Mira

A short name that travels widely, Mira means wonderful or admirable in Latin, peace in Slavic languages, and ocean or female ruler in Sanskrit, all carried with the same soft two syllables. Mirabai, the sixteenth-century Rajasthani poet-saint whose devotional songs to Krishna are still sung, gave the name a mystical register that persists. The name has climbed quietly into the U.S. top 400 in recent years as parents look for short, multicultural names that cross borders without translation. Two syllables, the liquid M giving way to a rolled or tapped R. Mira reads serene and slightly otherworldly, a name like a still pool.