Everly

Everly is a twenty-first-century invention with older bones. The surname belonged to an English place meaning wild boar meadow, then to the Everly Brothers harmonizing their way through the late 1950s. As a given name for girls it barely existed before 2012, when Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan chose it for their daughter and the charts tilted overnight. It has since climbed into the top 85, one of the defining names of the decade. The three-syllable lilt of it, soft consonants bracketed by long vowels, captures exactly the sound American parents have been reaching for: feminine, melodic, slightly countrified, and unmistakably now.