Josephine

Napoleon's empress wore it into the history books, Josephine Baker danced it across Paris in a banana skirt in 1925, and the Little Women sister signed it Jo. A feminine of Joseph, from the Hebrew Yosef meaning He will add, it arrived in French courts as Joséphine and made the slow Atlantic crossing with lace trunks and sheet music. After a long midcentury nap, the name came roaring back with the antique revival; it now ranks 56 and is given to about one in 431 girls. Three syllables that can shrink to Jo, Josie, Fifi, or stay grand. It always sounds like it has something to say.