Boy names that mean hunter
Hunter is an English theme, and this page is short and English-heavy because that is the truth of it. Most languages never handed out a personal name meaning hunter; England handed out several, because it turned trades into surnames and then surnames into first names. Eight names qualify, including one that is on every other hunter list for the wrong reason.
- HunterHUN-terEnglish
One who hunts, from Old English hunta. The occupational surname turned first name, and the only entry here that says it without a detour.
- ChaseCHAYSSEnglish
Huntsman, from Old French chacier, to hunt. A second line gives it to men who lived beside a chase, an unenclosed tract kept for hunting.
- ArcherAR-churEnglish
Bowman, from Latin arcus, a bow, by way of Old French. In medieval England the same man hunted and fought.
- FletcherFLECH-urEnglish
Arrow-maker, from Old French flèche, an arrow. The trade that supplied everybody else on this list.
- WarrenWOR-inEnglish
From Old French warenne, a game park — the enclosed ground where hunting was legal, and the family that kept it.
- ParkerPAR-kurEnglish
The keeper of a park: the man responsible for the pale, the ditch and the deer inside them.
- IvorEYE-vorNorse
Traditionally yew warrior or archer, from ýr — the yew, and so the bow cut from it — plus a word for warrior.
- Orionoh-RY-unGreek
The giant hunter of Greek myth, and a genuinely uncertain word. The hunting comes from the story, not from the etymology; scholars treat the name as pre-Greek.
The trade, the tools, and the myth
The trade names. Hunter, Chase, Warren and Parker all come out of the same medieval English landscape: a hunta who hunted, a chace to hunt in, a warenne where game was kept, and a parker who kept the deer inside the pale. Every one of them is a job before it is a compliment, which is exactly why they transplanted so easily into American first-name use — they sound like character without claiming any.
The tool names. Archer and Fletcher are the bow and the arrow. Ivor is the same idea from the north: ýr is the yew, the wood a bow is made of, and the name is traditionally read as archer or yew warrior. If Hunter feels too literal, this is the softer route to the same picture.
The near-misses. Orion is on the list, but with a warning attached: he was the hunter of myth, and the word Ōriōn has no accepted derivation at all. Three more names get called hunter names and are not. Finnish Tapio is the forest god that Finnish hunters actually prayed to, but the name means the woods. Hungarian Hunor belongs to the stag-hunt legend the Magyars traced themselves from, and was coined to stand for Hun. Arabic Faris is a horseman and a knight, not a hunter. Good names, wrong page — and the meanings index is where they belong.