Not Your Average Boy Names

Oslo, the capital city of Norway, makes for an intriguing new place name, especially with its bookended O's, as in Otto. One Berry has already used it and we predict others will follow.

Once too tightly tied to the aging musical clan featuring Donny and Marie, Osmond may now be able to escape that association and join the cooler group of Os and Oz names, which include Osgood, Ozias, and even Oswald.

Otto is cool again. Long a quintessential Old Man Name, Otto has been promoted to trending darling of adventurous baby namers.

Cute but cool, fresh but familiar, Ozzy was one of the fastest-rising boy names of 2021 and has continued to rise in the US and the UK ever since. While hard-core rocker Ozzy Osbourne might not be everyone's idea of a role model, his nickname name, along with others like it (think Iggy, Ziggy and Izzy) are forging their own way up the charts.

Ulysses is one of the few U boys' names anyone knows -- with heavy links to the Homeric hero, eighteenth president Grant, and the James Joyce novel -- all of which makes it both distinguished and kind of weighty for a modern boy. Ulysses was on the US popularity list well into the twenty-first century; it's off now, but Number 684 on Nameberry.

Once aristocratic British surname yet to be revived. Vince Vaughn recently gave his son the same double initials as his own when he named him Vernon Vaughn.

Though to most Americans Viggo is a one-person name attached to intense actor Mortensen, it is actually an old Norse name dating back to the Vikings, and is currently the 32nd most popular appellation in Sweden. Viggo Mortensen is a Jr., sharing his name with his Danish father.

The name of the greatest Roman poet and an early Irish saint who believed the earth was round, Virgil is heard most notably today as the name of designer Virgil Abloh of Off-White.