Tyler

In medieval England a tradesman laid roof tiles — flat, precise, each one fitted flush against the next, a craft measured in patience and accuracy — and a surname grew from the labor. Tyler, the tile layer, became a family name and then, centuries on, a president: John Tyler, the tenth, who inherited the White House when William Henry Harrison died one month into the job and refused to leave when his own party tried to expel him.

The name broke into first-name territory in the 1980s and detonated across the 1990s, climbing into the top 10 before its inevitable drift back toward the middle of the charts. Tyler Durden appeared onscreen in 1999 and became a cultural shorthand for a certain kind of rebellion; the artist who goes by Tyler, the Creator gave the name an entirely different kind of credibility in the 2010s. It now holds at rank 191, belonging equally to multiple genders, carrying its decade of peak popularity the way a good jacket carries its age — visibly but without apology.

Two syllables, the first one punchy and the second easy — TY-ler — each part pulling roughly equal weight without either one dominating. It shares a sibling row naturally with Camden, Ashton, Tatum, or Sutton. The Tyler who shows up tends to have a handshake they mean and a poker face they have been quietly perfecting since middle school, who gets things done without turning the doing into a production.