Boy names that mean night
Short by necessity. Four names on this list mean the night itself — the rest mean dark, which is as close as most languages get for a boy. The famous night names, Layla and Leila among them, are girls' names, and no amount of wishing turns them into anything else.
- Ayazah-YAHZTurkish
A clear frosty night — not cold in general, but the dry star-sharp cold under an open sky.
- Samirsah-MEERArabic
The one you talk with by night, from samar, conversation after dark.
- TariqTAH-rikArabic
The night visitor, one who knocks after dark — and, in Surah 86, the star that does it.
- TarekTAH-rekArabic
The Egyptian spelling of the same word: one who comes by night.
- Sevakseh-VAHKArmenian
Dark-eyed, from sev (black) with the element ak, eye.
- KieranKEER-unIrish
Little dark one — Old Irish ciar (dark, black) plus the diminutive -án.
- DonovanDON-uh-vunIrish
Dark brown: donn (brown) + dubh (black) + -án.
- DouglasDUG-lusScottish
Dark stream, from dubh (black) + glas (blue-green water). A river before it was a clan.
- GethinGETH-inWelsh
Dusky, swarthy, dark-complexioned; Welsh dictionaries also record “fierce”.
- Siavashsee-ah-VASHPersian
He of the black stallion: syava (dark) + arshan (stallion).
- ColeKOHLEnglish
Traditionally Old English col, coal, for a dark-haired man; a pet form of Nicholas is the rival reading.
- BlakeBLAYKEnglish
From Old English blæc, black — though the identical surname can equally descend from blāc, pale.
- MauriceMOR-issLatin
Moorish, and by extension dark-skinned, from Maurus, an inhabitant of Roman North Africa.
- Mauriciomow-REE-syohSpanish
The same adjective in Spanish, from the province of Mauretania.
- SullivanSUL-ih-vunIrish
Súil means eye and is certain; the second element is not, and the traditional reading is dark-eyed.
- BrunoBROO-nohGerman
Brown, of hair or complexion — the plainest of the dark-colouring names.
The night itself, and the long list of dark ones
Four true night names. Turkish Ayaz is the most precise word here: not cold, but the dry, still, star-sharp cold of a cloudless night. Arabic gives the other three. Samir is the person you stay up talking to, from samar, conversation after dark; Tariq and its Egyptian spelling Tarek mean the one who knocks after dark, because a caller who needs to knock is a caller who came at night.
The dark-colouring names. Gaelic is full of them, because early Irish and Scottish bynames described people by hair and complexion and those bynames became surnames and then first names. Ciar gives Kieran, dubh gives Donovan and Douglas, and Sullivan is traditionally read as dark-eyed. Welsh Gethin and Armenian Sevak do the same job in their own languages, and Bruno is simply brown.
Two entries deserve a second glance before you commit. Blake is the great English coin-flip: Old English blæc (black) and blāc (pale) fell together in Middle English, and the surname can descend from either, so Blake means dark or its exact opposite depending on an ancestor nobody can identify. Cole has a milder version of the same problem, with a Nicholas pet form competing against the coal. For the light on the other side of the night, see moon and star.