So, what is so attractive about that look?
I don’t know what it’s called either, but it’s a number two setting on my husband’s beard trimmer.
Mmm…and it’s nice. So nice.
LOL… sad. I’m literally old enough to be his mama. He’ll be 31 in November, I’ll be 51 in June. Don’t hurt none to look, tho… 
He’s just a genuinely nice, sweet guy. I thouhgt he was very cute when he was on Idol, but after I met him and got to know him a little, looks became secondary. Honest. I just enjoy him for who he is, but still do find his looks dazzling.
Interesting fact I didn’t know.
A beard without sideburns and without moustache is a goatee.
A similar beard with moustache is a van dyke.
I think these definitions are going to shift, if they haven’t already, to what people think they mean, rather than what they historically mean.
I agree. I always thought the van dyke was just a stodgy old name for a goatee. I also associeated it with that guy on Mary Poppins, but that’s neither here nor there.
I’ve always heard what we commonly call a “goatee” these days (not the true definition of only chin hair) is also called a “circle beard”.
At least, around these parts.
Also, I believe a true Van Dyke has separation between the mustache and the goatee.
To the OP, the last picture that you mention enjoying, could it be the fact that it is Andy Whitfield, and not so much about the beard?
I am a dude, but that man is freakin handsome.
Hopefully he will whip that cancer crap in the ass and get back to acting.
Now that’s interesting. A goatee being only a tuft of chin hair makes a lot more sense. Goats have a tuft of chin hair. On the other hand, I always imagined a Van Dyke as being pointed, and maybe with the separation between chin-beard and moustache that Inthewater mentioned. Which leaves the common style these days, Inthewater’s ‘circle beard’, as something else.
I think I’ll start calling them ‘circle beards’. 
Well, according to Calvin, it’s the “Don Johnson fuzzy look.”
So long as it’s not that nasty chin-strap, jawline only Sharpie-looking garbage. Honestly, why don’t you just draw on your face and save your follicles the effort? Same goes for those stripper-thin eyebrows, ladies.
Who-da-hadda?
A circle beard is what most “beard affectionados” will call what most people these days just call a “goatee”.
Grow a full beard, then chop off the cheek hair. Leaving a “circle of beard” afterwards.
Not sure what you are talking about, but definitely NOT what we are talking about.
Sounds like over grooming to me.
This is what most people I know call a “goatee”.
This is actually what a goatee is supposed to be.
I think I heard somebody call it “a George Michael”, once.
When I sported it, I did have the separation, so you may be right. But I’m not 100% certain on that distinction.
The pointiness is where people get confused, I think, because that’s how the painter Van Dyck styled his, but I am pretty sure that’s not actually required to call it a Van Dyke.
Those range from ‘designer stubble’ to light beards