Boy names that start with X
X is the rarest first letter in English boys' naming, and the six names below are very nearly all of it. English has no native name-stem beginning with X; every X name in use is a loan — from Greek, where the letter is chi, from Basque, or from the pinyin romanisation of Chinese. Xavier is the only one an American is likely to meet.
The shortage is a spelling accident rather than a shortage of sounds. Old English had no use for the letter at the start of a word, so no Anglo-Saxon name begins with it, and the Norman French that reshaped English naming had none either. What arrived later came in three separate deliveries. Greek gave Xander, clipped off the end of Alexander, and Xerxes, itself a Greek attempt at a Persian royal name. Basque gave Xabier, a village in Navarre whose most famous son became St Francis Xavier — the single reason the letter has any real presence on Western birth certificates. Chinese romanisation supplies the rest, including Xiang.
The practical thing to know is that X almost never sounds like X. At the start of a name it is a Z in Greek and English (Xander, Xerxes), a sh in Basque, Catalan and Portuguese (Xabier, Xavi), and a sound between s and sh in Mandarin pinyin (Xiang). Xavier is the awkward case: ZAY-vee-er and eg-ZAY-vee-er are both established in American English, and the Basque and Spanish original is closer to sha-BYEHR. Pick one and tell people, because they will ask.
Every X name on the site
- XavierZAY-vee-erBasque
The new house. From Xabier, a village in Navarre; St Francis Xavier took his name from the castle there and carried it to India and Japan.
- XanderZAN-derGreek
Defender of men — the back half of Alexander, cut loose and standing on its own.
- Xabiershah-BYEHRBasque
The Basque original of Xavier: etxe berri, the new house. Note the sh at the front.
- XaviSHA-veeCatalan
The Catalan short form of Xavier, known worldwide because of the Barcelona midfielder Xavi Hernández.
- XerxesZURK-seezPersian
Ruling over heroes. The Greek rendering of Old Persian Khshayarsha, the king who invaded Greece in 480 BC.
- XiangSHYAHNGChinese
To soar; to circle on held wings — the character 翔. A pinyin spelling, so the X is a sh sound.