Norbert

Norbert means bright north — nord and beraht from the Old German — and it belonged first to Saint Norbert of Xanten, the twelfth-century founder of the Premonstratensian order, a man who apparently combined genuine mystical intensity with a talent for institutional building. Long common in Poland, Germany, and Hungary, the name carries a faintly professorial air, the kind of name attached to someone who argues good-naturedly over coffee and is usually right.

Norbert Wiener, the mathematician who coined the word cybernetics and effectively invented the field, pressed the name into twentieth-century intellectual history with real force. Two crisp syllables, the b and r and t stacked close together, the whole thing over almost before it starts. In American usage Norbert is essentially unheard of — it never cracked the mainstream in English-speaking countries and sits at genuine obscurity now — which makes it a seriously unusual choice. For parents drawn to Central European heritage, vintage scientific names, or simply the pleasure of genuine rarity, it delivers without apology.