Boy Names That Mean Death

Names tied to death — or to the gods, angels and spirits of the underworld — have a dark, powerful beauty that has made them favourites for gothic, fantasy and Halloween-born babies. Far from morbid, they carry a sense of the profound: the mythologies of the world have always personified death with dignity and even reverence, and these names inherit that gravity. This list gathers real mythological and word names connected to death and the afterlife from cultures across the globe — the Greek Thanatos and Persephone, the Norse Hel, the Hindu Yama and Kali, the Egyptian Anubis and Osiris, and the angel of death Azrael. A rare few, like Mortimer (“still water”), carry the meaning quietly inside an ordinary name. Every meaning here is noted honestly, and the names are drawn from genuine myth and history rather than invented. Here are real baby names associated with death, each with its true meaning and origin.