Animal Names for Boys

The popular -ley suffix can be credited for this name's use in recent years. We're not loving that it sounds as trendy and of-the-moment as it is.

Feels as if it's missing a syllable.

This is the sort of name a four-year-old would make up for himself.

Name of Faulkner's great emotional villain in As I Lay Dying, Anse is not ordinarily used as a first name. It literally means cove in French, though the element ans means God in Old German and is found in names such as Ansel and Anselm.

Known from the Menotti opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, this is a subdued and gentle name.

Davy and Davey are certainly short forms that are frequently used but rarely wind up on the birth certificate. And why, since David is such a handsome, classic, yet short and simple name on its own?

A name that has been used in Wales for nearly a thousand years — a famous bearer was the medieval scholar Gerallt Gymro, or Gerald of Wales — but not the most intuitive spelling for non-Welsh speakers. By coincidence, ger allt in Welsh also means "near a hill".

A minor Old Testament prophet, and a (deservedly) even more minor name.

More common as a surname, a handful of boys get this bovine equivalent of Shepherd each year in the US. It may gain more exposure as one of the occupational names that are one of the most popular classes of English names for boys.

Charismatic surname name borne by French explorer, conservationist, scientist, inventor and author Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who devoted his life to the study of the sea and all forms of life in water.