Boy names that mean brave
Bravery is the one virtue almost every naming tradition put into words of its own, so this list runs from a Greek adjective the apostles carried to a Vietnamese character still written 勇. Every name below is brave in its own language, not in a translator's.
- AndrewAN-drooGreek
Manly, brave, from andreios. The apostle's name, and the plainest brave name English has.
- Andrésahn-DRESSSpanish
The same andreios, courage and manhood in one word, with the stress moved to the end.
- AndersAHN-dursSwedish
Scandinavia wore Andreas down to two syllables and kept the meaning: manly, brave.
- Andreiahn-DRAYRussian
Andreas as the Byzantine church delivered it — courageous, from anēr, a man.
- ConradKON-radGerman
Bold counsel, from kuoni (bold) + rāt (advice). The nerve to say the hard thing.
- EverettEV-uh-ritEnglish
Wild boar plus hard: brave and hardy, through the Germanic name Eberhard.
- WyattWY-utEnglish
Old English wīg (battle) + heard (hardy, brave). Currently #38 in the U.S.
- Beñatbeh-NYAHTBasque
Bear-brave. The northern Basque handling of Germanic Bernhard, and none the softer for it.
- UrhoOOR-hohFinnish
A hero, a brave man — an ordinary Finnish noun. The adjective urhea means brave.
- Yiğityee-EETTurkish
A young man and a brave one at once; Turkish never separated the two senses.
- AlpAHLPTurkish
Hero, brave one. In Old Turkic a rank of conduct earned in the field, not a compliment.
- KoaKOH-ahHawaiian
Brave, bold, fearless — and the great Acacia koa, the tree the canoes were cut from.
- DikeDEE-kehIgbo
Di- (master of) + ike (strength): a champion, a brave man, a hero.
- Akintundeah-keen-TOON-dehYoruba
"The brave one has come again" — akin (hero) with tún dé, to arrive once more.
- Jabarijah-BAH-reeSwahili
Mighty, valiant, from Arabic jabbār. The root also gives algebra its name.
- DungZOONGVietnamese
Written Dũng: bravery, courage, nerve. The character 勇 sets strength under a phonetic.
- YongYOHNGChinese
勇, brave and courageous — 力, strength, sitting underneath. Korean families use it too.
- TakeshiTAH-keh-sheeJapanese
From the classical adjective takeshi: brave, fierce, mighty. One character, no hedging.
- VeerVEERHindi
Hero, brave man, from Sanskrit vīra — the same ancient word as Latin vir.
- Vikramvik-RUMSanskrit
Valour, and literally a stride: vi- plus the root kram, to step forward.
- Rostamross-TAMPersian
The Shahnameh's champion. The second element is Old Iranian taxma-, strong or brave.
Three ways a name says brave
The oldest and busiest route is brave as manhood. Greek andreios built courage out of the word for a man, and the family it founded — Andrew, Andrés, Anders, Andrei — has outlasted every rival in Europe. Brave as hardness is the Germanic answer: pair something dangerous with the element hard and you get Everett (a boar), Beñat (a bear), Wyatt (a battle). Conrad belongs here too, though its bravery is verbal rather than physical.
The third group is the most direct and the least familiar to English speakers: brave as ordinary vocabulary. Alp, Koa, Urho, Dung, Yong and Takeshi are not compounds and not metaphors — they are the everyday word a Turkish, Hawaiian, Finnish, Vietnamese, Chinese or Japanese speaker uses for a brave person, handed over unchanged. If you want the meaning to be legible to the people who share the language, that is the shortest road. Neighbouring lists: strong, fearless, warrior.