Hildegard

Hildegard gathers two Germanic elements—hild, "battle," and gard, "enclosure" or "protection"—into a name that sounds like a fortress on a green hill. Its most luminous bearer, Hildegard of Bingen, was a twelfth-century abbess who wrote visionary theology, composed soaring plainchant, and studied medicinal plants by candlelight; her music is still recorded today. Three solid syllables, stress on the first, the whole name ending in a small click of earth. Outside German-speaking countries it's now vanishingly rare, which makes it feel less dated than quietly radical. Hildegard belongs to a child who will read widely and speak carefully.