Three Letter Boy Names

Gender-neutral choice with the covetable X initial. Xue's snowy meaning makes it especially well suited to a winter-born child.

Along with Shem and Japheth, a son of Noah with a name that's almost never used -- for more obvious reasons than those of his brothers.

Sef is a rising short form of Jozef in the Netherlands, where it outranks its parent form.

A close relative of Dax that's on the rise: It was one of the fastest-growing boys' names of 2017.

Most names with the Ab beginning, including the more familiar Abigail and Abner, mean father, as does this streamlined Arabic choice. American children might recognize Abu as the name of Aladdin's pet monkey in the Disney film.

Ode could be part of the extended Otto/Otis family, or it might be a literary term, referring to an elaborate lyric poem.

Bartholomew is one vintage name with Biblical antecedents that hasn't risen again in the modern world, perhaps because short form Bart, as in Simpson, would be too difficult for a contemporary boy to bear. But antique nickname Bat might work better. Might.

Among the Ewe people of Ghana and Togo, Yao is the name for babies born on Thursday.

Couldn't be simpler...or more worldly — though it could lead to some head-scratching.

Howl joins the wild new gang of names with attitude to spare: We're talking Rebel, Rogue, Wilder, and Wiley. Howell makes it much more genteel.

Abstract painter Ad Reinhardt, né Adolph, gave his short name a lot of artistic cred, but it remained securely a nickname. The extra "d" in this version helps it stand on its own, for better or worse.

Variant spelling of Nyx, the name of the Greek goddess of the night. It also coincides with the English word "nix, a corruption of German nichts "nothing". Nix would fit right in with names like Knox, Rex, Pax and Max.

Téa Leoni and David Duchovny named their kid Kyd in 2002, but he usually goes by his middle name, Miller. Probably a wise choice, given the homonym.

Tib was a unisex nickname in the 13th century, used as a short form of Theobald and Isabel. As Theobald waned in popularity, it became far more associated with girls, so much so that Tib was a term for young girls by the 16th century.