Demi

The French demi means half, a prefix borrowed into English for demitasse and demigod, and it slips between two etymologies when it becomes a given name: the French prefix and the Greek Demetria, from Demeter, goddess of grain and harvest. Both meanings leave traces — the name feels both lean and mythological, a half-measure that somehow contains more than a full one. It is unusual to carry both a mathematical concept and an Olympian goddess in two syllables.

Demi Moore made the name recognizable in the 1980s and early 1990s, and Demi Lovato kept it current through the 2010s, adding a pop-star intensity to a name that already had cinematic credentials. At rank 451, it holds a sleek, cropped profile on the chart, the kind of name that has never been fashionable in a loud way but has never quite disappeared either.

Two syllables, both open vowels, no hard consonants to interrupt — DEH-mee — almost French in its understatement. It pairs with the same register of names: Demi Opal, Demi Kira, Demi Nylah. The girl who gets this name tends to move through rooms without announcing herself and is remembered anyway, the one who makes the laconic observation that everyone else was circling around and couldn't quite find.