One Syllable Middle Names for Boys

A lot of attention was drawn to this name when Kim Kardashian and Kanye West announced it as the name of their baby daughter, making it instantly unisex.

Brisk, preppy York is an underused classic with the potential to really shine in the 21st century. It's most familiar as a place name — York is a city in England — and surname. New York City and State were named after the Duke of York.

Zayd (or its most common variant Zaid), an old and still well used Arabic name, was a enslaved man whom Muhammad adopted as his son.

Hyde, of course, is most familiar as a surname -- as in Mr. Hyde, evil alter ego of Dr. Jeckyll. Unless Hyde is a family name or you have some other excellent reason for using it, we think you could do better.

The sidekick in almost every movie or TV show with an Italo-American setting.

Poetic and easier to pronounce (it's keets) than Yeats (which is yates). This one of many poets' names to consider, such as Auden, Eliot, Frost, Byron, Lorca, Marlowe, Blake, Emerson and Tennyson, which was used by Russell Crowe.

Until recently, Vernon and its short form Vern seemed like grandpa names not ready for revival, but now we can see it happening. Never the popular, Vern works particularly well as a middle name.

Might suggest speed, excitement, even danger, were it not for its best-known bearer, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.

Knight (as opposed to Night) is a name clad in shiny armor. This high-ranking word name was introduced by singers Kelis and Nas. Knight might join brothers King, Royal, and Noble in a new definition of royal baby names.

A name that looks intriguing and masculine on paper, but is, unfortunately, a homonym for a girl's name.

Laird is a Scottish title for the landed gentry – it ranks just below a Baron – with a pleasantly distinctive Scottish burr that must have appealed to Sharon Stone, who chose it for her son.

Old-school nickname with serious charm.

With the current taste for last names first, this sounds a lot cooler than Shawn; it also has creative connections to the great Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, novelist Irwin Shaw, and Big Band Era clarinetist/bandleader and one-time Ava Gardner husband Artie Shaw.

Many African tribes have a tradition of naming children for the day or time they were born -- Friday, Afternoon -- a practice finding new life in the Western world as word names become more popular.

An appellation that couldn't be more Ivy League or sound less Welsh. The name of the University is taken from the surname of college benefactor Elihu Yale. In the movie Manhattan, Yale Pollack is the name of Woody Allen's best friend. The Hebrew Yael is not related.

This might be a better choice than the similarly pronounced Jan, to avoid gender confusion.

This snappy nickname may remind some of the 1985 Chevy Chase movie of the same name.

When Kate Hudson named her second son Bingham and announced that she would be calling him Bing, it put this zingy nickname name out on the table. Before that, there was only one, further nicknamed Der Bingle -- and he was really Harry Lillis Crosby.

One of the most familiar Vietnamese names, yet still hard on the Western tongue.