Laken

Laken is a modern invention with a watery echo, most often read as an elaboration of Lake or a riff on the Dutch laken, linen cloth. It came into American use in the eighties and nineties on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, where Laken Lockridge was a teenage favorite. At 1218 and unisex, it splits the difference between nature name and invented name, two syllables with a clean k at the hinge. There's something lakefront about it regardless of etymology, a pine-cabin, quiet-dock feeling. Laken reads calm, a little northern, content to be exactly what it sounds like.