Aggressive Boy Names

The y helps a bit, but still a painful image.

Coined in the 1940s: an acronym of "radio detection and ranging".

Hurricane is a wild weather name. The best-known male named Hurricane is Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a middleweight boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder and immortalized by the 1975 Bob Dylan song Hurricane.

In this era of Scout and Ranger and Hunter, we suppose Trapper is an inevitability. About 30 baby boys got that somewhat frightening name in the US last year.

Rugged, rustic Wrangler evokes cowboy charm, bootcut denim, and SUVs.

Cooper would be a more engaging C-starting occupational choice.

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.

Rekker comes to us thanks to actor Cam Gigandet, who gave his son this phonetic spelling of badass word name Wrecker. Use at your own peril.

Bolt is more popular for dogs (a la the 2008 Disney movie of the same name) but debuted on the American charts as a boy name in 2023.

Bowman has a lot of winning ingredients: an occupational surname, a cool "Bo" sound, and an archery-related meaning.

Spelling it with a K doesn't do much to separate Kaliber from Caliber's violent image.

Blunt. Stick to Hunter.

Spelling it with a K doesn't do much to distance Kartel from its drug lord affiliations.

It doesn't matter if Savage is a surname on your family tree — it's a highly controversial choice for a first name with connections to racism and colonialism. Despite this, over a dozen sets of parents named their sons Savage in a recent year.

This Dutch nickname has been in use for hundreds of years in the Netherlands, and is as energetic as they come. Of course, the jokes practically write themselves.

We're seeing lots of Bad Boy Names, and Menace fits right in with brothers Rocket, Rowdy, and Wilder. Menace can work for children of any gender.

Stryker adds the trendy letter Y to Striker to join the new gang of boys' names that have two syllables, end in -er, spring from words, and have a macho meaning and image.