Levi

Levi Strauss was a Bavarian immigrant selling dry goods in Gold Rush San Francisco when he and a tailor patented a pair of riveted canvas pants in 1873 — and somehow the name has carried that workwear warmth ever since. Its roots run deeper, though: in Genesis, Levi is Jacob's third son, and the Hebrew verb means joined or attached, a name given by a mother hoping her husband would now draw close. It has climbed from obscurity into the American top fifteen in the last two decades. Two syllables, both long vowels, the v holding the middle like a seam. Rugged, biblical, and strangely tender.