Winter

Winter opens like a window onto pale light and bare branches. Drawn directly from the English season, it joined the wave of nature names that followed Autumn and Summer into birth certificates, but it arrived with a moodier edge, a touch of frost and fireplace. Gretchen Mol and Nicole Richie each chose it for daughters, helping nudge it into the mainstream. Ranked 385 in the U.S., it feels literary in a Brontë sort of way, quiet vowels wrapped around a crisp middle. A name for a child born in any month, carrying still air and the promise of something just about to fall.