Names That Are Variations

Greek variation of Joseph used in the New Testament.

The misspelling that created an indelibly one-person name.

Yennefer is the name of one of the protagists of The Witcher series, first books by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski and then a video game and now a Netflix series. Yennefer is a powerful fighter and sorceress. As a name, we don't think Yennefer is any improvement on millennial mom name Jennifer, but nickname Yen has it all over the dated Jen.

Though it makes the name more distinctive, we'd advise dropping the 'z'.

Poetic name that's terminally mournful.

This spelling gives the name favorite an Elaine spin.

Much less successful than other variations.

Written as Genève, it's the authentic name of Switzerland's capital. The English version, Geneva, is more common as a baby name in the US.

Popular in Ireland, as is the similarly difficult spelling EOGHAN, but over here, most would stick with Owen.

Like Jaxon, Jaxen is an attempt to switch things up from the more popular Jackson. News flash - Jackson is cooler.

An upbeat and accessible form of Maurice.

This cute as a button variation of Simon could easily blend with other fresh vowel-ending boys names, such as Arlo, Milo, Keanu and Elihu.

A stable classic in Turkey, consistently ranking between the Top 50 and Top 70 for boys.

This variation of Biblical Benjamin is used in Ethiopia. The name is also spelled Benyam or Biniyam.

Kaylynn follows a current trend in naming: add a -lynn or -lin suffix to a simple, single-syllable moniker. Alternate spellings include Kailyn, Cailin, and Kaylen. This variation has one too many Ys, and one too many Ns.