Farrokh

Farrokh means fortunate, auspicious, blessed at the outset — a word-name worn like a small consecration. Parents in Sasanian Persia gave it hoping the luck would hold. The most famous person to carry it in the twentieth century was Farrokh Bulsara, the Zanzibar-born schoolboy who grew up to front Queen under the stage name Freddie Mercury. It is worth knowing that the original already contained all the swagger the stage name would later need to supply.

Rendered فرخ in Persian script, the name moves in two brisk beats, the trilled r giving way to a soft aspirated finish. Common across Iran and Central Asia, vanishingly rare in English-speaking countries, Farrokh occupies the appealing position of a name that is entirely pronounceable — English speakers manage it on the first try — while sounding nothing like any name they already know. Old, auspicious, and a little theatrical by birthright, it suits a boy who will turn out to have an outsized personality, or whose parents simply liked the odds.