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Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

Original poster

Literary boy names - more unusual ?

78 replies

AlexandraCamden · 23/10/2024 12:15

Looking for unusual boys names with literary connection.

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EngineEngineNumber9 · 23/10/2024 15:18

I think it’s a shame that the fabric softener Lenor has sort of ruined the name Lenore. When I read The Raven I thought it was such a beautiful name.

Edited to add my head isn’t screwed on properly as you asked for boys’ names!

I went to uni with a boy called Dickon, after a character in The Secret Garden. It somehow suited him, and he was very cool. But I think it might be quite a cruel name to give a child now, unfortunately.

SunshineSky81 · 23/10/2024 15:17

Theodore Laurie from Little Women... you could then use the nick name teddy

FawnDrench · 23/10/2024 15:12

Ulysses
Geronimo
Hercule
Sherlock
Frodo
Bilbo
Emil
Fagin
Phileas
Gatsby
Forrest
Uriah

Sparklyhat · 23/10/2024 14:51

Dervish

LisaJohnsonsFacebookMole · 23/10/2024 14:49

Well, what have you read? No point in suggesting names if you haven't a clue who they are and what they're from. Hindley? Heathcliff? Both sweet, characterful, well-adjusted men.

Lulu1919 · 23/10/2024 14:44

Macbeth
Scout
Huckleberry

spiritgoat · 23/10/2024 14:37

Huxley
Neville
Merlin
Gideon
Felix
Uriah
Abel
Roderick
Ichabod
Romeo
Caspian

AutumnCrow · 23/10/2024 14:31

Bottom

BootballJoy · 23/10/2024 14:28

Kester from precious bane
Tertius from middlemarch
Silas from Silas Marner
Caspian from Narnia
Avery or Wilbur from Charlotte's Web
Elmer or Wilbur from Elmer the elephant
Lear from King Lear
Julius from Julius Caesar (obviously also real)
Lysander from a Midsummer night's dream

AdaColeman · 23/10/2024 14:25

Osbert
Bede
Sacheverell
Trajan
Somerset

ZoyaTheDestroyer · 23/10/2024 13:23

KnickerlessParsons · 23/10/2024 12:51

Aslan not Alan

Grin Grin Grin

pinkgown · 23/10/2024 13:08

Cumberland - in memory of the sadly-forgotten poet Cumberland Clark who immortalised Bournemouth with his masterpieces eg.

"‘For many years I’ve held a brief
For Bournemouth’s Golden Sands
Indeed A1 in my belief
Are Bournemouth’s Golden Sands
You lie on your back from ten till one,
And get well baked by the genial sun;
And then turn over when you’re done
On Bournemouth’s Golden Sands.’"

or the slightly more saucy

"‘The Canford Cliffs Hotel will do you very well.
I’ve met girls when I’ve stayed there,
and in love I always fell.
At the Branksome Tower a minx
once took me on the links:
She played with me, and holed in three,
and let me in for drinks.’"

http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2014/01/dorsets-mcgonagall-cumberland-clark/

Dorset’s McGonagall – Cumberland Clark | Dorset Life - The Dorset Magazine

http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2014/01/dorsets-mcgonagall-cumberland-clark

MerryMarys · 23/10/2024 13:02

Zimunya · 23/10/2024 12:53

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Judas

I wouldn't call these unusual Wink

MerryMarys · 23/10/2024 13:01

Quentin (Blake, the illustrator)

WayDownThere · 23/10/2024 13:01

Holden

BlueChampagne · 23/10/2024 12:59

Conrad

lifeturnsonadime · 23/10/2024 12:54

Cormoran

Arran2024 · 23/10/2024 12:53

Atticus. That's the name of the lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Zimunya · 23/10/2024 12:53

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Judas

Sethera · 23/10/2024 12:53

Fitzwilliam

Retrievemysanity · 23/10/2024 12:52

Willoughby

KnickerlessParsons · 23/10/2024 12:51

Aslan not Alan

KnickerlessParsons · 23/10/2024 12:51

Huckleberry
Albus
Draco
Atticus
Alan
Charles
Dorian
Gulliver
Heathcliff
Jude
Phineas

MistyF · 23/10/2024 12:49

Caspian
Endymion
Arthur
Gawain
Gareth
Florian
Dorian
Oberon
Amaury
Jolyon
Julian
Laurant
Lorien
Remy
Cedric
Hamelin
Maximilian
Beowulf

For me literary name means classical and specifically from literature (meaning unusual or invented or famous because it)

Notthebeard · 23/10/2024 12:44

Aramis
Lysander
Falcon
Emrys
Heathcliff
Walker

Think we need more information about what books you like? And what types of names you like. Books and therefore names that are meaningful to me probably aren’t to you!