Names That Mean Small, Little, or Tiny

The name of the great French novelist, author of the timeless The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, would make a surprising middle name choice.

If you want a truly unusual name with authentic roots, this one certainly fits on both counts. Pronunciation may prove a stumbling block, however.

This familiar but never popular Welsh surname name might be a good Sean alternative-- and we're starting to hear some berrybuzz about it. Vaughn is an alternate spelling.

Spelled with one 'n', this was the name of the wife of Alexander the Great, and is more attractive than the better-known Roxanne.

Despite Eneko's very sweet meaning, it packs a lot of historical punch. Eneko Aritza was the first Basque king of Pamplona. It is somewhat related to the more well known Inigo.

Your little Pasha will rule the roost. In Russia, Pasha is traditionally given to a boy born on Good Friday.

Pavel may be widespread in the former Soviet Union, but it has a somewhat impoverished image here.

Rilla dropped out of the US Top 1000 in 1915, but it's starting to feel like an intriguing possibility again in this age of short, sweet, a-ending names for girls. It is traditionally a short form for names ending in -rilla, like Marilla from the Anne of Green Gables books (Anne's youngest daughter is Bertha Marilla, called Rilla for short). Rilla may also derive from the German word Rille, meaning "brook; stream".

More stylish than either Paula or Pauline, it was given a glamour gloss by model Paulina Porizkova in the nineties.

This Indonesian name meaning little goddess is also common in the Netherlands due to the old colonial relationship between the two countries.

Spelled Géza in Hungarian, this is the modern form of Gyeücsa. It derives from a Hungarian noble title: gyeü, with a diminutive suffix. This was the name of a 10th-century leader of the Hungarians, father of the first king István.

Fiorello is one of the few floral names that works well for a boy. The colorful three-term World War II New York Mayor La Guardia made this one famous -- in fact he was nicknamed "the Little Flower". His life was the basis for the 1959 musical called, appropriately, "Fiorello!"

Long popular in Ireland and England, Ciarán is the name of Ireland's first-born saint and twenty-five other saints. While this is the authentic Irish spelling, it is more familiar in the US in the Anglicized Kieran spelling.

An Irish surname name with a combination of boldness and élan. Some might connect it to the founder of the group T. Rex -- Marc Bolan.

If Liv can stand on it's own, why not Miv?

A possible new entry in the Hayden-Corbin two-syllable boys' name club.

An old Irish surname cousin of Tierney that makes an unusual and appealing Irish gender switch.

A very common name in Catalonia, in the northeast of Spain, in no small part because it translates as "peace" in the Catalan tongue. Alec and HIlaria Baldwin used it as one of the middle names for their son Eduardo.

A name made most famous by the operetta The Merry Widow which features "The Vilja's Song". A vila is a woodland spirit or fairy in Slavic mythology. Vilja also means "grain" in Finnish and "will, intent" in Swedish, and is very popular as a girls' name in Scandinavia, ranking in the Top 100 in both Finland and Norway.

A little further down the road paved by Aidan and Logan.