By Pamela Redmond Satran

　　If you look below the Top 1000 baby names on the US popularity list, you’ll find an awful lot of word names for boys inching up toward visibility. These are mostly names that didn’t exist a decade ago, but now the fashion for word names — nature names and inspirational names and tough-guy names and just regular word names — is inspiring parents to consider them more seriously.

　　You may be interested in finding a new and unique name for your son that is also easy to understand, pronounce, and spell. Or perhaps one of these word names has a special meaning for you — Arrow if you’re an archer, say, or Pike for a fishing enthusiast.

　　Or maybe you’re just curious about the really unusual names some parents are choosing these days. The hot new word names for boys include:

　　[column1]

　　Arrow

　　Banner

　　Brace

　　Burr

　　Canyon

　　Cord

　　Cross

　　Cruise

　　Dov

　　Everest

　　Forest

　　Gable

　　Gambit

　　Hawk

　　Hopper

　　Journey

　　Noble

　　Pace

　　[/column1]

　　[column2]

　　Pike

　　Price

　　Quest

　　Rainer

　　Ransom

　　Reason

　　Rein

　　Ridge

　　Rocker

　　Rune

　　Sailor

　　Steel

　　Timber

　　Trip

　　Truth

　　West

　　Wilder

　　Zenith

　　[/column2]