1450+ English Names (with Meanings & Popularity)

Bates is a fresh version of Bartholomew, and feels more wearable than Bart. Bates could be considered a patriotic choice for American parents - Katharine Lee Bates was an author and professor best known for penning the words to "America the Beautiful".

Slightly more modern than Walter, but only just.

One of the rare cases where spelling a name with a y makes it less rather than more feminine. Birdie might be the freshest choice in this aviary.

Rochester was Jack Benny's famous valet and sidekick, played by early African-American comic Eddie Anderson.

Sounds like a variant of Heidi or Hailey, but Haidee is actually a separate name with a literary history, used in Byron's epic poem Don Juan.

For Grandpa Vincent.

Mama's boy.

In 2014, fifteen newborns were named Whisper, all of them girls. We can see the attraction of the name but if you are in Australia be warned - Whisper is a well-known brand of sanitary products, so a teenaged Whisper will find life more embarrassing than usual.

Perhaps if there's a Putnam in your background.

The spelling Pearce softens the name's sharper edges, though we prefer the original Piers. That "pear" snippet could confuse pronunciation, which is just like Pierce.

Sounds incomplete, like a pet form of Miranda.

Like Marvin and Melvin, Sheldon has been perceived as about as far out as you can get, though there are very pretty towns in Devon and Derbyshire that inspired it. Sheldon Lee Cooper is the lead (male) nerd character on the TV hit The Big Bang Theory, giving the name a brainy image. Nickname Shelly is sweet and naturey, in a retro kind of way.

This name may be related to the Latin Maximus, which means "the greatest," or to a British landowner's name, but for most modern parents, it's one of several ways to get to short form Max.

A beautiful English and French flower name deriving from the Latin word for dove. Sadly, in America this name is now forever linked with a tragic terrorist attack on a Colorado high school.

Upstanding New England patrician name.

Rider is a rock-and-roll baby name, in every sense of the term, though usually spelled Ryder, as in the sons of Kate Hudson and John Leguizamo.

A heroine in a Victorian novel written with a quill pen, has an unusual, offbeat charm.

Romany is a melodious name referring to the Roma or Romani community and their culture, which makes it a potentially controversial choice for a baby not of that heritage. Romany Malco is an actor who appeared on the television show "Weeds." Other similar ideas: Roman, Romano, or Romeo.

One of the rare English surname names originally derived from a female given name: Eoforhild (Everild), meaning "boar battle". Also spelled Averill, it's an extremely rare choice today, but shares sounds with fashionable Ava and Avery.

A surname style choice that could get you nicknames Bear and Ozzy, which is pretty cool. It comes from the Old English variant of the Old Norse Ásbjǫrn, which was introduced to England after the Norman conquest and used occasionally as a given name ever since. Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell used the spelling variation Osborne in her final novel, Wives and Daughters.