Theodore

Theodore, from the Greek theos and doron, literally means gift of God — which is a lot to put on a child, but the name has been carrying the weight competently for nearly two thousand years. Early Christian bishops, Byzantine emperors, and at least three popes wore it; Saint Theodore of Amasea was a fourth-century soldier-martyr whose icon still hangs in Orthodox churches across the Eastern Mediterranean.

The name traveled west through Latin Theodorus and arrived in America in time for Theodore Roosevelt — Teddy, the rough-riding, trust-busting, bear-cub-naming twenty-sixth president — who singlehandedly made the name and its diminutive stick in twentieth-century memory. (The teddy bear itself takes its name from him, after a 1902 hunting trip and a Washington Post cartoon.) Theodore Dreiser wrote great American novels under it; Theodor Geisel wrote great American children's books under his version of it (Dr. Seuss); and the conductor Theodore Thomas built the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under it. The name then went quiet for fifty years, retreated into great-grandfather territory, and came back hard in the 2010s as parents reached for long, dignified Edwardian names with built-in nicknames — Theodore, Frederick, Augustus, Sebastian.

It entered the SSA top 100 in 2014 and has now climbed to the top five, the second-fastest rise of any boys' name in the past decade. Three syllables of full formal weight, plus an entire wardrobe of nicknames — Theo for the modern parent, Teddy for the affectionate, Ted for the businesslike, Theodore in full when the report card comes home. It pairs naturally with similarly Edwardian siblings (Theodore and Beatrice, Theodore and Eleanor, Theodore and Henry). Generous, sturdy, faintly literary, with the kind of quiet authority that doesn't need to raise its voice.