Bushranger Names for Boys

When actress Rachel Griffiths chose this highly unusual name for her son, many assumed it was a bizarre invention. But a noted Australian poet (Griffiths is an Aussie) is known by this name.

More user-friendly, though less substantial, than Bartholomew.

Often stands alone in Israel, but rarely here.

The sophisticated Edmund and its nearly-identical French twin Edmond are coming out of mothballs now that Edward, inspired by Twilight, is once again a hot name.

Henry is back. The classic Henry climbed back onto the Top 10 in the US in 2021 for the first time in over a century, and now stands at Number 8.

Every other little kid's name in 1957 but few Jameses are called Jimmy today; they're more often James or Jamie.

Joe is still the ultimate good-guy name, not at all diminished by its longevity or popularity or its everyman rep as Regular Joe, Cowboy Joe, G.I. Joe, Joe Exotic, Joe Blow, Joe Millionaire, Average Joe — and now President Joe (Biden).

John reigned as the most popular of all boys' Christian names for 400 years, from the time the first Crusaders carried it back to Britain until the 1950s. Then American baby namers finally seemed to tire of this straight-arrow, almost anonymous John Doe of names, replacing it with fancier forms like Jonathan and the imported Sean and Ian.

A predominantly male name in the US until the late 1950s, the name continued to rise for both sexes for both sexes for a further decade, before starting to decline for boys. Despite dropping out of the boys' Top 1000 in 2002, Kelly retains a rugged Irish charm.

Ned is a gently old-fashioned Nancy Drew-Bobbsey Twins-era short form for Edward that sounds cooler than Ed and is enjoying a small style renaissance.