A friend of a friend named his kid Orion, and I thought it was a lovely geek name wasted on a kid destined to grow up as white trash.
Hunter
I like Atticus, too, and it would go well with Athena if they ever have a girl. Plus, hey, literary reference!
Mythological names, seems to like Greek…Jason?
Another vote for Declan, just because it sounds good.
Curse you, Sampiro! This was my suggestion!
Howzabout Tiberius Spock
Marduk
Hastur
Jotunn
Visgoth
Tannin
Ixion
Sandarach
Eldric
Fingol
D’Jinn (I know Djinn is pronounced “jin” but with the apostraphe you can call him “dee-jin”)!
Oliver
Stuart
Marcus
Ian
Andrew
Gareth
Damien. Bullies shy away from picking on Damiens, for some reason.
Our son is called Esper. The name is rare, but not unheard of, and it does come from an official name book. (Norse for “holy bear”)
Agamemnon is nice.
It’s scary how much your taste in names is like mine. I also hate “last-name-as-first-name”, & dislike “common as dirt.” I’m OK with monosyllabic, but longer names can have a good rhythm. And I have occasionally considered using “Kestrel” as a username or something.
I like Apollos (both Biblical & works as “American-historical”–Paul Revere’s father was a French immigrant named Apollos Revoire).
Old Testament names I’m not quite willing to give my kids: I used to like Mordecai & Baruch, but they seem a little too Jewish to me now. I know too many Nathans, Ehud & Ari are a bit stereotypically Israeli, & there’s probably a minor Barack explosion in progess. How do you feel about Elisha, Elijah, or something like Zebulon? (Not my thing, maybe **Zebedee **instead.
Names of the British Isles: Allan is nice despite having three standard spellings (!). Gawain looks nice, hard to say. Tristram is OK. Robin could be reclaimed for the male sex. I have a strange fondness for the etymologically mysterious Gilbert (servant of Bert?). Harold maybe? Can we name kids Ernest now that Jim Varney has faded away, or is it too soon? Maybe Vernon would be better. Of course there’s Alistaire.
Oh! bird names! Drake & Jay are out, too short.
European names: I like Roland. Louis is a nice name with an ugly history (and the variant Aloysius will always be mispronounced). Some form of Julian, maybe? Or Frederic? I love the name Benedict but you should perhaps call him **Bennett **or Ben. Also Bertram, some form of Milo/Emil/Milos/Milian, or something.
Sorry, not meaning to neglect the thread - I am reading and getting lots of good ideas! But sudden death in the family means no time to respond. Keep it going!
Milo
Asher
Appears to be a form of Muhammad.
Ixnay on alternative/easy to confuse spellings…Tristan? Tristam? Alan? Allan? Ga-who now?
–Gwendolen, that’s G-w-e-n-d-o-l-E-n
OK, I second **Cormac **& Oliver.
How about Fandral? Oh, wait, too obscure.
Galen (or Galan for the Pictish sound-alike) & Ajax are cute & not too off-the-wall I hope.
More Greek names: Nicholas, Philo, Corin.
I’m not recommending Peter because it’s too ordinary, & I’m not recommending Philip or Stephen because 70% of those he meets will misspell either of those, & if that’s going to happen you may as well have a more distinctive name. You can still use one of those if you like, I’m just warning you. Oh, crap, they’ll think Corin is Colin, too. And spell it Collin. Or Collins. Oh, do what you want.
Well that’s the problem with names. There are a lot out there that have a standard spelling (e.g. Michael/Mike, Patrick, etc) but there are many many names (see Allan, above) that have multiple standard spellings. My friend Marc at least can get away with the fairly easy “Marc with a c” but I have to spell my name out no matter what, despite it being a very common standard spelling (Laurie).
And then people like to get in arguments with me that my name should be pronounced Law-ree instead of Lor-ee.
Tell them, “like the boy in Little Women.”
Wait, maybe that would only work on me.