
• Variations: Hristo, Kristo

Christos is the Greek word behind every Christian name in Europe, and it means anointed. Early Greek-speaking Christians applied it to Jesus as a translation of the Hebrew mashiyach, the term that reaches English as Messiah. In Greece it is an everyday name rather than a solemn one, roughly as common as Chris is here, and it is usually given to honor a grandfather. It does not appear on the US chart at all. If you want the sound with less theological freight, the Bulgarian Hristo and the Italian Cristiano are both real, used names.

27. Coinneach

• Origin: Scottish Gaelic form of the Old Irish Cainnech
• Meaning: Handsome, beautiful, good
• Pronunciation: KUN-yukh, with the final sound as in loch
• Variations: Cainnech, Kenneth, Kenny
• Namesakes: Coinneach Odhar, the Brahan Seer of Highland legend

Coinneach is the Scottish Gaelic form of the Old Irish Cainnech, from the element cain, meaning handsome, beautiful or good. It is the direct ancestor of Kenneth, and the surname MacKenzie is simply son of Coinneach.

The catch is obvious the first time somebody has to read it aloud. Outside the Gaelic-speaking Highlands and Islands this spelling stops people cold, and the final consonant is a sound English does not have. If you want the meaning and the line without the daily friction, Kenneth carries both. If you want the real thing, this is it, and almost nobody else in America has it. It has never appeared on the US chart.

28. Conall

• Origin: Old Irish, from cu and fal
• Meaning: Rule of a wolf
• Pronunciation: KON-al
• Variations: Conal, Connell, Conghal
• Namesakes: Conall Cernach, the Ulster warrior of the Red Branch

Conall is Old Irish, built from cu, meaning hound or wolf, and fal, meaning rule, which lands it firmly among the strong boy names. Rule of a wolf is a heavy meaning for a name that sounds this soft out loud.

Its legendary bearer earns it. Conall Cernach, Conall of the victories, belonged to the Red Branch of Ulster and avenged Cuchulainn by hunting down and killing Lugaid. Later tellings gave him one blue eye and one black one, and hair to his waist. The surnames Connell and O’Connell descend from him. The name has never charted in the US, which leaves it wide open.

29. Damon

• Origin: Greek, from damazo
• Meaning: To tame
• Pronunciation: DAY-mun
• Variations: Damian, Damien, Damiano
• Namesakes: Damon of the Damon and Pythias legend; the writer Damon Runyon
• Popularity: #501 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (604 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 11% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Damon comes from the Greek verb damazo, meaning to tame, and has only been used as an English given name since the twentieth century.

The story attached to it is one of the better ones in Greek legend. In fourth-century BC Syracuse, Pythias was condemned to death and asked to go home to settle his affairs. Damon took his place in the cell, on the understanding that he would be executed if his friend did not return. Pythias came back just in time, and the tyrant was moved enough to pardon them both.

The name is also permanently entangled with Damian and Damien, which are the same root with a different suffix and a horror film attached.

30. Dante

• Origin: Italian, a medieval short form of Durante
• Meaning: Steadfast, lasting
• Pronunciation: DAHN-tay
• Variations: Durante, Dontae, Donte
• Namesakes: Dante Alighieri, author of the Divine Comedy
• Popularity: #308 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,104 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 1% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Dante is an Italian name meaning steadfast or lasting, and it is a nickname that outgrew its parent. Dante Alighieri was christened Durante; the short form is what the world remembers, and Durante now sounds like the derivative.

That makes it a useful reminder that short names becoming names in their own right is not a modern habit but a medieval one. Dante ranked #308 for US boys in 2025. It carries the Inferno with it, which is either a literary pedigree or a lot of jokes about circles, depending on the company.

31. Darius

• Origin: Old Persian Darayavahush, via Greek Dareios
• Meaning: Possessing goodness
• Pronunciation: duh-RY-us
• Variations: Dario, Dariusz, Daryush
• Namesakes: Darius the Great of Persia; the musician Darius Rucker
• Popularity: #788 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (322 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 42% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Darius sounds modern and is anything but. It began as the Old Persian Darayavahush, meaning he who holds firm to the good; the Greeks turned it into Dareios and the Romans into Darius, and that is the form that reached English.

Its first bearer built the road system that held the Achaemenid empire together and lost at Marathon, which is a fair summary of most empires. Compare it with the ancient Persian names around it and Darius is the one that survived intact. Dare and Dari are the short forms that come up most, and the full name is easy to read on sight, which not every ancient name manages.

32. Dax

• Origin: French place name, or an English surname of uncertain root
• Meaning: Unknown; the town of Dax in Gascony predates any explanation
• Pronunciation: DAKS
• Namesakes: The actor and podcast host Dax Shepard
• Popularity: #692 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (393 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 99% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Dax has no agreed meaning. It is most likely taken from the spa town of Dax in southwest France, and the town’s own name is older than any explanation for it. What it has is the x, which does most of the work. Dax Shepard supplies the modern association: he and Kristen Bell refused to marry until same-sex marriage was legal in California, which it became in 2013, and they married that October. Three letters, one syllable, and nothing to spell out over the phone.

33. Dominic

• Origin: Late Latin Dominicus
• Meaning: Of the Lord
• Pronunciation: DOM-i-nik
• Variations: Domenico, Dominik, Domingo, Dominique
• Namesakes: Saint Dominic, founder of the Dominican order
• Popularity: #106 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (3,277 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 20% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Latin Dominic means of the Lord, and for centuries it was given almost exclusively to boys born on a Sunday, the day of our Lord. The Spanish Domingo still carries the word for Sunday inside it.

Saint Dominic founded the order of preaching friars that took his name and, by extension, gave it to the Dominican Republic. It ranked #106 for US boys in 2025, which makes it one of the more popular names here that still sounds like a deliberate choice rather than a default. Dom and Nico are both available.

34. Doran

• Origin: Irish, anglicized from O Deoradhain
• Meaning: Descendant of the exile or wanderer
• Pronunciation: DOR-un
• Variations: Dorran, Doren, Deoradhan

An Irish name, Doran is the anglicized form of O Deoradhain, from the byname Deoradhan. The root is deoradh, meaning exile or wanderer, with a diminutive suffix on the end, so the literal sense is something like little wanderer. That is a gentler idea than most of the warrior names around it, and it suits the sound. Doran is rare in English-speaking use and has never charted in the US, which leaves it available in a way that Dylan and Declan no longer are. It also avoids the trap of sounding invented, because it is not.

35. Dylan

• Origin: Welsh, from dy and llanw
• Meaning: Great tide, or son of the sea
• Pronunciation: DIL-un
• Variations: Dillon, Dyllan, Dilan
• Namesakes: The poet Dylan Thomas; Bob Dylan took the name from him
• Popularity: #41 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (6,208 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 24% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Welsh name Dylan means great tide, and in the Mabinogi it belongs to a sea god who swims away the moment he is born.

Almost every modern Dylan traces back to Dylan Thomas rather than to the myth, and Robert Zimmerman borrowing it as a stage name in 1961 sealed the association with anyone holding a guitar. It ranked #41 for US boys in 2025, one of the highest on this list.

The one thing to check is the double-l in Welsh, which is a sound English does not have; nobody in America will attempt it, and that is fine.

36. Eder

• Origin: Basque
• Meaning: Handsome, beautiful
• Pronunciation: EH-der
• Variations: Eider and Ederne are the feminine forms
• Popularity: #1,734 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (94 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 7% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Eder is the Basque word for handsome or beautiful used directly as a name, which puts it in the same small club as Beau and Alan. It ranked #68 in the Basque Country in 2024, so it is a live, ordinary name there rather than a curiosity.

A separate biblical Hebrew name is also spelled Eder and means flock. The two are unrelated, despite what several name sites claim; one is a Basque adjective and the other is an Old Testament place and person, and neither evolved from the other. In American use the Basque one is the one you would be choosing, and it has never reached the US chart in either sense.

37. Eduardo

• Origin: Spanish and Portuguese form of Edward
• Meaning: Rich guard, wealthy protector
• Pronunciation: eh-DWAR-doh
• Variations: Edward, Edouard, Eduard, Duarte
• Popularity: #410 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (778 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 52% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Eduardo is the Spanish and Portuguese form of Edward, from the Old English elements ead and weard: wealth and guard.

The pronunciation is what separates it from its English parent. Four syllables with a rolled r in the middle gives the name a rhythm that Edward, which lands flat, simply does not have. It shortens to Lalo in Mexican usage and Eddie everywhere else, which are two very different registers to have available.

38. Elijah

• Origin: Hebrew Eliyyahu
• Meaning: My God is Yahweh
• Pronunciation: ee-LY-juh
• Variations: Elias, Elia, Ilya, Eliyahu
• Namesakes: The prophet Elijah; the actor Elijah Wood
• Popularity: #7 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (11,111 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 4% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The English Elijah comes from the Hebrew Eliyyahu, meaning my God is Yahweh.

Stories of the prophet circulated widely in medieval Europe and made the name fashionable centuries before its current run. It was usually written in the Latin form Elias, except in England, where it came out as Elis. That single spelling quirk went on to produce Elliot, three entries below.

Be clear-eyed about the popularity. Elijah ranked #7 for US boys in 2025. It is one of the most-used names in the country, so your son will not be the only one in his year.

39. Elliot

• Origin: English surname, from the medieval Elis
• Meaning: My God is Yahweh, by descent from Elijah
• Pronunciation: EL-ee-ut
• Variations: Elliott, Eliot, Elyot
• Namesakes: The poet T.S. Eliot; Elliott of E.T.
• Popularity: #151 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (2,417 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 100% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Elliot is Elijah at three removes. The medieval English Elis picked up a diminutive ending to become Eliot, hardened into a surname, and came back around as a first name in the twentieth century.

The spelling question is real and worth settling early. Elliot, Elliott and Eliot are all in use, they are pronounced identically, and your child will spend a lifetime correcting people whichever one you pick. It ranked #151 for US boys in 2025 and is rising for girls at the same time, so the name is drifting toward genuinely unisex.

40. Emery

• Origin: Germanic, from the elements amal and ric
• Meaning: Work ruler, home ruler
• Pronunciation: EM-uh-ree
• Variations: Emory, Emmerich, Amaury
• Popularity: #74 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (3,208 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 159% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Emery is a Germanic name from amal, meaning work or labor, and ric, meaning ruler. The Normans carried it into England as Emaury and it settled into Emery and Emory.

It is also a rock. Emery is a dark grey mineral ground down into what abrasive makers call black sand, and it is what makes an emery board work. That gives the name an unusual second life as a household object.

The number to watch is the split. Emery ranked #814 for US boys in 2025 while sitting far higher for girls, so a boy named Emery today is in the minority.

41. Ethan

• Origin: Hebrew Eitan
• Meaning: Firm, solid, long-lasting
• Pronunciation: EE-thun
• Variations: Eitan, Etan, Eythan
• Namesakes: The actor Ethan Hawke; Ethan Allen of the Green Mountain Boys
• Popularity: #24 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (7,852 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 39% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Ethan comes from the Hebrew eitan, meaning firm or solid, which is an unusually literal meaning for a biblical name.

Ethan Hawke made his first film alongside River Phoenix in Explorers, quit acting for a while, then came back for Dead Poets Society and has kept a strange, wide-ranging career going ever since, from Training Day to Boyhood to First Reformed. The name reached #24 for US boys in 2025, so it is one of the most common on this list. Solid is exactly the right word for it in every sense.

42. Ford

• Origin: English surname, from an Old English place name
• Meaning: Ford, a shallow crossing point in a river
• Pronunciation: FORD
• Variations: Forde, Fordham
• Namesakes: The industrialist Henry Ford; Ford Prefect of The Hitchhiker’s Guide
• Popularity: #474 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (642 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 289% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Ford is an English surname taken from a place name, and it means exactly what the word means: a shallow stretch of river you can cross on foot. It has nothing to do with fjords, despite a claim that circulates widely.

In Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Ford Prefect is the alien researcher who rescues Arthur Dent from a demolished Earth. He chose the name on the mistaken belief that cars were the dominant life form on the planet, and the Ford Prefect was a real saloon built in England from 1938 to 1961.

43. Gabriel

• Origin: Hebrew Gavriel
• Meaning: God is my strength
• Pronunciation: GAY-bree-ul
• Variations: Gabriele, Gavriil, Jibril
• Namesakes: The archangel Gabriel; the novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Popularity: #37 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (6,569 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 30% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

A Hebrew name, Gabriel means God is my strength, and it belongs to the archangel who appears in Jewish, Christian and Islamic scripture as the messenger.

One American bearer deserves better memory than he gets. Gabriel was born into slavery on a Virginia tobacco plantation in 1776 and named by the man who owned him. Hired out as a blacksmith and literate, he organized a large-scale revolt around Richmond in 1800; the plan was betrayed, and he was hanged. Historians now call it Gabriel’s Rebellion.

The name works in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian without alteration, and Gabe is the short form nearly every English-speaking Gabriel ends up answering to.

44. Gerard

• Origin: Germanic, from ger and hard
• Meaning: Brave spear, hardy spear
• Pronunciation: juh-RARD in the US, JER-ard in Britain
• Variations: Gerhard, Gerardo, Gerry
• Namesakes: The actor Gerard Butler; the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins
• Popularity: #1,713 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (95 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 7% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Gerard is built from the Germanic elements ger, a spear, and hard, meaning brave or hardy. It is the same construction as Gerald with a different second half, which is why the two get confused constantly.

Gerard Butler is the reason it appears on lists like this one, on the strength of King Leonidas in 300 and very little afterwards. The numbers tell you the name belongs to a particular era: it peaked at #205 in 1959 and 1960 and last appeared in the US top 1,000 in 2002. In Ireland and Scotland it stayed strong far longer, and Ger is the standard short form there.

45. Gideon

• Origin: Hebrew Gidon
• Meaning: Hewer, one who cuts down
• Pronunciation: GID-ee-un
• Variations: Gidon, Gedeon
• Namesakes: The biblical judge Gideon, who routed the Midianites with 300 men
• Popularity: #337 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (993 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 71% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Hebrew name Gideon means hewer or feller, someone who cuts things down. In the book of Judges he takes an army of 32,000 and whittles it to 300 before attacking, which is a very on-brand thing for a man called hewer to do.

American use was thin through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the name only returned to the top 1,000 around the turn of this century. It ranked #337 for US boys in 2025. The hard g and the three syllables make it feel older and heavier than Elijah or Ethan, which is the point of choosing it.

46. Grant

• Origin: Norman French surname, from grand
• Meaning: Tall, large
• Pronunciation: GRANT
• Variations: Grantham, Granville
• Namesakes: Ulysses S. Grant; the actor Cary Grant, born Archibald Leach
• Popularity: #228 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,555 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 21% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Grant comes from the Norman French grand, meaning tall or large, and reached Scotland as a clan name where the Grants held land in Strathspey for centuries. It is one of the most efficient names on this list. One syllable, no nickname required, no spelling variants worth arguing about, and it reads as competent on a resume without reading as stuffy. Cary Grant borrowed it as a stage surname for exactly that reason. Set against a long surname it stays crisp, and against a short one it still does not sound clipped.

47. Gregor

• Origin: German and Slovene form of Gregory, from Greek gregoros
• Meaning: Watchful, alert
• Pronunciation: GREG-or
• Variations: Gregory, Grzegorz, Grigori, Gregorio
• Namesakes: Gregor Mendel, who worked out the laws of inheritance

The German and Slovene form of Gregory, Gregor comes from the Greek gregoros, meaning watchful or alert. Early Christians liked it because staying awake was a spiritual instruction.

Gregor Mendel was born in what is now the Czech Republic and spent years crossing pea plants in a monastery garden, working out the mathematics of heredity decades before anyone had a word for a gene. His paper sat ignored for thirty-five years. The name does not appear on the US chart, though Gregory does, so Gregor is a way to use a familiar sound in an unfamiliar shape.

48. Griffin

• Origin: Anglicized form of the Welsh Gruffudd
• Meaning: Strong lord, or strong prince
• Pronunciation: GRIF-in
• Variations: Gruffudd, Griffith
• Namesakes: Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, the only man to rule all of Wales
• Popularity: #222 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,627 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 15% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Griffin is the anglicized form of the Welsh Gruffudd, meaning strong lord.

The mythological creature is a happy accident rather than the source. A griffin has the body and hind legs of a lion and the head, wings and front claws of an eagle, and it guarded gold in classical stories from Greece to Central Asia. The name arrived by a completely different route, through medieval Welsh princes, and the resemblance is coincidence. Most people assume otherwise, which does the name no harm at all.

49. Harrison

• Origin: English surname
• Meaning: Son of Harry, and so son of Henry
• Pronunciation: HAIR-i-sun
• Variations: Harris
• Namesakes: The actor Harrison Ford; two US presidents; George Harrison
• Popularity: #116 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (3,072 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 70% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Harrison comes from an English surname meaning son of Harry, and Harry was the everyday medieval English form of Henry. So a Harrison is, at three removes, a Henry’s grandson.

It carries two American presidents, a Beatle and Harrison Ford, which is an unusually strong bench for a surname name. Ford, incidentally, is his real name; the actor was born with it.

Harrison gives you Harry as a ready-made short form, which is why so many parents who want Harry put this on the birth certificate instead.

50. Holden

• Origin: English surname, from a place name
• Meaning: Deep valley, hollow valley
• Pronunciation: HOHL-den
• Namesakes: Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye
• Popularity: #297 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,140 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 48% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Holden is an English place name meaning deep valley, and it existed for centuries before J.D. Salinger attached it to the most famous teenage narrator in American fiction.

It also has a quiet claim on the sky. There is a Holden crater on the Moon, another on Mars that once held a lake, and the minor planet 2974 Holden, so a family with an interest in astronomy gets three separate reasons to like it. All three honor the American astronomer Edward Holden.

51. Hudson

• Origin: English surname
• Meaning: Son of Hudd, a medieval pet form of Hugh
• Pronunciation: HUD-sun
• Variations: Hutson, Hudsen
• Namesakes: Henry Hudson, who gave his name to the river and the bay
• Popularity: #17 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (8,583 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 128% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Old English surname Hudson means son of Hudd, and Hudd was a medieval nickname for Hugh, which means the name a few entries above and this one are relatives.

Its modern bearer is unexpected. Hudson Mohawke is the stage name of Ross Birchard, a Glaswegian producer who came up through turntablism and went on to make records with Kanye West, Drake and Anohni.

The name itself has gone almost vertical in American use, reaching #17 for boys in 2025, which makes it the sixth most popular name on this entire list.

52. Hugo

• Origin: Germanic, from hug
• Meaning: Mind, spirit, heart
• Pronunciation: HYOO-goh in English, OO-goh in French
• Variations: Hugh, Hugues, Ugo, Huw
• Namesakes: Victor Hugo; the Hugo Awards for science fiction
• Popularity: #378 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (837 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 19% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Hugo is a Germanic name from hug, meaning mind, spirit or heart. It is the Latin form of Hugh, and in most of Europe it is the version that stuck.

Martin Scorsese’s 2011 film Hugo gave it a new set of associations for American audiences: an orphan living inside the walls of a Paris railway station, winding the clocks and repairing an automaton left by his father. The film is about the birth of cinema, which is a rather nice thing for a name to be attached to. Two syllables, four letters, and nothing in the spelling to explain, which is rarer than it sounds.

53. Hunter

• Origin: English occupational surname
• Meaning: One who hunts
• Pronunciation: HUN-ter
• Namesakes: The journalist Hunter S. Thompson
• Popularity: #130 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (2,761 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 37% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Hunter is an occupational English surname, and its meaning needs no explanation. Names that are also plain English nouns tend to divide people sharply, and this one does.

Hunter S. Thompson gives it a different edge. He invented gonzo journalism, a style built on the premise that pretending to be objective is a lie, and wrote himself into every story he covered. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the result. There is no short form and none is needed, which suits a name that is already one plain word.

54. Iorwerth

• Origin: Old Welsh, from ior and gwerth
• Meaning: Worthy lord
• Pronunciation: YOR-werth
• Variations: Yorath; the diminutives are Iolo and Iolyn
• Namesakes: Iorwerth Goch of Powys, the medieval Welsh prince

A Welsh name, Iorwerth is built from the Old Welsh ior, meaning lord, and gwerth, meaning value or worth. Worthy lord is a strong meaning by any standard. Note the spelling: Iorworth turns up on a lot of name sites and is simply an error.

It belonged to medieval Welsh royalty, including Iorwerth Goch of Powys, who appears in the Dream of Rhonabwy. English speakers sometimes rendered it as Edward, which is not a translation so much as a surrender.

Its problem is not the meaning but the diminutives. The traditional short forms are Iolo and Iolyn, and neither has the swagger of the full name. The variant Yorath is the anglicized alternative if you want the line without the spelling lesson. It has never appeared on the US chart.

55. Isaac

• Origin: Hebrew Yitzhak
• Meaning: He will laugh, he will rejoice
• Pronunciation: EYE-zik
• Variations: Izaak, Isaak, Ishaq, Yitzhak
• Namesakes: Isaac Newton; the writer Isaac Asimov
• Popularity: #47 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (5,953 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 16% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Isaac is Hebrew for he will laugh, a reference to Sarah laughing when she was told she would have a son at ninety. It is one of very few biblical names with a joke built into it.

Isaac Asimov was born near Smolensk and came to New York with his family in 1923. He wrote or edited something over 500 books, coined the word robotics, and set out the Three Laws that every science fiction writer since has either used or argued with.

Isaac ranked #47 for US boys in 2025. The Izaak and Isaak spellings exist but the standard one is the one that gets read correctly.

56. Ivan

• Origin: Slavic form of John, from Hebrew Yochanan
• Meaning: Yahweh is gracious
• Pronunciation: EE-vahn in Slavic languages, EYE-vun in English
• Variations: Ivano, Iwan, Jovan, John
• Namesakes: Ivan the Terrible, the first tsar of Russia
• Popularity: #163 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (2,240 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 7% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Ivan is the Slavic form of John, so its meaning is Yahweh is gracious, the same as Sean, Juan, Giovanni and Evan.

Russian folklore has a stock character called Ivan Tsarevich, the prince who is always the youngest of three brothers and always the one who succeeds. If you are naming a third son, the folklore is on your side. It is one of the few names here equally at home in Spanish, where the stress moves to the second syllable, so one spelling gives you two readings.

57. Jack

• Origin: English, from Jackin, a medieval diminutive of John
• Meaning: Yahweh is gracious, by descent from John
• Pronunciation: JAK
• Variations: Jackin, Jankin, John
• Popularity: #15 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (8,748 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 8% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Jack is not, as is often claimed, a form of the French name Jacques. It comes from Jackin, earlier Jankin, a medieval English pet form of John, with only passing influence from the unrelated Jacques.

It then became a common noun. Jack meant simply a man, which is how English ended up with jack-o-lantern, lumberjack, jackknife and jack of all trades, and how the name got into so many nursery rhymes and folk tales.

Jack was the number one boys’ name in England and Wales from 1996 to 2008. On a birth certificate it stands alone perfectly well, so parents no longer feel the need to put John there as cover.

58. Jacob

• Origin: Hebrew Yaakov, via Latin Iacobus
• Meaning: Holder of the heel, supplanter
• Pronunciation: JAY-kub
• Variations: Jakob, Jacobo, Yaakov, Giacomo
• Popularity: #43 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (6,152 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 49% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Jacob is Hebrew for holder of the heel, because he was born gripping his twin brother’s foot, and the phrase came to mean supplanter.

Here is the piece most people miss: Jacob and James are the same name. Both descend from the Latin Iacobus, which split into a learned form and a spoken one somewhere in medieval France. English is one of very few languages that kept both and treats them as separate names. In Spanish they are Jacobo and Jaime, in Italian Giacobbe and Giacomo. Jacob ranked #43 for US boys in 2025 after more than a decade at or near number one.

59. Jake

• Origin: Medieval English, a form of Jack; also short for Jacob
• Meaning: Yahweh is gracious, or supplanter, depending on the parent name
• Pronunciation: JAYK
• Variations: Jacob, Jayke
• Namesakes: The actor Jake Gyllenhaal
• Popularity: #457 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (682 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 62% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Jake is usually explained as a short form of Jacob, and that is only half true. It also existed independently in medieval England as a variant of Jack, which makes it a cousin of John as well. So the last three entries on this run, Jack, Jacob and Jake, are tangled together at the root in a way that no dictionary quite untangles. It ranked #457 for US boys in 2025, well below Jacob, which suggests most parents still choose the long form and let the short one arrive on its own.

60. Jamal

• Origin: Arabic, from jamal
• Meaning: Beauty
• Pronunciation: juh-MAHL
• Variations: Cemal in Turkish, Gamal in Egyptian Arabic, Djamel in Algerian Arabic
• Popularity: #1,197 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (169 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 30% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Jamal means beauty in Arabic, which puts it among the most literal entries on a list about attractive names.

English speakers often miss how common it is, because the same Arabic word is transliterated differently depending on the country. Turkey writes it Cemal, Egypt says Gamal, Algeria and much of the Maghreb use Djamel. They are one name wearing four passports. In the United States, Jamal peaked at #240 in 1994 and has since dropped off the top 1,000 entirely, so an American Jamal born now would have a name his father’s generation knew well.

61. James

• Origin: Hebrew Yaakov, via Latin Iacomus
• Meaning: Supplanter, holder of the heel
• Pronunciation: JAYMZ
• Variations: Jacob, Jaime, Giacomo, Seamus, Diego
• Namesakes: Six Scottish kings; the writer James Baldwin; James Dean
• Popularity: #6 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (11,945 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 2% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

James is the spoken-Latin twin of Jacob, and it means supplanter.

Its American record is the most consistent of any boys’ name. Since the Social Security Administration began publishing in 1880, James has never fallen below #19, and before 1993 it never fell below #9. It ranked #6 in 2025. No other name on this list has that kind of floor.

The short forms are the other reason it lasts. Jim, Jimmy, Jamie and Jay all come out of the same five letters, and a James can move between them at any age without changing a single document.

62. Javier

• Origin: Spanish, from the Basque place name Etxeberria
• Meaning: The new house
• Pronunciation: hah-vee-EHR
• Variations: Xavier, Xabier, Javi
• Namesakes: The actor Javier Bardem; Saint Francis Xavier, born at Xavier castle
• Popularity: #274 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,252 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 19% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Spanish name Javier means the new house, from the Basque Etxeberria, the castle where Saint Francis Xavier was born. Every Javier and every Xavier in the world traces to one building in Navarre.

Javier Bardem won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for No Country for Old Men, and has said he learned English partly by listening to AC/DC records, which is a better language method than it sounds. The initial h sound in Spanish is the thing most English speakers get wrong, so expect to correct it, politely, for years.

63. Jesse

• Origin: Hebrew Yishai
• Meaning: Gift, or God exists
• Pronunciation: JES-ee
• Variations: Jessie, Yishai
• Namesakes: Jesse Owens; Jesse James; Jesse Pinkman of Breaking Bad
• Popularity: #184 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (2,002 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 31% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Jesse is Hebrew, usually read as gift, and in the Bible he is the father of King David.

The American associations pull hard in the other direction. Jesse James gave the name its outlaw reputation in the 1870s, and a century later Jesse Pinkman revived exactly the same flavor for a new audience. Jesse Owens, who won four golds in Berlin in 1936 in front of Hitler, is the counterweight and deserves top billing.

64. Joshua

• Origin: Hebrew Yehoshua
• Meaning: Yahweh is salvation
• Pronunciation: JOSH-oo-uh
• Variations: Josue, Yehoshua, Joosua
• Popularity: #66 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (4,773 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 54% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

An English form of a biblical name, Joshua means Yahweh is salvation.

Europeans avoided it for centuries, and the reason is unexpected: the short form of Yehoshua is Yeshua, which is the birth name of Jesus, and using it felt presumptuous. Only after the Reformation, when Protestant families began mining the Old Testament for names, did Joshua come into general use. It ranked #66 for US boys in 2025, well down from its run in the top 5 through the 1990s.

65. Jun

• Origin: Chinese and Japanese
• Meaning: Handsome or talented in Chinese; pure or obedient in Japanese, depending on the character
• Pronunciation: JOON
• Variations: Joon in Korean romanization

The Chinese name Jun can mean handsome, talented, king or ruler, depending on which character is written, and the handsome reading is why it belongs here. It is also a Japanese name given to boys and girls alike, where the kanji chosen can give it the sense of pure, moist, clean or obedient. That is the thing to understand about names written in characters: the sound is only half the name, and the writing carries the meaning. Jun does not appear on the US chart, but it is short, unambiguous to say, and travels across three languages without alteration.

66. Kaloyan

• Origin: Bulgarian, from the Greek kalos Ioannes
• Meaning: Handsome John
• Pronunciation: kah-loh-YAHN
• Variations: Kaloian, Kalojan
• Namesakes: Tsar Kaloyan of Bulgaria, who fought the Fourth Crusade
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. boys’ names in 2022 at #10,324 (7 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since. Steady in the United States, up 3% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Bulgarian name Kaloyan comes straight from the Greek kalos Ioannes, handsome John, so it is the only name here whose meaning is literally a compliment plus a first name.

It began as a nickname for the emperor who ruled Bulgaria from 1197 to 1207, the youngest of three brothers who took the throne after both died and then declared himself tsar. He is remembered for defeating the Fourth Crusade at Adrianople and capturing the Latin emperor of Constantinople.

Kaloyan ranked #3 in Bulgaria in 2025, so in its home country it is not exotic at all. In America it would be, and the short form Kalo is easy enough.

67. Kit

• Origin: English, a medieval short form of Christopher
• Meaning: Bearing Christ
• Pronunciation: KIT
• Variations: Christopher, Kitt, Christy
• Namesakes: The playwright Christopher Kit Marlowe; the actor Kit Harington
• Popularity: #1,103 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (195 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 842% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The English name Kit is a medieval short form of Christopher, meaning bearing Christ. Christopher Marlowe was Kit to everyone who knew him, so the nickname is Elizabethan rather than modern.

Its recent revival is almost entirely British and almost entirely down to Kit Harington. The numbers make the split obvious: Kit last appeared in the American top 1,000 in 1958 and has been absent since, while in England and Wales it ranked #122 in 2025. If you want a name that reads as fresh in the US and established in the UK, this is the clearest example on the list.

68. Leland

• Origin: English surname, from an Old English place name
• Meaning: Fallow land, land left unplanted
• Pronunciation: LEE-lund
• Variations: Leeland, Lealand
• Namesakes: Leland Stanford, who founded Stanford University
• Popularity: #494 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (612 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 15% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Leland is from an Old English place name meaning fallow land, ground deliberately left unsown for a season.

Its best-known bearer is complicated. Leland Stanford ran the Central Pacific Railroad, served as governor of California, and founded a university in memory of his son, who died at fifteen. He also built his fortune through practices that made robber baron a term of abuse, so the philanthropy and the method arrived together. Lee is the obvious short form and the one most Lelands end up using, which gives the name a plainer setting to fall back on.

69. Leonardo

• Origin: Italian, Spanish and Portuguese form of Leonard
• Meaning: Brave lion, lion-strong
• Pronunciation: lay-oh-NAR-doh
• Variations: Leonard, Lionardo, Leo
• Namesakes: Leonardo da Vinci; the actor Leonardo DiCaprio
• Popularity: #91 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (3,789 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 66% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Italian, Spanish and Portuguese form of Leonard, Leonardo joins the Latin leo with the Germanic hard to give brave lion.

Leonardo DiCaprio has said repeatedly that he would rather people did not judge actors on how they look, which has not stopped Empire putting him on its hundred sexiest movie stars list or Harper’s Bazaar on its fifty hottest men. He is named after da Vinci; his mother felt the baby kick while she was standing in front of one of the paintings in Florence. It gives you Leo, which is doing much of the work behind the full name’s revival, with Leon and Nardo both there as alternatives.

70. Logan

• Origin: Scottish surname, from a place name in Ayrshire
• Meaning: Little hollow
• Pronunciation: LOH-gun
• Namesakes: Logan, the name Wolverine goes by in the X-Men films (born James Howlett)
• Popularity: #53 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (5,576 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 26% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Logan means little hollow in Scottish Gaelic, a description of a dip in the ground that became a place name and then a clan name.

Sometimes a film decides what a name feels like, and this is one of those. James Howlett is better known as Logan, and Hugh Jackman played him for seventeen years across nine films, ending with one actually titled Logan. Two syllables, no silent letters, and it turns up on girls as well as boys, which is worth knowing before you settle on it.

71. Lorenzo

• Origin: Italian and Spanish form of Laurence, from Latin Laurentius
• Meaning: From Laurentum, a town near Rome; associated with the laurel
• Pronunciation: loh-REN-zoh
• Variations: Laurence, Lorenz, Lourenco, Renzo
• Namesakes: Lorenzo de Medici, called the Magnificent, patron of Botticelli and Michelangelo
• Popularity: #117 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (3,065 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 132% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Lorenzo is an Italian and Spanish name meaning from Laurentum, and Laurentum is thought to be named for its laurel trees, the same laurels that crowned Roman victors.

Its most famous bearer effectively bankrolled the Renaissance. Lorenzo de Medici ran Florence for twenty-three years, kept Botticelli and the young Michelangelo in work, and wrote decent poetry on the side. It comes with Renzo and Enzo built in, both of which now stand alone as names.

72. Louis

• Origin: French, from the Germanic Chlodovech
• Meaning: Famous warrior, famous in battle
• Pronunciation: LOO-ee in French, LOO-is in American English
• Variations: Lewis, Ludwig, Luis, Luigi, Aloysius
• Namesakes: Eighteen kings of France; Louis Armstrong; Louis Pasteur
• Popularity: #249 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,391 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 52% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Louis is the French descendant of the Germanic Chlodovech, which also gave German Ludwig and Spanish Luis. It means famous warrior, and eighteen French kings carried it.

The pronunciation is a genuine choice rather than a mistake to avoid. LOO-ee is the French reading and the one most Americans use for the name on its own; LOO-is is the English reading and gave rise to the separate spelling Lewis. In Dutch the stress moves to the second syllable, loo-EE. Louis Armstrong, for the record, said Lewis.

73. Lucian

• Origin: Latin Lucianus, from Lucius
• Meaning: Light
• Pronunciation: LOO-shun or LOO-see-un
• Variations: Lucien, Luciano, Lucius, Lukian
• Namesakes: Lucian of Samosata, the satirist who wrote the first fictional trip to the Moon
• Popularity: #462 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (670 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 47% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Lucian comes from the Latin lux, meaning light, by way of the Roman name Lucius.

Every form of it, Lucien in French, Luciano in Italian and Spanish, Lukian in Russian, runs back to that same Roman root. This is also the source of a persistent mix-up: because the Basque form of Luke is Luken, people conclude Luke must mean light too. It does not, as the entry above explains. It reads darker and more literary than Lucas, which is presumably why parents choose it.

74. Luke

• Origin: Greek Loukas, via Latin Lucas
• Meaning: From Lucania, a region of southern Italy
• Pronunciation: LOOK
• Variations: Lucas, Lukas, Luca, Lucca
• Namesakes: Luke the Evangelist; Luke Skywalker
• Popularity: #33 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (6,948 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 6% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The English name Luke means from Lucania, a region in the arch of the Italian boot. It has nothing to do with the Latin lux, meaning light, though almost everybody assumes it does.

Luke the Evangelist is the patron saint of artists, brewers, doctors, glaziers, goldsmiths and butchers, an unusually practical portfolio, which makes the name a neat choice for a family in any of those trades.

One syllable, four letters, and nothing to spell out over the phone, which is the whole argument for it.

75. Marcelo

• Origin: Spanish and Portuguese form of the Latin Marcellus
• Meaning: A diminutive of Marcus, itself linked to Mars
• Pronunciation: mar-SEH-loh
• Variations: Marcello, Marcel, Marcellus
• Popularity: #399 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (798 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 113% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Marcelo is the Spanish and Portuguese form of Marcellus, a Roman diminutive of Marcus, which is generally traced to Mars, the god of war.

You will see a claim that the name is Spanish for sea and sky. It is not. The Spanish for sea and sky are mar and cielo; split Marcelo the way that claim requires and you get mar plus celo, which reads as sea zeal and means nothing at all.

The real derivation is the Roman one. The Italian Marcello is the spelling most Americans picture first, so expect the second l to be added for you on forms.

76. Mateo

• Origin: Spanish form of Matthew, from Hebrew Mattityahu
• Meaning: Gift of Yahweh
• Pronunciation: mah-TAY-oh
• Variations: Matteo, Matthew, Mathieu, Matias
• Namesakes: The Cochiti Pueblo painter Mateo Romero
• Popularity: #8 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (11,045 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 320% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Spanish form of Matthew, Mateo means gift of Yahweh.

Mateo Romero is a Native American painter and a member of Cochiti Pueblo whose work documents contemporary Pueblo life rather than the historical version collectors expect. He has been named a Native Treasures Living Treasure.

The name is now one of the fastest-rising in the country, reaching #8 for US boys in 2025. That is worth knowing before you choose it: Mateo felt like a discovery ten years ago and is a top-ten name today.

77. Miles

• Origin: Uncertain; a Norman name, possibly Germanic, possibly Latin miles
• Meaning: Unknown; soldier is a folk reading of the Latin
• Pronunciation: MYLZ
• Variations: Myles, Milo, Milos
• Namesakes: Miles Davis; Miles Morales of the Spider-Verse films
• Popularity: #44 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (6,072 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 98% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Miles is an English name of genuinely uncertain meaning. The Latin miles means soldier and looks like an obvious answer, but the name reached England with the Normans and the connection is probably coincidence.

In early Christian Scotland it was pressed into service as an anglicization of the Gaelic Maoilios, meaning servant of Jesus, which shares no sound with it beyond the first letter. That kind of loose substitution was common and is why so many Gaelic names have unrelated English partners. Miles Davis is doing most of the work on its reputation, and the Myles spelling is the only real decision the name asks you to make.

78. Nikolaj

• Origin: Danish form of Nicholas, from Greek Nikolaos
• Meaning: Victory of the people
• Pronunciation: NEE-koh-lye
• Variations: Nikolai, Nicolas, Niklas, Nikola
• Namesakes: The actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. boys’ names in 2024 at #9,613 (8 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since. Rising in the United States, up 102% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Nikolaj is the Danish form of Nicholas, from the Greek elements nike and laos: victory of the people.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau started his American career in Black Hawk Down before Game of Thrones made him famous, and he has spent years as a UN Development Programme goodwill ambassador working on gender equality. The j is the thing to think about. In Danish it does the job of an English y, so the name sounds like NEE-koh-lye, and no American will guess that on sight. The Nikolai spelling spares everyone the explanation, and Niko works as a short form for either version.

79. Orlando

• Origin: Italian form of Roland
• Meaning: Famous land
• Pronunciation: or-LAN-doh
• Variations: Roland, Rolando
• Namesakes: Orlando of the Charlemagne romances; the actor Orlando Bloom
• Popularity: #873 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (275 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 40% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Italian form of Roland, Orlando means famous land, and it belongs to the hero of the Charlemagne romances, the knight who dies at Roncesvalles and gets an entire epic poem, Orlando Furioso, to himself.

Virginia Woolf borrowed it for a novel whose protagonist lives four centuries and changes sex halfway through, which gives the name a second literary life very different from the first.

Its American numbers are sliding rather than rising: it peaked at #255 in 1987 and ranked #871 in 2025. There is also a city attached, which for some parents settles the matter one way or the other.

80. Oscar

• Origin: Irish, from os and cara; also Old English Osgar
• Meaning: Deer friend in Irish; god spear in Old English
• Pronunciation: OS-kur
• Variations: Oskar, Osgar
• Namesakes: Oscar Wilde; the designer Oscar de la Renta
• Popularity: #223 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,620 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 26% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

An English name, Oscar has two plausible parents. The Irish reading combines os, a deer, with cara, a friend. The Old English reading is Osgar, from os, a god, and gar, a spear. Both were in use, and the name we have now is probably a merger.

David Dosa’s book about a therapy cat in a Rhode Island nursing home gave the name an odd modern footnote. Staff noticed that when Oscar settled on a patient’s bed, that patient usually died within hours; the cat was credited with more than fifty accurate predictions. Ozzie and Oz are the short forms, though the full name is brief enough that most Oscars never need either.

81. Oswald

• Origin: Anglo-Saxon, from os and weald
• Meaning: God power, divinely ruled
• Pronunciation: OZ-wuld
• Variations: Osvaldo, Oswaldo, Ozzie
• Namesakes: Saint Oswald, the seventh-century king of Northumbria
• Popularity: #2,161 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (67 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 187% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Oswald is Anglo-Saxon, from os, meaning a god, and weald, meaning power or rule. Its first bearer was a Northumbrian king who brought Christianity back to his kingdom, died in battle at thirty-eight and was venerated as a saint across northern Europe.

Roald Dahl gave the name a very different outing in My Uncle Oswald, one of his rare adult novels, in which Uncle Oswald schemes to collect and sell the sperm of famous men to women who want brilliant children. It is not a book to hand a child named after it.

Oswald has been absent from the American top 1,000 since 1933, though the Spanish Osvaldo keeps the sound alive, and Ozzie is a genuinely likeable short form.

82. Otto

• Origin: Germanic, from the element aud
• Meaning: Wealth, fortune
• Pronunciation: AH-toh
• Variations: Otho, Odo, Ottone
• Namesakes: Otto von Bismarck; Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor
• Popularity: #277 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,241 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 294% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Otto is a German name from the element aud, meaning wealth or fortune, and four Holy Roman Emperors carried it.

Its American chart history is one of the neater stories in the data. Otto was near its peak in 1880 when records begin, declined slowly for ninety years, dropped off the top 1,000 entirely in 1974, and then reappeared in 2011. It has climbed steadily since and ranked #277 for US boys in 2025.

Four letters, two of them the same, and it reads the same backwards, which children notice and enjoy.

83. Pierce

• Origin: English and Irish surname, from the medieval Piers
• Meaning: Rock or stone, by descent from Peter
• Pronunciation: PEERS
• Variations: Piers, Pearce, Pierson
• Namesakes: The actor Pierce Brosnan; the president Franklin Pierce
• Popularity: #505 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (598 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 12% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Pierce is a surname built on Piers, the medieval English form of Peter, so its meaning is rock. Piers Plowman, the fourteenth-century poem, is where most people meet the parent form.

Pierce Freelon is one of its more interesting current bearers: a musician, a former city council candidate in Durham, and the founder of Blackspace, a studio for Afrofuturism and digital media aimed at young people, as well as co-founder of the Beat Making Lab. It has an unmistakable edge to it that Peter has long since lost, and at one syllable there is nothing left to shorten.

84. Rami

• Origin: Arabic, from ramy
• Meaning: Archer, one who throws or shoots
• Pronunciation: RAH-mee
• Variations: Ramy, Ram
• Namesakes: The actor Rami Malek

Rami is an Arabic name meaning archer or thrower, and it is one of the shortest names on this list that still carries a clear image.

It also exists independently in three other languages. It is a Finnish short form of Reimund, meaning wise protector; a Sanskrit feminine name meaning night or darkness; and a Hebrew short form of Ram, meaning exalted. Four unrelated languages arriving at the same two syllables is unusual, and it makes Rami one of the easier cross-cultural picks here. It does not appear on the US top 1,000.

85. Raphael

• Origin: Hebrew Refael
• Meaning: God heals
• Pronunciation: RAF-ay-el or rah-fah-EL
• Variations: Rafael, Raffaello, Rafail
• Namesakes: The painter Raphael; the archangel Raphael
• Popularity: #394 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (807 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 72% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Raphael is Hebrew for God heals, and belongs to the archangel associated with healing in Jewish and Christian tradition.

It came up repeatedly when this list was first compiled, which tells you the sound does a lot of work: three syllables, a soft f in the middle, and an ending that lifts. The obstacle for American parents of a certain age is that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles claimed it, along with Leonardo, Donatello and Michelangelo, and turned four Renaissance masters into reptiles. The Spanish Rafael is the spelling to weigh against it, because the ph version will be respelled for you at least once a month.

86. Ryder

• Origin: English occupational surname
• Meaning: Messenger, or mounted warrior
• Pronunciation: RY-der
• Variations: Rider
• Popularity: #133 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (2,710 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 15% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The name Ryder comes from an English surname for a rider, either a messenger or a mounted warrior, depending on which medieval record you read. Ryder Windham has written more than sixty Star Wars books across novels, comics, graphic novels and reference volumes, which is close to a full career inside one fictional galaxy. It belongs firmly to the current wave of hard-consonant surname names alongside Ryker, Ryland and Rowan, so it will read as of its moment in a way that Grant or Louis never will.

87. Scott

• Origin: English and Scottish surname
• Meaning: A Scot, someone from Scotland
• Pronunciation: SKOT
• Variations: Scot, Scottie
• Namesakes: F. Scott Fitzgerald; the explorer Robert Falcon Scott
• Popularity: #534 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (561 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 35% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Scott is an English surname for a Scot, given originally to Gaelic-speaking incomers in northern England and the Scottish borders. It is another generational marker. Scott was a top-20 name through the 1960s and 1970s, and it ranked #534 for US boys in 2025, so it now reads as a name for someone’s uncle. That is exactly the position Otto and Oscar occupied twenty years ago, which is worth remembering before you write it off. F. Scott Fitzgerald, incidentally, was named for a distant cousin who wrote the words to The Star-Spangled Banner.

88. Seán

• Origin: Irish form of John, from the Norman French Jehan
• Meaning: Yahweh is gracious
• Pronunciation: SHAWN
• Variations: Shaun, Shawn, Eoin
• Namesakes: Sean Connery; the YouTuber Sean McLoughlin, known as Jacksepticeye
• Popularity: The unaccented Sean ranked #489 for US boys in 2025

Seán is the Irish form of John, and it arrived by an indirect route: the Normans brought Jehan to Ireland, Irish speakers adapted it to their own sound system, and the fada over the a is what tells you to say SHAWN rather than seen.

Seán William McLoughlin, better known online as Jacksepticeye, built one of the largest gaming channels on YouTube out of a bedroom in County Offaly and has spent years running charity livestreams from that channel. The unaccented Sean ranked #489 for US boys in 2025. Dropping the accent is common in America and changes nothing about how it is said.

89. Sebastian

• Origin: Greek Sebastianos, from sebastos
• Meaning: Venerable, revered; from Sebaste, a town in Asia Minor
• Pronunciation: suh-BAS-chun
• Variations: Sebastien, Sebastiano, Bastian, Bastien
• Namesakes: Saint Sebastian; Sebastian Michaelis of Black Butler
• Popularity: #16 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (8,605 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 46% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Sebastian comes from the Greek sebastos, meaning venerable, by way of Sebaste, a town whose name honored the emperor.

In the anime Black Butler, Sebastian Michaelis is a demon bound by contract to serve a twelve-year-old earl, which makes him both an impeccable servant and something considerably worse, and gives this a double claim as an anime boy’s name.

Be aware of the numbers before you decide. Sebastian ranked #16 for US boys in 2025. It sounds rare and it no longer is.

90. Taranis

• Origin: Gaulish, from the Celtic root toranos
• Meaning: Thunder
• Pronunciation: TAR-uh-nis
• Variations: Taran, Taranus
• Namesakes: Taranis, the Gaulish god of thunder

Taranis is a Celtic name from the root toranos, meaning thunder. That root is the same one behind the Norse Thor, so the two gods are linguistic cousins as well as functional ones.

Roman writers equated Taranis with Jupiter, which is what they did with every local sky god they met, and he is usually shown holding a wheel. The related Pictish and Welsh form Taran is shorter, real, and considerably easier to put on a birth certificate. Neither appears in American records, so this is a name you would be bringing back rather than choosing. It has never appeared on the US chart.

91. Tate

• Origin: English surname, possibly from the Old Norse Teitr
• Meaning: Cheerful, glad
• Pronunciation: TAYT
• Variations: Tait, Tayte
• Namesakes: The Tate galleries, named for the sugar magnate Henry Tate
• Popularity: #194 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,862 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 75% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Tate is an English surname whose root is disputed, though the likeliest source is the Old Norse Teitr, meaning cheerful. In Britain, Tate means the four galleries: Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives, all funded by a nineteenth-century sugar refiner who invented the sugar cube. That makes it a quietly good name for a family that spends its weekends in galleries. It ranked #193 for US boys in 2025. One syllable, four letters, nothing to explain.

92. Theo

• Origin: Greek, short for Theodore or Theobald
• Meaning: Gift of God from Theodore; bold people from Theobald
• Pronunciation: THEE-oh
• Variations: Theodore, Teo, Theodor, Theobald
• Namesakes: Theo van Gogh, who supported his brother Vincent for a decade
• Popularity: #82 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (3,945 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 834% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Theo serves two parents. From Theodore it means gift of God; from Theobald it means bold people. Most modern Theos are the first kind.

Theodor Seuss Geisel is a useful example of how far a name can travel. Before the children’s books he drew advertising campaigns for an insecticide company and political cartoons attacking American isolationism, and Dr. Seuss was a pen name built from his middle name and a doctorate he never finished.

Theo ranked #82 for US boys in 2025 and is rising faster than Theodore, which is unusual: normally the long form leads.

93. Toby

• Origin: English, from the Hebrew Tobiah
• Meaning: Yahweh is good
• Pronunciation: TOH-bee
• Variations: Tobias, Tobiah, Tobin
• Namesakes: The actor Toby Jones; the singer Toby Keith
• Popularity: #979 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (234 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 40% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Toby traces back to the Hebrew name Tobias, meaning Yahweh is good, and it reached English through the medieval mystery plays.

Two things are happening to it at once. In the US it is drifting toward girls, appearing on lists of names crossing over, while its boys’ ranking slides: #768 in 2016, #977 in 2025. In Britain it holds up far better as a boys’ name. If you like the sound and want it to read unambiguously male, Tobias on the birth certificate protects the option.

94. Travis

• Origin: English occupational surname, from Old French traverser
• Meaning: To cross; a toll collector at a bridge or crossing
• Pronunciation: TRAV-is
• Variations: Travers
• Namesakes: The voice actor Travis Willingham; the musician Travis Scott
• Popularity: #434 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (732 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 45% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The name Travis comes from an English surname for someone who collected tolls at a bridge or a river crossing, from the Old French traverser, to cross. Travers is the older spelling.

Travis Willingham has one of those voices you have heard without knowing it, across the Guardians of the Galaxy animated series, Camp Camp, years of Critical Role and a long list of video games. Trav is the only short form and few people bother with it, since two syllables is already brief enough.

95. Tristan

• Origin: Old French, from the Pictish Drustan
• Meaning: Riot or tumult in the original Pictish; reshaped toward the French triste, sad
• Pronunciation: TRIS-tun
• Variations: Tristram, Tristen, Drustan
• Namesakes: Tristan of Tristan and Isolde
• Popularity: #309 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,103 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 49% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Tristan began as the Pictish Drustan, meaning riot or tumult, and it was changed on purpose.

Medieval French storytellers reshaped the spelling toward triste, their word for sad, because the knight in their romance loses everything: he falls for Isolde after they drink a love potion meant for someone else, and neither of them survives the consequences. The name was literally edited to fit the plot. It is one of the few names here whose sound and story genuinely match, and Tris is the short form if the full name feels heavy on a small child.

96. Victor

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Conqueror, winner
• Pronunciation: VIK-tur
• Variations: Viktor, Vittorio, Victoriano
• Namesakes: Victor Hugo; Victor Frankenstein
• Popularity: #211 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,664 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 33% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Victor is Latin for conqueror, and early Christians adopted it enthusiastically because it read as victory over death rather than over an enemy.

It is more genuinely global than almost anything else on this list. Victor is standard in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Romanian, Swedish and Russian, and it is one of the most common men’s names in both Mexico and Nigeria. It ranked #209 for US boys in 2025. The k spelling, Viktor, is the Scandinavian and Slavic version and reads sharper.

97. Vincent

• Origin: Latin Vincentius, from vincere
• Meaning: To conquer, prevailing
• Pronunciation: VIN-sunt
• Variations: Vincenzo, Vicente, Vincentius, Vince
• Namesakes: Vincent van Gogh; the actor Vincent Price
• Popularity: #107 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (3,267 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 3% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Vincent comes from the same Latin verb as Victor, vincere, so the two names are siblings with different suffixes.

Tim Burton’s first proper film was a six-minute stop-motion short from 1982 called Vincent, about a boy who wishes he were Vincent Price. Price himself narrated it. For years it was almost impossible to see, surfacing only on the 2008 special edition of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Vince and Vinny are both available if the full form feels too formal for a toddler, and Vinnie is the spelling most people reach for first.

98. Xavier

• Origin: Basque place name Etxeberria, via Spanish
• Meaning: The new house
• Pronunciation: ZAY-vee-er or eks-ZAY-vee-er in English
• Variations: Javier, Xabier, Zavier
• Namesakes: Saint Francis Xavier; Professor Charles Xavier of the X-Men
• Popularity: #108 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (3,232 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 24% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The English, Spanish, French and Portuguese name Xavier means the new house, and it is the same name as Javier further up this list.

The pronunciation shifts with the language and all the versions are correct. English speakers say ZAY-vee-er or eks-ZAY-vee-er; European Portuguese gives shu-vee-EHR and Brazilian Portuguese sha-vee-EHR; Spanish moves it to Javier and starts with an h sound.

Xavier gets the X at the front doing most of the heavy lifting on its appeal. X and Xavi both work as short forms, and Zavier is the phonetic respelling you will meet on class rosters.

99. Zac

• Origin: English, short for Zachary, from the Hebrew Zekharyah
• Meaning: Yahweh remembers
• Pronunciation: ZAK
• Variations: Zach, Zack, Zak, Zachary
• Namesakes: The actor Zac Efron
• Popularity: #3,237 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (37 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 8% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Short for Zachary, Zac means Yahweh remembers, and the Hebrew original belongs to one of the twelve minor prophets.

Zac Efron came out of High School Musical in 2006 and has spent the twenty years since steadily complicating that image, winning a Daytime Emmy for the travel series Down to Earth along the way. The short form has never had its own American ranking; Zachary ranked #216 for boys in 2025 and is the version that goes on the paperwork. Which of the four spellings you use, Zac, Zach, Zack or Zak, will decide how often the name gets corrected.

100. Zane

• Origin: English, of uncertain origin; possibly a form of John
• Meaning: Unknown in English; the Latvian Zane derives from Susanna, lily
• Pronunciation: ZAYN
• Variations: Zain, Zayn, Zaine
• Namesakes: The novelist Zane Grey, who defined the Western
• Popularity: #324 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,051 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 4% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The English name Zane has no settled origin. The most common suggestion is that it descends from a form of John, but nobody can demonstrate it, and the name owes most of its American life to the Western novelist Zane Grey.

In Latvia, Zane is an entirely separate name and a female one, a short form of Susanna meaning lily. That makes it a rare way to honor a great-grandmother called Susanna without anyone guessing why.

The Zayn spelling has pulled ahead in Britain for reasons involving one particular boy band, so the two versions now read as separate names.

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Sexy Boy Name FAQs

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How to Choose From This List

A name that sounds seductive inside a list of 100 behaves very differently on a birth certificate, and your son will carry it through school, work and a great many forms before anyone reacts to it the way these lists imagine.

Use the list as a sound library, then apply three tests to any name that survives. Say it with your surname. Say it the way a substitute teacher would read it off the roster. Say it the way you would call it across a parking lot. James, Grant, Isaac and Miles pass all three without effort. Iorwerth, Cavanaugh and Taranis will need a spelling and a short history lesson every time, which is a real cost and occasionally a real pleasure. Neither choice is wrong. Just make yours knowing which one you are making.