![\"HBO's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/237ed6ec-63a2-4d4f-a736-33671c60c77f.jpeg\" "\\"HBO's")
Jeff Kravitz\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\nWhen it comes to baby names, what\u2019s fashionable one year can quickly fall out of favour the next, and keeping an eye on the trends often offers a glimpse into what\u2019s on parents\u2019 minds. So, what do the biggest baby names of 2026 say about modern parenthood?<\/p>\n
This year, parents are gravitating towards softer, more understated boys\u2019 names. Gentle, meaningful choices with a calm, nostalgic feel are proving especially popular, alongside vintage names making a quiet comeback. There\u2019s a move away from bold, flashy picks in favour of names that feel thoughtful, warm and timeless.<\/p>\n
At the same time, other trends are beginning to emerge too, from old-fashioned favourites returning to the playground to lyrical, vowel-heavy names rising in popularity.<\/p>\n
Parents are going old-school – like, ancient<\/p>\n
From the Percy Jackson television series on Disney+ to Christopher Nolan\u2019s upcoming take on The Odyssey, ancient civilizations are top-of-mind this year, especially Greece and Rome. Here are some names they\u2019ve seen bubbling up this year:<\/p>\n
ArathAztlanCassanderCyrilJohariLinusMahanRamsesTenoch<\/p>\n
Yazan<\/p>\n
Y2K nostalgia extends to baby names<\/p>\n
The same way y2k fashion has come back around, names that were big at the turn of this century are also seeing a resurgence and that is especially true of names made popular by 2000s boy bands. Howie, for example – as in Howie D. of The Backstreet Boys – has seen a resurgence.<\/p>\n
Jun (from K-Pop band Seventeen)<\/p>\n
Jin (from K-Pop band BTS)<\/p>\n
Lance (from N*Sync)<\/p>\n
Joey (from N*Sync,)<\/p>\n
Nick (from Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, and The Jonas Brothers)<\/p>\n
These TV series are taking over baby names<\/p>\n
The reigning binge-watching champ is The Summer I Turned Pretty with Conrad seeing the biggest surge in popularity. But that\u2019s not the only show whose popularity is trickling down into baby names. It\u2019s only going to take a minute before the two Heated Rivalry names, Shane and Ilya, start climbing the charts. In the meantime, here are the names that are already getting popular because of TV:<\/p>\n
Albie (from The White Lotus)<\/p>\n
Billy (from Stranger Things)<\/p>\n
Cassian (from Andor)<\/p>\n
Collins (from Paradise)<\/p>\n
Eddie (from Stranger Things)<\/p>\n
Kier (from Severance)<\/p>\n
Irving (from Severance)<\/p>\n
Fisher (from The Summer I Turned Pretty)<\/p>\n
Lochlan (from The White Lotus)<\/p>\n
Miller (from Adolescence)<\/p>\n
Jeff Kravitz\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The White Lotus characters offer tons of baby name inspiration, including Timothy (Jason Isaacs), Lochlan (Sam Nivola), Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), and Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger).<\/p>\n
Nature names still rule the day<\/p>\n
there has also been a rise in names that \u201cwhisper calm and connection in a screen-heavy world.\u201d This is a trend we\u2019ve seen for a while now, and possibly because nature-inspired names also sit at the intersection of other naming trends: many of them are unisex or gender-neutral, a lot of them are meaningful to parents, and they fit into the \u201csoulful names\u201d trend. Here are some that are most popular:<\/p>\n
Briar<\/p>\n
Cove<\/p>\n
Cypress<\/p>\n
Juniper<\/p>\n
Marigold<\/p>\n
Rowan<\/p>\n
Stone<\/p>\n
Vale<\/p>\n
Willow<\/p>\n
Wren<\/p>\n
These baby names are on the rise <\/p>\n
Some of these names overlap with wider trends already, Truce, Halo and Bode, for instance, fit neatly into the rise of soulful names, while Rocky taps into the growing appetite for nature-inspired choices. But there are smaller patterns emerging too. Several are alternative spellings, think Colsen instead of Colson, or Noa in place of Noah – suggesting parents are increasingly looking for ways to make familiar names feel a little more distinctive.<\/p>\n
Azaiah and Azai also hint at the growing popularity of the \u201cA-Z-A-I\u201d sound combination, while others simply feel fresh, modern and effortlessly cool, climbing the charts without the help of a celebrity baby or hit TV character. Here are the 20 boys\u2019 names rising fastest in popularity:<\/p>\n
Truce<\/p>\n
Colsen<\/p>\n
Bryer<\/p>\n
Halo<\/p>\n
Azaiah<\/p>\n
Noa<\/p>\n
Azai<\/p>\n
Eliam<\/p>\n
Kolter<\/p>\n
Eliel<\/p>\n
Zymir<\/p>\n
Rocky<\/p>\n
Evren<\/p>\n
Kace<\/p>\n
Kyaire<\/p>\n
Jettson<\/p>\n
Yeshua<\/p>\n
Heath<\/p>\n
Bode<\/p>\n
Kenai<\/p>\n
Only time will tell if they continue to climb, or if their popularity was just a flash in the pan, but either way, they get the baby-name wheels turning.<\/p>\n
Related Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to baby names, what\u2019s fashionable one year can quickly fall out of favour the next,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1105,198556,1107,93,61,60,186002,198557,1135,198555],"class_list":["post-457799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-e3cdfda1-3ddf-473b-a7f2-5751bc722989","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-issyndicated-true","tag-listen_time-250","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-the-top-boys-names-of-2026-have-retro-charm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}