Short Names

Four letters or fewer, or one syllable. Short names pair well with long surnames and badly with short ones, which is the single most reliable thing anyone can tell you about choosing on sound.

Rankings for

23 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Noa Noa is a unisex name with two separate origins: a Hebrew girls' name meaning "movement," borne by one of the daughters of Zelophehad, and a short form of Noah.
Hebrew #226 in US
Ali Ali is a name of Arabic origin meaning "exalted" or "high."
Arabic #306 in US
Cruz Cruz is a name of Spanish origin meaning "cross."
Spanish #331 in US
Ari Ari is a unisex name with several unrelated origins.
Hebrew #393 in US
Lian Lian is a unisex name with several unrelated sources.
Chinese #428 in US
Rio Rio is a name of Spanish and Portuguese origin meaning "river."
Spanish #532 in US
Drew Drew shortens Andrew, meaning manly, and there is a second unrelated Drew from a Germanic word for a ghost or phantom.
English #554 in US
Cleo Cleo is a name of Greek origin meaning "glory" or "fame."
Greek #577 in US
Tru Tru is a unisex name, a respelling of the English word true, from the Old English treowe — which meant faithful and loyal rather than factually correct.
English #591 in US
Chris Chris shortens two unrelated Greek names — Christopher, which means bearing Christ, and Christine, which means belonging to Christ.
Greek #646 in US
Ayan Ayan is a name with two unrelated origins.
Arabic #762 in US
Romi Romi is a unisex name with no single source, arriving separately from Hebrew, Japanese and European naming, where it serves as a short form of Romy and Romina.
uncertain #817 in US
Dana Dana is a name with several unrelated sources — a Danish origin, a Hebrew feminine of Daniel, and an Irish mother goddess.
English #1,028 in US
Kit Kit is a name of Greek origin meaning "bearer of Christ."
Greek #1,103 in US
Terry Terry is a name serving as a short form of Terence and of the Germanic Theodoric, two unrelated names, and it is genuinely mixed — about 18 percent of the births in our records are female.
English #1,116 in US
Dara Dara is a unisex name that arrives from at least three unconnected languages — Irish, Hebrew and Persian — and the reading depends entirely on which one a family has in mind.
uncertain #1,129 in US
Shay Shay is a unisex name of Irish origin meaning "hawk-like" or "stately," the phonetic spelling of the Irish Séaghdha.
Irish #1,227 in US
Rian Rian is a boy's name of Irish origin meaning "little king," from the Old Irish rí, king, with a diminutive ending.
Irish #1,247 in US
Donnie Donnie ranks 563rd in Ireland and 1804th in the United States, so the country with a fraction of the births ranks it three times higher — a pattern we see when a name goes home.
Scottish #1,804 in US
Jackie Jackie is the third most evenly divided name on this site — 48.9 percent of the births in our records are female, behind only Emerson and Riley among names with more than 50,000 births.
English #2,166 in US
Ora Ora has three unrelated sources — the Latin imperative meaning pray, the Hebrew for light, and an Albanian word for hour — and our data marks it reviving across three markets.
Latin #3,744 in US
Kim Kim is a name that arrives from three unrelated directions — an English place name, Kipling's 1901 novel, and the most common Korean surname in the world.
English #4,263 in US
Pat Pat is one of the most evenly divided names on this site — about 60 percent of the births in our records are female, because it shortens both Patricia and Patrick and neither side ever won.
English 66,955 births

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A style is our reading of a name. A decade is the register — the names children were actually given, in order, with the counts.

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