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

3 names, rare — 25 to 99 a year, in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

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 89 in 2025
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 40 in 2025
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 40 in 2025

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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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