Place Boy Names

Names taken from somewhere on a map. The place usually got its own name from a person, a landscape feature or a language nobody there speaks any more, so the meaning is two removes away.

Rankings for

43 names, most popular first in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Bentley Bentley means the bent-grass clearing, and its rise is one of the sharpest we record — American births went 666 in 2009 to 4,009 in 2010, a six-fold jump in a single year.
English #215 in US
Brandon Brandon is a boy's name from an English place name meaning broom-covered hill, often confused with the Irish Brendan.
English #261 in US
Preston Preston means the priest's settlement — land held by the church rather than by a lord, which is why so many English places carry the name.
English #299 in US
Clayton Clayton means the settlement on clay, from an English place name that describes the ground it stood on.
English #300 in US
Cairo Cairo is a boy's name taken from the Egyptian capital, whose Arabic name al-Qahirah means "the vanquisher".
Arabic #341 in US
Wade Wade means a river crossing, and there is a second Wade entirely — a Germanic sea giant from Old English legend whose story Chaucer refers to as though everyone knew it, and which is now lost.
English #344 in US
Desmond Desmond means south Munster, and it is a territory rather than a person — Deas-Mhumhain named the earldom the Fitzgeralds held, and the name reaches modern use through the land.
Irish #376 in US
Bradley Bradley is a boy's name from an English place name meaning broad meadow.
English #403 in US
Dalton Dalton means the settlement in the valley, and Northern Ireland ranks it 305th — above the United States at 448th, which is unexpected for a name whose modern use is almost entirely American.
English #448 in US
Rome Rome is a boy's name taken from the city, whose own name has no agreed derivation.
Latin #452 in US
Caspian Caspian is a boy's name taken from the Caspian Sea, which is named for the Caspii, an ancient people of the region.
English, Latin #492 in US
Leland Leland means fallow land — ground deliberately left unplowed for a season.
English #494 in US
Zaire Zaire is a name used mostly for boys, from the former name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in use from 1971 to 1997.
Kongo, Portuguese #503 in US
Kyle Kyle is a boy's name of Scottish Gaelic origin meaning "narrow strait," taken from a district of Ayrshire.
Scottish #508 in US
Rhodes Rhodes is a boy's name from the Greek island, whose name is often linked to rhodon, "rose."
Greek, English #575 in US
Trevor Trevor is a Welsh place name meaning big settlement, and the first element is the tre that begins a great many Cornish and Welsh place names — Tregaron, Trelawney, Treharris and several hundred others besides.
Welsh #679 in US
Lee Lee is a name from the Old English word for a woodland clearing, and it is one of the most productive elements in English place names — the ending of Ashley, Bradley, Shirley and Beverly.
English #725 in US
Clyde Clyde took nothing from Bonnie and Clyde.
Scottish #742 in US
Keith Keith is a boy's name from a Scottish place name, probably from a Brittonic word for a wood.
Scottish #800 in US
Byron Byron means at the cattle sheds — a working place name that became shorthand for romantic poetry, which is a longer journey than most names make.
English #983 in US
Kelvin Kelvin is the only name on this site that is also an SI unit, and the order runs river to man to measurement — a Glasgow river gave a physicist his title, and the title was given to the scale of absolute temperature.
Scottish #1,036 in US
Trenton Trenton means Trent's town, and the Trent is a man rather than the English river — William Trent bought the land in 1714, and the New Jersey city was named for him, not for the water.
American #1,040 in US
Rodney Rodney is a boy's name from an English place name, and its rise as a given name follows a single admiral — George Rodney, who broke the French line at the Saintes in 1782.
English #1,091 in US
Trent Trent means the trespasser, and it is a warning rather than a description — the English river was named for its habit of flooding across its banks and cutting new channels.
English #1,341 in US
Clifford Clifford is a boy's name from an English place name meaning a ford by a cliff — a river crossing below a steep bank.
English #1,352 in US
Vernon Vernon is a Norman place name meaning a place of alders, from a Gaulish word — so a French town gave England a surname that America turned into a first name, three languages deep.
French #1,383 in US
Tyrone Tyrone means Eoghan's land, an Irish county, and it reached American use almost entirely through one actor — Tyrone Power, whose grandfather took the name from the county his family came from.
Irish #1,391 in US
Milton Milton means the mill settlement, and there is a second and quite separate source meaning the middle settlement — two entirely different Old English place names that ended up producing exactly the same modern spelling.
English #1,440 in US
Clarence Clarence is a boy's name taken from an English dukedom, itself named for a Suffolk town.
English #1,501 in US
Brent Brent means burned land, from ground cleared by fire — a place name recording a specific agricultural practice rather than a hill or a holy site, which are the two readings usually offered for it.
English #1,510 in US
Alton Alton means the settlement at the river's source, and that is more specific than the old town reading usually given — the Old English element is a spring or wellhead, not age.
English #1,605 in US
Lester Lester means from Leicester, and the spelling is the honest one — Leicester has been pronounced LES-ter for centuries, so the surname simply wrote down what people had been saying to each other all along.
English #1,636 in US
Kent Kent is the oldest recorded place name in England — Cantium appears in Greek writing before the Roman invasion, and its meaning was already uncertain to the Romans who wrote it down.
English #1,658 in US
Clinton Clinton means the settlement on the hill, from an English place name — and the two American presidents who carried it did so by adoption and by surname, not by descent from the place.
English #1,740 in US
Irving Irving names a Scottish river valley, and it reached American use largely through one writer — Washington Irving, who gave English both Rip Van Winkle and the nickname Gotham for New York.
Scottish #1,789 in US
Clifton Clifton means the settlement by the cliff, and it is the same first element as Clifford — one describes a ford below the cliff and the other the farm on top of it.
English #1,916 in US
Irvin Irvin names a Scottish river valley, and the green water reading describes the water rather than the banks — Brittonic river names usually record color or behavior, not the land beside them.
Scottish #1,936 in US
Carlton Carlton means the settlement of the free peasants, and the word for those peasants became an insult — ceorl gave English churl and churlish, so the name preserves a class that the language later turned against.
English #2,898 in US
Staten Staten is a rare American boy's name best known from Staten Island, New York.
Dutch #4,040 in US
Arran Arran is a boy's name taken from the Scottish island in the Firth of Clyde, whose own name is old enough that its meaning is no longer recoverable.
Scottish #12,354 in US
Gaëtan Gaëtan names an Italian coastal town, and it reaches French through a saint rather than through Italy — Cajetan of Thiene founded an order in the sixteenth century, and the name followed the order into France.
French 54,390 births
Innes Innes is a boy's name from a Moray place name meaning "island," and in Scotland it has been used for both sexes.
Scottish 1,750 births
Struan Struan is a boy's name of Scottish Gaelic origin meaning "stream," taken from a Perthshire estate that is the seat of Clan Donnachaidh.
Scottish 1,665 births

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