UK Boy Names

To honor Roy's son...or grandson.

Another stiff northerly choice.

Writer Anne Tyler gave this apt name to the hippie child in her novel Amateur Marriage, but she wasn't the first -- it was also used by the Puritans. Today it would be quite a loaded choice.

One place-name that doesn't make the cut as a person name, associated with several commercial enterprises. We've seen it used by Chicago Cubs fans — Sheffield is the name of a major street bordering Wrigley Field.

One occupational name unlikely to find a single taker.

A new entry is the fashionable new occupational name category -- and a jolly job it must be -- with the added attraction of relating to the great early 20th century American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler, of "Whistler's Mother" fame.

Brock plus.

A jolly, bawdy image that recalls the hero of the eighteenth-century novel Tristram Shandy; also a drink in British pubs.

Unless it was your grandmother's maiden name, and you're using it in the middle place, we don't think so. Could be confused with Hazelden, a leading rehab facility.

Surname choice that could be used to honor the playwright Lanford Wilson.

The surname of the influential early Scottish inventor of logarithms could make an inspiring middle name choice for a mathematically inclined family.

Here too lies the danger of entitlement.

Other occupational names would be more commonly accepted, though the Mad Men character has certainly brought it to the fore.

Lively, friendly surname that might appeal to basketball fans.

Wrecker is a new entry to the newly trendy group of badass baby names -- names mostly for boys that sound wild (or Wilder) and summon the kind of kid that races around (Racer), breaking things (Breaker), and yeah, why not, being a Wrecker while he's at it. Actor Cam Gigandet introduced this one, with a more phonetic spelling, when he named his son Rekker.

Has a fresh occupational name feel, combined with old-fashioned Currier & Ives charm.

Sounds like a Hobbit.

Long-used surname name that's up for promotion to greater popularity.