One syllable names are great things. They can be cute and spunky. They can be simple and lovely on girls, or abrupt and strong on boys. As first names, they can balance out a long, complicated surname. Or as middle names they have help tone down a long or "frilly" first name, and often they help to create that highly desired "flow" between a first name and a surname. And they're perfect for parent hoping to head off undesirable nicknames.
If you're after a one syllable name, a great resource is the e-book '1-Syllable Baby Names', written by Nancy Mann and available at Nancy's Baby Names. In it she outlines the 100 most popular one syllable baby names (for girls and boys) in America in 2011. I was reading through it the other day when I was struck by how many of these names contain an "AY" sound. I shouldn't really be surprised, because when I think about it most of my own favourite one syllable names contain this sound, such as Paige, Sage and Dane. Even my husband's name falls into this category. I like the sound of these names, so I can understand why so many others do too.
So listed here are the names that meet this criteria that appeared in the top 1000 last year, as per Nancy's book. I've changed the order slightly to include various spellings of the same name as one entry. Where a name does have various spelling, they are written in order of popularity.
GIRLS BOYS
Grace/Grayce James
Faith/Fayth Chase
Jade/Jayde/Jaide Jace/Jayce/Jase
Paige Blake
Kate/Cate Jake
Jane/Jayne Gage
Sage/Saige Lane/Layne
Rayne/Rain/Raine/Reign Shane
Maeve Drake
Mae/May/Mai Zane
Shea/Shay/Shae Cade/Kade
Blake Frank
Layne/Laine/Lane Trey
Faye Tate
Chase Jay
Rae Kane
Wade
Ace
Blaine
Trace
Kale
Case
Dane
At this point there are a couple of observations I'd like to make. Firstly, only three names on this list were used for both girls and boys - Chase, Blake and Lane. In all three cases, more males were given the name than females were.
the next is that there were fewer girls names, but they varied the most, as almost all names were used with more than one spelling. Comparatively, only three of the boys names had more than one spelling, and only one name - Blaine - used the "ai" combination that is so popular with the girls. Do we see "ai" as more feminine? Are we more open to experimenting with our girls names than boys names? And for those who think there are more "good" girls names than boys, it seems this would be one category where that is not the case, judging from the length of the boys list.
If this has whet your appetite, but you prefer names that are a little less commonly used, then here are some more for you to think about:
Babe Haig Pace Thane
Bay/Bai Hale Payne/Paine Trail
Blaise Haze Praise Twain
Craig Kane Quade/Quaid Vale
Dale Kay Rafe Wales
Day Lake Slade Wray
Flame Mace Slate Yale
Gale/Gail Maine Swain Zade/Zaid/Zayd
Gray/Grey Nate Taye/Tay Zale
Ooh, nice sound.
ReplyDeleteLove Maeve, Blake, James, Zane, Blaise, Rafe and Zayd.
Another one for boys is Blade, and a unisex one I've seen is Shade. Oh I've also seen Suede on a boy, but maybe that's unisex as well.
I haven't heard of Suede as a name before, but I like it!
ReplyDeleteI've seen Shade - but spelt as Chade - as a character in a Robin Hobb series called 'The Assassins Apprentice'. That would be an interesting one to see used.
Never thought of Chade before - I also saw a baby girl in the Bonds Baby Search called Swai (a type of fish).
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