Ilan

Ilan — אילן — is the modern Hebrew word for tree, and one of the most popular boys' names in twentieth-century Israel, associated with the revival of the Hebrew language itself and the rootedness the early state longed to establish. The astronaut Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli in space, gave the name a somber weight after the Columbia disaster in 2003, but it remains in everyday use. Two syllables, both open, the l gentle between them. It has quietly entered French and American naming pools through Jewish families. Ilan feels rooted and hopeful at once, a name shaped like something that grows.