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Boy Names
29,128 names, most popular right now in United States
How Do I Choose a Boy's Name?
Boys' names move more slowly than girls', which changes the advice. These are the questions worth asking, in the order that narrows a shortlist fastest.
How common do I want it to be?
Ask it first, and agree the ceiling before you argue about candidates. Boys' names concentrate more than girls': the top of the boys' list holds a larger share of all boys born, and the same names stay there longer. A boy's name in the top ten is genuinely more common than a girl's name in the top ten, and more likely to still be there in a decade.
Will it shorten, and to what?
Most long boys' names have one dominant short form and it is not always the obvious one. You will not control which is used, so the test is whether you can live with it. If the short form is the one you actually want, register that — parish registers have recorded pet forms as given names for several hundred years, and it is far less modern a choice than it sounds.
How does it sit with the surname?
Say the whole thing at speed and out loud. The two failures are a first name ending in the sound the surname starts with, which slurs, and a first and last of the same length and rhythm, which plods. Watch the initials too — boys get called by their initials far more often than girls do, and that is where an unfortunate combination surfaces.
Is it a surname, and does that matter?
A large share of the boys' names rising fastest are surnames — a family name, a trade, a place. It is an old practice and a perfectly good one, but it comes with a specific risk: surname-names sound established while having no history as first names at all, so their meanings are often about someone's job in the fourteenth century rather than about anything you intended.
Should I care what it means?
Worth checking, not worth agonising over. Old Germanic and Norse names — a big share of the traditional boys' list — are compounds about war, protection and glory, so the meanings run heavier than most parents expect. Check rather than assume: name sites are confidently wrong about boys' meanings just as often as girls', and mythological names in particular tend to belong to figures who come to bad ends.
What if we cannot agree?
Do not read lists aloud at each other. Whoever is reading has already chosen, and the other person is reacting to a pitch. Go through the same names separately, compare only the overlap, and nobody has to defend a rejection — which is the whole design of our swipe tool.
Not Sure Where to Start?
Swipe through boy names with your partner and only see the ones you both like.