Parker

Parker has the clipped briskness of a well-kept lawn. It comes from the Old French parquier, the keeper of a medieval park or game preserve, an occupational surname that implied a certain genteel outdoor authority. It moved into American first-name use in the late twentieth century and has held steady near the top 97, chosen for both boys and girls with slightly increasing parity. Spider-Man's Peter Parker and the actor Parker Posey hover in the peripheral vision. The two syllables are clean and a little patrician, the name of a child with good posture and a bicycle helmet, already absorbing the vocabulary of the adult conversations around the dinner table.