Mythology boy names
A name only gets in here if it belongs to a named figure in a real story tradition, and each entry says which figure and which tradition — Greek, Roman, Norse, Irish, Welsh, Finnish, Armenian, Magyar, Mexica or Hindu.
- Apollouh-POL-ohGreek
Olympian god of prophecy, music, healing and plague. One of the few Greek divine names for which no derivation has ever been agreed.
- AtlasAT-lusGreek
The Titan sentenced to hold up the sky after the war with the Olympians. Hesiod's Theogony stations him at the western edge of the world.
- Orionoh-RY-unGreek
The giant hunter, killed and then set among the stars. He is already dead and still hunting when Odysseus meets him in Odyssey 11.
- HectorHEK-torGreek
Troy's best fighter and its heir, killed by Achilles in Iliad 22. The name means holding fast, which is what he does for twenty-two books.
- Ulyssesyoo-LISS-eezRoman
The Latin name of Odysseus, who spends the Odyssey failing to get home and lying entertainingly about why.
- ThorTHORNorse
The thunder god of the Eddas. Note the history: Viking-age parents built compounds on the god's name, like Thorbjorn and Torsten, rather than using it bare.
- OdinOH-dinNorse
Chief of the Aesir, who gives an eye for a drink from Mimir's well and hangs nine nights on the world tree to win the runes.
- TyrTEERNorse
The god who put his hand in the wolf Fenrir's mouth as a pledge of good faith so the others could bind him, and lost it, as everyone present knew he would.
- BalderBAHL-derNorse
Odin's shining son, killed by a mistletoe dart in the Prose Edda — the death that starts the countdown to Ragnarök.
- SigurdSIG-urdNorse
Not a god but the hero of the Völsunga saga: the dragon Fáfnir, the cursed hoard, and the plot the Nibelungenlied and Wagner both borrowed.
- FinnFINIrish
Fionn mac Cumhaill, leader of the Fianna and the centre of the Fenian Cycle. He burns his thumb on the salmon of knowledge and sucks it, which is how he gets the knowledge.
- OisínUSH-eenIrish
Fionn's son and the poet of the cycle, who spends three centuries in Tír na nÓg and crumbles the moment his foot touches Irish soil again.
- Taliesintal-YES-inWelsh
The chief bard of Welsh tradition, whose name heads the Book of Taliesin; the folk tale has him reborn out of Ceridwen's cauldron of inspiration.
- EmrysEM-rissWelsh
Myrddin Emrys, the Welsh Merlin. In Nennius he is the boy who explains the two dragons fighting under Vortigern's collapsing tower.
- DylanDIL-unWelsh
Dylan ail Don, in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, who makes straight for the sea the instant he is baptised and swims like a fish.
- ArthurAR-thurBrittonic
The king of Geoffrey of Monmouth and the French romances. Whether a real war leader stands behind the legend is still argued and still unproven.
- VäinöVY-nuhFinnish
Short for Väinämöinen, the old singer at the centre of the Kalevala, who wins his fights by out-singing the opposition.
- IlmariEEL-mah-reeFinnish
Ilmarinen, the smith of the Kalevala, who hammered out the dome of the sky and later forged the Sampo.
- TapioTAH-pee-ohFinnish
The forest god of Finnish folk poetry, addressed directly by hunters before they went out. Finland's woods are still called Tapiola in verse.
- Vahagnvah-HAHKNArmenian
The pre-Christian Armenian god of fire, thunder and dragon-slaying. The hymn describing his birth from a reed is quoted by Movses Khorenatsi and is one of the oldest scraps of Armenian verse.
- HunorHOO-norMagyar
One of the two brothers of the Hungarian origin legend, who chase a white stag eastward into new country and father the Huns and the Magyars.
- Tonatiuhtoh-nah-TYOOMexica
The Mexica sun god of the present age, the Fifth Sun; the face at the centre of the great Sun Stone is usually identified as his.
- SuryaSOOR-yahHindu
The sun and the sun god, addressed at dawn in the Gayatri and still worshipped daily. A devotional name in India, not a museum piece.
- VarunVAH-roonHindu
Varuna of the Rigveda, keeper of cosmic order and later lord of the waters. Like Surya, a god with living worshippers.
What "mythology" is doing on this page, and what it is not
The word covers two unlike things here and the difference matters. Nobody sacrifices to Odin or Zeus any more, so Norse and Greek names come with a story and no obligation. Surya and Varun are different: they name gods with living worshippers, and in India they are given devotionally, the way Aditya, Ravi and Karthik are. Using one is a religious gesture in a way that Thor is not, and it is better to know that going in than to find out later.
For the same reason there are no orisha on this page. Shango, Ogun and Obatala are not the Yoruba equivalent of Greek gods with the worship switched off — they are the objects of active devotion in Nigeria, Cuba, Brazil and across the Americas, and filing them under "myth" gets the fact wrong before it gets the taste wrong. The Yoruba names this site does carry, such as Babatunde and Kayode, are full sentences about a family's circumstances rather than divine names, and they belong on the Yoruba names page.
Where the tradition is genuinely closed, the practical question is how heavy a coat you are putting on a child. Gods sit heaviest. Scandinavians do give sons the bare names Thor, Tyr and Balder today, but that is a nineteenth-century revival rather than an old habit; the Viking Age preferred compounds like Thorbjorn and Torgny, which is a gentler route to the same thunder. Heroes wear more easily than deities — Hector, Sigurd, Finn and Evander all carry the story without making a claim about it.
Last, read to the end of the story. These traditions are not sentimental. Balder is the most beautiful of the gods and is murdered with a plant; Kullervo is the Kalevala's doomed avenger and Sibelius wrote a symphony about how badly it ends; Narciso is a byword rather than a compliment. None of that need rule a name out, but you want to have chosen it on purpose.