930+ English Names for Boys

Just the kind of old-fashioned nickname coming back into style.

A surname associated these days with Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston.

Saint Swithin or Swithun is best known for his feast day, July 15, which according to legend will determine the weather for the next 40 days.

Undiscovered single-syllable surname option, a friendly alternative to Reed.

We don't see this one making it unless you have a compelling family reason.

He'll have to prove his humility.

A family name that wouldn't appeal to many parents.

Plummer might be an occupational name for someone who works with pipes -- yes, like a plumber -- or with feathers, from the Olde English (from the French) plume. Or it could indicate someone who lived near a plum tree.

Might be an honorific for novelist Saul Bellow, although bellowing is not the gentlest of sounds. Consider Saul instead.

The -el ending feels inevitably feminine; also a form of French poetry.

Pleasant surname connected to humorist James Thurber, with a sound as happy as a baby's gurgle.

Climbing a mountain somewhere with Radcliff and Heathcliff.

Legitimizes the newly coined Denim, as does the Scottish place-name Denholm (both pronounced DEN-um).

Dickinson is a possibility for Richard's boy, though that Dick nickname is problematic no matter how you get to it.

Unusual, but clear and strong.

There are two lovely Portlands, in Maine and Oregon, but not many babies with their name.

For sailors or jazz lovers. Or smokers of menthol cigarettes.

Butler name, and also that of the rat in Charlotte's Web.

A more modern- sounding alternative to Harman.

Possible middle name to honor an ancestral Philip.