Julian

The Latin Julianus descended from the Julii, Rome's great patrician clan that gave the Western world Julius Caesar, August (originally Augustus, Caesar's adopted heir), and the entire imperial naming tradition — and the name's root hints at something unexpectedly tender. Iulus, the eponymous Trojan boy from whom the Julii claimed descent, was said by Roman poets to mean the first soft down on a young man's cheek, the moment between boyhood and manhood.

Across the centuries the name picked up emperors (Julian the Apostate, the fourth-century Roman emperor who tried to reverse Constantine's Christianization), apostles (the missionary Julian of Antioch), and a fourteenth-century English mystic named Julian of Norwich, who wrote Revelations of Divine Love — the first book in English known to be written by a woman, a meditation on suffering and love that ends with the famous "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." The name has been steady but unflashy in American use throughout the twentieth century, climbing into the top 100 in 1995 and the top 50 in 2007, currently at rank thirty.

Famous Julians include Julian Schnabel (the painter and director), Julian Casablancas (frontman of the Strokes), Julian Lennon, Julian Edelman (the Patriots receiver), and the British actor Julian Fellowes (creator of Downton Abbey). Two or three syllables depending on language — JOO-li-an in English, hoo-lee-AHN in Spanish, both graceful. Nicknames are flexible: Jules for the modern, Julio for the Spanish, Jian for the Chinese-language adaptation. Pairs cleanly with most siblings (Julian Henry, Julian James, Julian Wren). The name carries a library about it — scholarly, a little romantic, comfortable in jeans or a tuxedo without ever feeling costumed.