Kingsley

Kingsley is an Old English place name, king's meadow or king's wood, the kind of compound that conjures a hedgerow and a very green English distance. It's been a given name in Britain for generations, most famously worn by Kingsley Amis, whose prose had the acerbic ease that the name's royal root and sylvan suffix together imply. His son Martin Amis put a different weight on the family name entirely, but Kingsley itself came out unscathed.

In West Africa, particularly in Nigeria, Kingsley has long been a popular boys' name; in American use it's gone comfortably unisex, landing at 984. The three syllables move from a strong opening consonant cluster through a soft middle to a landing that doesn't clunk. Stately without stiffness, Kingsley reads like a name that owns a good pair of reading glasses and a longer view.