Karen

Long before the internet made it a punchline, Karen was a Danish darling, a soft contraction of Katherine that took root across Scandinavia in the medieval era. Isak Dinesen, born Karen Blixen, wrote Out of Africa under its quiet banner and lent it a wind-swept, literary grandeur. In the United States the name topped charts through the 1950s and 60s before slipping into deep recess, but in Denmark it has remained steady, unfussy, lived-in. The short A and clean consonants give it a crisp, capable sound. Read it as a name again, and it recovers its grace.