Violet

Violet is the color of bruised dusk, the flower Napoleon sent Josephine, and the shade Victorians wore in the second year of mourning — a name with more hidden melancholy than its soft sound suggests. It comes straight from the Latin viola, the flower itself. Roald Dahl gave us a gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde; Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck gave their daughter the name in 2005, kicking off a full-scale floral revival. It has climbed steadily into the American top twenty. Two syllables, the v a small flutter, the final t clipped like a stem. Cottagey, literary, and just a touch moody. Pretty without being sweet.