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, meaning beloved, it has been worn by a king of Israel (the second one, who succeeded Saul and unified the twelve tribes around Jerusalem in roughly the tenth century B.C.), two patron saints (Saint David of Wales, the sixth-century monk who founded a dozen monasteries; Saint David I of Scotland), a Renaissance giant carved in Florentine marble (Michelangelo's seventeen-foot, four-ton David, completed in 1504, became the symbol of the Florentine Republic), and untold millions of ordinary men.

The biblical David's range is remarkable: he is poet, warrior, fugitive, father, king, sinner, and repentant — perhaps the most fully human figure in the Hebrew Bible, the one God calls a man after his own heart even after the Bathsheba incident. American Davids include David Bowie, David Lynch, David Bowie, David Foster Wallace, David Sedaris, David Letterman, and four U.S. vice presidents.

The name has held the SSA top 30 for the entire modern charting era, currently at rank thirty-one — like William and James, a structural constant. Two syllables, deeply unshowy — DAY-vid — and quietly universal across languages: Davide in Italian, Davíd in Hebrew, Daud in Arabic, Tavid in Aramaic. Pairs cleanly with everything (David James, David Henry, David Wren). Nicknames are warm and various: Dave, Davey, Davy, Dai (the Welsh). Vintage in the best sense: a name that simply is, like oak, like bread, like water.