Hollis

Hollis descends from the Old English holegn, meaning the holly tree, and once described simply the person who lived beside the hollies. It's been a New England surname for generations, arrived as a given name by the mid-twentieth century, and has since drifted into full unisex use, sitting at 1053. The word itself carries winter connotations — dark waxy leaves, red berries against snow — which gives the name a bracing crispness that sticks.

Two syllables, a soft opening H and a barely-sounded final s, Hollis reads like a name found on a novel's spine: familiar before you've met anyone wearing it, specific once you have. It has a mid-century librarian quality alongside its outdoor greenery — equal parts reading chair and woodstove, tweed coat and cold air. Wintery, learned, quietly self-sufficient, it pairs well with surnames of two syllables or more.