Maybe contemplating the name Rufus sparked my revelation.  Or it might have hit me when I encountered an Otis.  Whatever the inspiration, I suddenly realized that my most-loved boys’ names end in the letter s.  Yep, almost all of them.

　　Amias?  One of my all-time underappreciated favorites.

　　Amadeus and Miles?  Music to my ears.

　　Augustus, Octavius, Cassius, and Aurelius? Love, love, love, and love.

　　What is it about s-ending names that hold such appeal?

　　It’s true, I prefer their soft, sybillant ending to the harder –er ending that’s so popular right now for boys’ names.  Besides being more gentle, it feels a bit more surprising, intrinsically distinctive.

　　Many of my favorite classic boys’ names end in s: Thomas, James, Louis, Charles, and Nicholas.  And trendier choices of decades past, from Chris and Curtis to Dennis and Douglas to Ross and Russ to Jess and Wes, helped whet the overall appetite for s-ending names.

　　Some of the names that end in s are fairly fashionable today.  These include:

　　Atticus

　　Dallas

　　Elias (my favorite of all the male El– names)

　　Elvis

　　Gus

　　Harris

　　Jonas

　　Lucas

　　Magnus

　　Marcus

　　Moses

　　Phineas

　　Rhys

　　Silas (thanks to Weeds)

　　Travis

　　Because I’m around names all the time, I prefer those that are a little further off the beaten track.  For instance:

　　Angus

　　Bas

　　Boris

　　Caius

　　Cassius

　　Cyrus

　　Cornelius (though I would never saddle a child with it)

　　Darius

　　Davis (much prefer to David)

　　Erasmus

　　Fergus (the truth is I don’t like this, but Linda does)

　　Ignatius

　　Josias

　　Jules

　　Justus

　　Lazarus

　　Linus

　　Lucius

　　Morris

　　Osias

　　Otis

　　Perseus

　　Piers

　　Quintus

　　Romulus

　　Rufus

　　Seamus

　　Thaddeus

　　Thelonious

　　Tobias

　　Ulysses

　　Zacharias (much better than Zachary)

　　And then there are the names that don’t exactly end in s, but might as well.

　　Ace

　　Blaise

　　Boaz

　　Chase

　　Horace (I love this name, but appreciate that it would be very difficult for a child)

　　Max

　　Vince

　　Wallace

　　You get the idea.  Of course, not every s-ending name is a winner.  A few I wouldn’t recommend:

　　Beavis

　　Brutus

　　Giles (in the U.S., the pronunciation is just too confusing)

　　Hans and Lars (too Olde Worlde for me)

　　Judas

　　Mars (undeniably cool, yet….)

　　Paris (the girls really did take this one)

　　Purvis (some crazy person searched this a couple thousand times on nameberry)

　　Severus

　　Sextus

　　Zeus