Stella

"Stella!" — Marlon Brando bellowing up a New Orleans wrought-iron staircase in the 1951 film of A Streetcar Named Desire gave the name a permanent theatrical charge, the way few names have ever been so completely possessed by a single performance. But the Latin word for star was already doing fine on its own. Sir Philip Sidney coined Stella as a literary name in his late-sixteenth-century sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella (the lover Astrophil's beloved Stella was Sidney's veiled name for Penelope Devereux, the unattainable real woman who had married someone else); Jonathan Swift later used Stella for Esther Johnson, the woman he loved and lived near for thirty years and addressed in his Journal to Stella.

The name has Italian and Spanish currency as well (stella means star in Italian, estrella in Spanish, étoile in French), and the Marian devotion to Stella Maris (Star of the Sea) has been a Catholic tradition for over a millennium. After drifting out of American fashion in the mid-twentieth century, Stella came roaring back in the 2000s on the back of Sex and the City references, the broader celestial revival (Luna, Stella, Aurora, Nova), and a small wave of celebrity Stellas (Matt Damon's daughter, Tori Spelling's daughter).

Stella entered the SSA top 100 in 2005, the top 50 by 2014, and currently sits at rank forty-nine. Famous bearers include Stella McCartney (the British fashion designer, daughter of Paul), Stella Maxwell, Stella Hudgens, and the cartoon Stella from Over the Hedge. Two syllables, two bright vowels, one silver consonant — STEL-la. Pairs beautifully with celestial or classical middles (Stella Rose, Stella Mae, Stella Wren). Nicknames span Stell, Ella, Stelly. Celestial, vintage, a little dramatic.