Baby names, their meanings and histories

A name’s language of use and its derivation tell different parts of its story. Choose either or both.

Hamish to Hugo.

1. Hamish

   Boy

   Hamish comes from addressing James in Gaelic. Seumas is the Scottish Gaelic form of James. Address someone named Seumas in Gaelic and you say “a Sheumais”; Hamish is an anglicized form of Sheumais.†

   † Sheumais is a grammatical form used in direct address, not a modern nickname for Seumas.

   † Hamish belongs to James’s name family rather than having a separate word meaning of its own.

2. Harvey

   Boy

   A Breton name family. Harvey comes from an older Breton name, also found in French as Hervé.

   More than one reading. One reading is “battle-worthy.” Another joins “iron” or “battle” with “eager,” “keen” or “fiery.”†

   † The Breton elements have no single agreed interpretation.

3. Hazel

   Girl

   A name from the hazel tree. Hazel takes its name from the nut-bearing tree. The English word goes back to Old English hæsel.

4. Hugo

   Boy

   Hugo and Hugh. Hugo and Hugh belong to the same Germanic name family.

   Mind and thought. The old Germanic element behind Hugo carries the sense of “mind” or “thought.”