Bo

BOH

Hear it spoken aloud with our AI pronunciation tool.

The name Bo means “to live, wave, castle.” It comes from the Norse language tradition.

A Scandinavian name derived from the Old Norse 'bua' meaning to live or dwell. In Chinese it can mean wave or precious. Used throughout Scandinavia as a standalone name, Bo has become a jaunty, friendly single-syllable choice in English-speaking countries.

Wiktionary gives more than one origin for Bo: one sense describes it as either borrowed from an unspecified modern-language word rendered simply as Bo, or as a spelling variant of the male name Beau, while a separate sense derives it from a word for dweller or long-time resident, originally a medieval byname — consistent with the to live/dwell gloss given elsewhere. The source text doesn't specify which language the first, borrowed sense comes from, so the wave or castle meanings given elsewhere aren't confirmed here. A Wikipedia article about the bō, an Okinawan martial-arts staff weapon, is an unrelated homograph and not a source for the name.

• Bo Diddley (musician)
• Bo Jackson (athlete)
• Bo Derek (actress)

Sibling names that share Bo's rhythm and register without echoing it too closely.