First names that go with Buchanan

Pick a first name and you are also picking how it will sound in front of Buchanan, which is said byoo-KA-nuhn. This page says each of the 779 commonest first names aloud in front of it and keeps the pairs that carry: no rhyme, no sound running into the sound beside it, no two stressed beats knocking together, and a difference in length between the two halves.

These fit

These stumble

Not a matter of taste — each of these trips over a specific sound, and the reason is stated.

How this is worked out

Every name here is broken into phonemes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so the comparison is made on sounds rather than spelling. Four rules do the work: a shared ending from the last stressed vowel is a rhyme; the same consonant at the join runs the two words together; two stressed single syllables leave the phrase nowhere to breathe; and equal lengths make a full name chant.

What we do not claim: that one of these names is prettier than another. Ordering the shortlist is a set of rules, not a measurement, and the reasons are printed beside each one so you can disagree with them.

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers