Charlotte

The name arrived in English courts in the seventeenth century on the arm of a queen, and it has never quite left. Charlotte is the French feminine of Charles, descending from a Germanic root meaning free; older dictionaries sometimes gloss it as "petite," which feels charmingly wrong for a name with this much spine. Princess Charlotte of Cambridge sent it rocketing up the American charts in 2015, and it has lived near the top ever since. Two syllables, a soft landing on the silent t, the faint rustle of old letters. Literary without trying — think Brontë, think Web — and somehow both regal and down-to-earth.