Animal Names for Boys

An Anglicized form of Gaetano, deriving from the name of a town in ancient Italy.

An ancient and dashing princely European name, belonging to one of the Grimaldi princes of Monaco from the 18th and 19th centuries. Florestan is also a character in Ludwig van Beethoven's opera "Fidelio" (1814).

Strong, solid surname name. For many this name will be inextricably linked with former Vice President Dick Cheney - a hinderance or a virtue, depending on your political leanings.

The name of the late husband of Naomi in the Bible.

The perfect Latin-accented hero name to honor labor activist César Chavez.

Euron Greyjoy is a deeply menacing, even psychopathic villain late in HBO's Game of Thrones, played by talented Danish actor Pilou Asbaek. As a first name, Euron is just too close to, well, urine, to be usable.

Derived from the Welsh word for gold, pronounced differently from the European currency.

A name scattered throughout Irish mythology with an intriguing sound, Carbry is one of the rare Irish names for boys virtually unknown in the US. Bry is the obvious, but lovely nickname option.

Arfon is a centuries-old name the area of north-west Wales closest to Anglesey (in Welsh, Môn), so its name literally means "facing Anglesey". Its main town is Caernarfon, "fortress in Arfon". It is sometimes used as a local pride name by parents with a connection to the area.

Arieh is a form of a Biblical name that can also be spelled Aryeh or Arye. There's also a feminine form, Ariyah. There were 100 boys in the US named Aryeh last year, with a handful given the other two spellings. But Ariyah was by far the most popular, given to nearly 500 girls.

Shepherd is soaring in the charts, so why not Farmer? Perhaps because, unlike some of the occupation names that are so popular today, it is still an everyday word. Even so, if you're looking for a name that fits modern trends but no one else is using, Farmer could be the one.

A high energy Italian word name.

In its native Germany, Gerhard was very popular a hundred years ago and is now rather old-fashioned. It isn't much used by English speakers either, but has a certain clunky charm about it.

Courtland, with its added U, is an English form of the Dutch habitational surname Cortlandt. Cortlandt was a village near modern-day Wijk bij Duurstede, Netherlands. Its name was derived from the Dutch elements cort, meaning "short" or "narrow," and landt, "land."