Mila

In Slavic languages the root mil means "gracious, dear" — it threads through names from Kraków to Kyiv, and Mila is the diminutive that slipped free to stand on its own. It also surfaces as a short form of the Germanic Emilia and the Spanish Milagros, "miracles," which gives the name an unusual geographic generosity: it belongs almost everywhere. American parents discovered it in the 2010s, and it climbed the charts at a pace that would embarrass an elevator; it now holds rank 33. Two unfussy syllables, warm vowels, a name that feels handed down even when it isn't.