Six Letter Boy Names

An increasingly popular spelling of Carson, Karson feels at home with Kayden, Kieran, and Kai. While the Carson spelling sits just outside the Top 100 and is used three times more often, Karson is still given to around 980 babies each year.

A word name that has sailed onto birth certificates of both genders, especially since Liv Tyler used it for her son. For boys, Saylor and Sailor are used about equally, but were together given to about 100 baby boys last year....and 1000 baby girls.

Another bad boy occupational name, joining Bandit, Rogue, and Gunner. The Vandals were a tribe that swept through Europe and North Africa in the sixth century and sacked Rome. Their name is thought to spring from the Germanic word for wandering, but has come to mean senseless destruction. We really don't want to sit in on your parent-teacher conferences.

Buford has lost any charm it once had. Try Beauford instead.

Branch is an attractive name with associations both with trees and with branching out into brave new worlds. Baseball's Branch (born Wesley, with Branch as his middle name) Rickey broke the color barrier by hiring Jackie Robinson for the Dodgers. Like Leaf, Branch makes a nice, not-so-obvious, addition to the tree category.

While teasing about names is not as bad as it once was, the possibilities presented by this name would be difficult for any pubescent boy to resist.

For the parent who might also have Buck and Ryder on his list.

This spelling of Bennett is typically seen as a surname, but gets moderate use as a first name for baby boys and girls.

The Hawaiian variant Iakona modernizes Biblical favorite Jason.

Fenton is the kind of surname name that's starting to sound almost like a normal first name these days. While it made a brief appearance on the Top 1000 in the late 1800s, today it's distinctive but in step with the times. And Fen as a nickname is undeniably cute -- a Ben of the future.

The name of one of the Three Wise Men from the East is heard in several European countries, but rarely here.

Adonai is a title meaning "my lords" used in the Torah and in Jewish prayer to refer to God, whose name is forbidden to be spoken. Even the title Adonai is considered by some Orthodox Jews to be too holy to say outside of prayer, being replaced by HaShem, meaning "The Name". This makes Adonai a highly culturally loaded choice, which is never used as a name in the Jewish community. Nevertheless, several dozen boys and a handful of girls receive this name each year in the US.

Frisco is a frisky, roguish semi-place-name (San Francisco natives never call it that) that could make a lively, unusual o-ending choice.

GÖKTUĞ is a Turkish air-to-air missile development program, from gök, "sky", and tuğ, "banner". Göktuğ has been co-opted as a baby name in Turkey, mostly among those with ties to the Air Force, and is now one of the most popular baby boy names there.

These days Finney is most likely a pet form of Finn, but it was once a standard nickname for the biblical Phineas.

A variant of Caelan, from a Gaelic name meaning "slender".

Western place-name that feels equally appropriate for both genders. Note: Natives say rhyme that second syllable with had, so it's not nehv-AH-da.