Johnny

There is a particular American energy that the -ny ending gives to names, a loosening of collar, a suggestion that the door is always open. Johnny is the roadhouse version of John, which descends from the Hebrew Yochanan — God is gracious — through centuries of Latin and English until it arrived in American mouths as the name of seemingly every barber, diner owner, and guitar player west of the Mississippi. The diminutive form has its own complete identity now, not a nickname but the name itself.

Johnny Cash turned it into a whole mythology — dark suits, prison concerts, a voice that sounded like the bottom of a river. Johnny Depp made it cinematic and slightly piratical. At rank 458, Johnny has returned in earnest after a long mid-century period when parents preferred John to its shortened form, and it is back now among parents who want the warmth without the formality, the grace without the cathedral ceiling.

Two syllables, the first punchy and hard, the second bright and open — JON-ee — a name that sounds like someone calling from across the yard. It pairs naturally with names that share its classic American register: Johnny Edgar, Johnny Tyson, Johnny Damon. The boy who gets this name tends to be the one who knows everyone's name by the second time he meets them, and who is remembered longer than he expects.