Javier

Javier is the Spanish form of Xavier, which comes from the Basque etxe berri — new house — the birthplace of St. Francis Xavier, the sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary who traveled as far as Japan. The name has long been a fixture across the Spanish-speaking world and has held comfortably inside the U.S. top 300 for most of the past forty years. Bardem took it to the Oscars; the Argentine poet Javier Villafañe took it to the puppet stage. Three syllables, the opening J pronounced as a soft H — ha-vee-AIR. A name with missionary stride and late-afternoon warmth.