Are you looking for a simple, concise boy name to balance out a long or complicated surname? If so, a single-syllable name might be a smart thing to consider.

The following are one-syllable boy names that are currently popular in the United States. (The names in boldface ranked among the top 100 boy names of 2006.)

Blake, Brock, Cash, Chance, Chase,
Cruz, Dane, Drake, Finn, George,
Grant, Jack, Jake, Jax, John,
Juan, Jude, Kai, Keith, Kyle,
Lance, Luke, Paul, Quinn, Saul,
Seth, Shane, Tate, Trent, Troy

A few other single-syllable names include:

Blaine, Brooks, Bruce, Charles, Chet, Chad, Clark,
Craig, Dwayne, Earl, Floyd, Frank, Fritz, Glenn,
Guy, Hans, Heath, Hugh, Jeb, Jed, King,
Kurt, Lloyd, Lyle, Moe, Ralph, Rhett, Roch,
Ross, Royce, Todd, Van, Vance, Wade, Wayne

And here are two issues to keep in mind as you consider names like those above:

1. Many 1-syllable names sound like nicknames. (In fact, many originally were nicknames.) Boys with names like Ben, Chris, Dan, Joe, Josh, Nick, Max, Mike, Ray, Rick, Roy, Sam, Steve, Tim and Tom may frequently see/hear their names "formalized" by people who assume their names are short for something else. Continually correcting all those who automatically turn "Will" into "William" and "Drew" into "Andrew" may become tiresome.


2. One-syllable names may be short, but that doesn't mean they're all necessarily easy to spell. Traditional names (e.g. Blaise, Beau and Rhys) have spawned like-sounding variants (e.g., Blaze, Bo and Reese). Many modern names don't have clear "standard" and "variant" spellings, and therefore people are left to guess whether a name is Jace, Jayce or Jase; Zane, Zain or Zayne. Finally, nearly any C-name you could think of (e.g., Cale, Carl, Cade, Cole) has been (or could be) spelled using the letter K (e.g., Kale, Karl, Kade, Kole), and vice versa.