David

A shepherd boy with a sling, a harp played in a king's tent, a psalm composed while fleeing through the wilderness — David is a whole biography before it's a name. From the Hebrew dod, "beloved," it has been worn by a king of Israel, two saints of Wales and Scotland, a Renaissance giant carved in Florentine marble, and untold millions of ordinary men. Two syllables, deeply unshowy, and quietly universal across languages. David sits at rank 31 in the United States, a perennial presence that refuses to trend. Vintage in the best sense: a name that simply is, like oak, like bread, like water.