Eloise

The twelfth-century Héloïse wrote letters to Abelard that are still taught in medieval philosophy seminars: fierce, erudite, heartbreaking. Seven centuries later a small girl in a pink pinafore terrorized the Plaza Hotel in Kay Thompson's 1955 picture books, and Eloise became synonymous with rumpled glamour. The name descends through French from the Germanic Helewidis, probably meaning healthy and wide, a compound that has been elegantly rearranged by time. It has climbed fast since 2010, now ranking 64 and given to about one in 470 girls. Three syllables that swing; the kind of name you hear announced at a ballet recital and at a graduate seminar.