Knox

A single hard syllable like a fist on a table. Knox comes from the Old English cnocc, meaning a round hill, which sounds gentle — but it traveled through the Scottish reformer John Knox, through the gold reserves under Fort Knox, through the particular American tradition of surnames that sound like they mean business, before landing as a given name. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt put it on a birth certificate in 2008 and the American charts reconfigured almost immediately.

John Knox gave it fire; Fort Knox gave it impenetrability; the celebrity birth announcement gave it permission. Since 2008 it has climbed sharply, entering the top 100 for boys and establishing itself as one of the fastest-rising one-syllable names of the century. Currently at rank 209, it sits in the confident company of names that require nothing from syllable count and everything from consonant landing.

One syllable, all architecture — the k opening, the n and o carrying the vowel briefly, the x sealing it shut. As siblings, Tate, Joel, Finn, or Jesse give it the short-name company it seems to prefer. The boy named Knox tends to hold things close until he's decided to share them — not unfriendly, exactly, but deliberate in a way that makes people feel that his attention, when it arrives, is worth something.