Valentina

In 1963 a Soviet textile worker named Valentina Tereshkova strapped into a Vostok capsule and became the first woman in space — a fitting occupant of a name that has always suggested a certain unshakable strength. The Latin Valentinus comes from valens, "strong, healthy," and the feminine form spread through Italian, Spanish, and Slavic Europe as both a saint's name and a dance-floor favorite. Valentina now sits at rank 47 in the United States, propelled by Latin American popularity. Four unhurried syllables, all long vowels, utterly singable. The name is simultaneously old-world and glamorous, equally at home on a grandmother in Bogotá and a baby in Brooklyn.