Boy Baby Names

Perhaps your new baby boy will be the first boy in the family for generations; perhaps he already has three older brothers. Regardless, you want your baby boy name to suit your boy from infancy to adulthood, and here are a few things to consider when you choose a boy’s name.

Many boys’ names are abbreviated to a one-syllable (sometimes more) short form. Keep in mind what your son will be called when he is a baby and when he is a man, because this might influence your decision when you choose a baby boy name. For instance, you might really like the name Robert, and the shortened form of Rob, but you might not like Bob or Bert. If this is the case, when your son is still a boy, you can call him Robby or Rob and let him grow into his name. Other common abbreviations include Dave for David, Dan for Daniel, Curt for Curtis, Mike for Michael, and Chris for Christopher.

When you call your son a short name, there certainly is no room for anyone to shorten the name. You can either choose a baby boy name that is short to begin with, or you can simply name your son the shortened form of a longer name. Some short boy names are Chad, Glen or even Ethan or Adrian, names that don’t have common nicknames. If you want to choose a shortened name for your son to begin with, you might consider naming him simply Matt (instead of Matthew) or Nick (instead of Nicholas).

If you want to name your son something that has importance to you, but is still a bit different, consider taking a name from your family and changing it to a different language. For instance, one of the most common names in English, John, becomes uncommon to a North American ear when it is a different language. We all know that Jack is another form of John, but there’s also Jean (French), Ian (Scottish), Hans (Dutch), Johan (Dutch), Sean (Irish), Ivan (Russian), Giovanni or Gianni (Italian), and Evan (Welsh). You might even have been considering a name that you didn’t realize means the same as John. John has biblical connotations that you can read about on our page of Christian Names, and the original meaning of John is “God is merciful.”

When you are considering naming your baby boy, you might want to choose a baby name that comes from your family heritage, or one of your close friends. You might also consider public figures, from historical figures to celebrities. Some people even choose their baby boy’s name from a character in a movie or in a book that they really enjoy. If you are naming your baby boy after somebody in particular, don’t forget that you can often easily convert a last name into a first name. Is your favourite author David Eddings or Jasper Fforde? Consider the names Eddie, Edward, and Ford as well as David and Jasper.

Don’t forget your baby boy’s middle name either. Some famous middle names include James T. Kirk, where T. stood for Tiberius or, the baseball player Cal McLish, whose entire name is Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish. Harry S. Truman’s middle name is simply S: he was named after two grandfathers (Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young) at once.

So: in the end, the most important thing is to find a baby boy name that you like and that your boy will also like as he grows into a man. Be creative and have fun choosing your baby name!