Ocean

Ocean rolls in on a long breath. From the Greek Okeanos, the Titan who personified the great river encircling the ancient world, the word has long been more myth than mere water. As a baby name, Ocean is squarely a child of the twenty-first century's embrace of nature nouns: Forest, River, Sky, and now the sea itself. Ranked 591 and unisex, it has been carried by the poet Ocean Vuong, whose On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous made the name luminous on literary shelves. Two syllables, a tide coming in, a tide going out. Vast, cool, and wide open.