Meadow

Meadow is a patch of long grass moving in summer light, an English word-name pulled from Old English maedwe, land mown for hay. Its first-name life is essentially modern, pushed into American consciousness by Meadow Soprano on HBO's The Sopranos in the late 1990s. The mob daughter turned out gentler than expected, and so has the name: pastoral, a little hippie, a little prairie novel. Two syllables roll out like a picnic blanket. Meadow now sits in the low 300s on American charts, firmly among the nature-name wave that also carries Willow and Wren. Green, breezy, and unhurried.