Madeleine

Madeleine is the French treatment of Magdalene, the epithet of Mary of Magdala, a seaside town on the Galilee whose name means tower. It is also, of course, the little shell-shaped cake Proust dunked in tea to unlock a thousand pages of memory. Spelled the French way, with the silent middle syllable, Madeleine carries patisserie steam and convent stone in equal measure. At rank 437, it sits below the more phonetic Madeline and Madelyn but reads as the most literary of the three. Nickname-rich, with Maddie or Mads or Lenny waiting in the wings. Bookish, buttery, beautifully European.