Xavier

That opening X does a lot of work, a rare letter that turns the whole name into something of a flourish. Xavier traces back to the Basque place name Etxeberria, meaning "new house," and was carried into the wider world by Saint Francis Xavier, the sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary who reached Goa, Malacca, and Japan. In the U.S. it has sat comfortably in the top 100 for most of this century, equally at home in Latin, French, and English-speaking families. The pronunciation splits: ZAY-vee-er or HAH-vee-air, each carrying a slightly different heritage. A name with intellect stitched into its bones.