Five Letter Boy Names

Two z's equal double pizzazz.

Lithuanian form of Rocco, the name of a 14th-century French saint who nursed victims of the plague but eventually contracted the disease himself. He is the patron saint of the sick.

Sounds a bit like a nickname in a Dickens novel, but this short form was used in New England a few centuries ago, back when names like Micajah were popular. Both short and long forms are now ripe for revival.

Miraç is currently one of the most popular boy names in Turkey. It's a variation of the Arabic name Miraj, which refers to the ascension into Heaven. Both names are predominantly used by Muslim families.

This unusual spelling was introduced via the hot young star of Gossip Girl, Chace (born Christopher Chace) Crawford, and experienced some mass interest, though it has fallen down the charts since it peaked in 2009. Think of it as a combination of cool-guy names Chase and Ace.

An Irish surname name with a combination of boldness and élan. Some might connect it to the founder of the group T. Rex -- Marc Bolan.

Though this name is used for both boys and girls in Israel, in the U.S. it sounds decidedly masculine, with Zohara the feminine form. Has a futuristic macho feel.

An old-school great-grandpa name, like Irving and Ernest, that may just be ready for revival. It's also a well-known name in Hungary and elsewhere in central and eastern Europe. As a surname, it's associated with jazz sax player Booker Ervin.

Rockers Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz put a new baby name on the map when they chose this downscale New York borough name for their son. The Bronx, the place, was named for early Dutch settler Jonas Bronck. Might Bronx become the next Brooklyn? We'd be surprised if it did.

Revan is a name from the Star Wars universe that first appeared in the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. He starts out on the light side of the Force, then became a Sith Lord on the dark side before reversing trend and working for the light side once more. Revan first appeared on the baby name charts in 2004, the year following the video game release.

Like many Dutch names, this one, pronounced 'yoost' has an upbeat sound. Also spelled Joos, as in sixteenth century Netherlandish master Joos van Cleve, one of the first to introduce background landscapes in his paintings.

A unisex cultural crossover that has seen a little use from the 1990s onwards. In Japanese mythology, Inari is an androgynous deity associated with rice, tea and foxes. In Finland, it is the name of a region, lake and village which is a center of Sami culture.

Danish actor Pilou Asbaek, of Borgen and Game of Thrones, got his unusual first name from his French mother; it's apparently an abbreviation of "Petit Philip." The fact that both its two syllables have restroom-adjacent connotations will make it hard to pull off in English-speaking countries.

The Akan people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast frequently name their children after the day of the week they were born and the order in which they were born. Most Ghanaians have a name using this system (think Kofi Annan, whose name means born on a Friday).

We like Matti in theory, but in practice it’s likely to get confused for the girlish Maddie.

Iorek Byrnison is king of the armored bears and a fierce and brave companion of Lyra’s in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. The name Iorek appears to have been coined by Pullman for the books, but the first element Ior- derives from Old Norse Jar, meaning "battle" and the second element -rek derives from Old Norse/Ancient Germanic ríkr, meaning "mighty; distinguished; ruler."