Six Letter Boy Names

The ancient name Horace sounds fustily fuddy-duddy, and yet, with the resurrection of Homer, and the new interest in old Roman names...who knows.

Florin is one of the legion of names derived from the root word for flower, most of them like Flora and Florence used for girls. But the boys' form Florin is among the popular French names for boys, along with sister name Fleur for girls. There was a ninth century Swiss St. Florin. The related Florian was the name of a second century Roman saint.

Fun fact: Marion was the birth name of movie star John Wayne. Although commonly thought of as a female name today, it was actually more popular for boys until the late 19th century, and was given to roughly equal numbers of boys and girls throughout the 1970s-2000s.

Friendlier french form of ancient Germanic royal name Amalric or Emmerich.

In the Bible, it's the name of an ancient prophet who was able to withstand Satan. It has gained modest attention in recent years, hitting the US Top 1000 in 2008.

Common in Holland, the appealing Willem (as in de Kooning and Dafoe) makes William fresh and distinctive.

Khalid has flirted with the Top 1000 for several decades now, climbing back on in 2015 after more than a decade's absence. Its return could be in part because of the popularity of snapchat personality and rap collaborator DJ Khaled. R&B singer Khalid may also be contributing to its newfound popularity. The name is important in Islamic history thanks to a 7th century military leader. Khalida is the feminine version.

As a masculine name, Madara has roots in Japanese. It's not used as a given name, rather it was chosen for the character Madara Uchiha in the Naruto series.

Once an upper-class British surname conjuring up the epic poetry of John Milton, it then descended to the antics of "Uncle Miltie" Berle, and now has left the stage completely.

Sierra is a name borrowed from the western mountain range, with Latin rhythm and cowboy charm. It is now probably past its peak for girls, but remains a striking nature-inspired choice for boys, with a strong, surprising and energetic sound. The meaning refers to the sharp, irregular peaks of some of the Western mountains such as the Sierra Nevada.

While Skylar is currently the most popular spelling choice for girls - and the spelling seen most often - the Skyler option is more (statistically) unisex. Given to boy and girls in nearly equal numbers each year, it ranks around the middle of the US Top 1000 and is given to more than 400 boys every year.

Corwin is an upstanding surname name that has been seen occasionally as a first in literature, but rarely in real life. But maybe with the recent acceptance of Darwin, that might change.

We hesitate to call Bandit an occupational name, any more than Rogue or Vandal are occupational names, yet its use by one of the bandmembers of My Chemical Romance (for his daughter: we're not even going to go there) undoubtedly owes a debt to occupational cousins from Pilot to Parker. Recommended for use by rock stars with full-time nannies only.

Once an obscure, surname-inspired option, Payton (and Peyton) hiked up the charts back in the 90s, likely inspired by the football star Peyton Manning.

This comes from Faivish, the Yiddish form of Phoebus, the Greek sun god...and it's also the little mouse in "An American Tail."

Despite the success of so many O-starting boys names--Oliver, Owen, Otis, Oscar--Oswald has not yet shown any signs of resurrection, though he does have the animating nicknames Ozzie/Ozzy and Oz. The name has some literary cred--in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare's King Lear and a novel by H. G.Wells--and there was early cartoon character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

This version of Kaden is also a popular choice and one of the many boys' names starting with k that can also start with a C, as in Caiden, Cayden et al.. Kaiden Alenko is a character in the video game Mass Effect.

This Dutch favorite was the name of five Counts of Holland and many notable Renaissance artists, including still life painter Floris van Dijck. It is a variation of Florence, which was historically a unisex name.

A fairly common name in many Slavic countries, especially Russia – perhaps in part because it sounds close to the name of the country, although the two words are unrelated etymologically. The name Ruslan was used by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin for the hero of his epic poem Ruslan and Ludmila, based on Russian and Tatar folktales about the hero Yeruslan Lazarevich. Yeruslan or Uruslan is a Tatar name likely deriving from Turkic arslan "lion".