Wells

A name with water at its source, Wells comes from the Old English wiella, a spring or fountain, and long served as a surname for families living near one, or in the Somerset cathedral town that takes its name from three holy springs. The name climbed into the U.S. top 500 only in the past decade, part of the vogue for single-syllable surname firsts like Banks, Brooks, and Beckett. One confident syllable, that final S hissing softly to a close. Wells reads crisp and slightly literary, trailing faint echoes of H.G. Wells and New England stone walls, a name that feels deeply felt and newly minted at once.