A thousand years ago, Henry meant 'ruler of the home' — one look at your living room says it still does

Where the name Henry comes from

Henry started life as the Germanic Heimirich — heim, meaning home, and rīhhi, meaning ruler. 'Ruler of the home' is the kind of meaning that sounds grand in a baby-name book and turns out to be plain reporting once the child can walk. The name crossed to England with the Normans as Henri, and English tongues promptly wore it down to Harry — for centuries that was simply how Henry was said out loud. When Shakespeare's soldiers cry 'God for Harry, England and Saint George!', the king they are cheering is a Henry.

Eight kings of England carried the name, which is why it never reads as an invention, and the explorers kept up the reputation: Prince Henry the Navigator sent ships down the coast of Africa without ever leaving Portugal, and Henry Hudson sailed far enough north to get both a river and an enormous bay named after him. The name's most unexpected honour, though, is scientific: the henry is the official international unit of electrical inductance, named after the American physicist Joseph Henry. Not many boys get to hear their name in a physics lesson, said with a straight face, as a unit of measurement.

After a quiet spell in the middle of the twentieth century, Henry has climbed back into the top ten boys' names in the United States and sits comfortably near the top of the charts in England — rare proof that a name can come back into fashion without ever having left good taste. It helps that nobody has to spell it twice: teachers get Henry right on the first day, and it travels without friction, recognisable from Berlin's Heinrich to Paris's Henri while staying unmistakably itself in English.

Harry, Hal, Hank — what a Henry gets called

• Harry — Not a nickname bolted on later — for centuries Harry was simply how English speakers said Henry out loud, and royal christenings still follow the pattern: more than one prince has been Henry on the certificate and Harry to the entire world. The everyday form, what he'll hear from anyone who loves him.
• Hal — The Shakespearean one — young Prince Henry was Hal to his friends. Rare today, which makes it perfect for the one grandparent or godfather who wants a form of the name nobody else uses.
• Hank — The American take, grown out of the medieval pet form Hankin. Sits naturally next to a baseball cap; in Britain it's the affectionate joke uncles reach for.
• Henners — Pure playground and family teasing — the form that appears around age six and is issued by schoolmates, not parents. Impossible to say sternly, which is rather the point.