Jessie

Before it was a cowgirl's name or a Toy Story sidekick, Jessie was simply what you called someone named Jessica or Jesse when you loved them a little. The Hebrew root Yosef sits underneath both parents — he will add, or God's gift, depending on the reading — but Jessie has drifted far enough from either that it stands on its own now, light and easy in the hand.

The double s and the long ee at the end make it feel spoken rather than written, a name for screen doors and back porches, for gospel singers and small-town diners. It reads warm, slightly country, unassuming — the kind of name that works as well on a novelist as on a rodeo queen. At 808 and fully unisex, Jessie belongs to no single decade; it just keeps showing up, comfortable in its boots, happy to answer to whoever calls.