Aida

Aida entered the global imagination through Verdi's 1871 opera, the Ethiopian princess whose love story plays out against the Nile and pyramids. The name's roots are multiple and generous: Arabic ("returning, visitor"), Italian, and Slavic adoption alike, with Polish registries embracing it in the twentieth century. Two syllables of open vowels, "ah-ee-dah," it moves like melody, which is perhaps why it keeps gravitating back to stage and screen. In American usage it is rare but has quietly climbed in recent years, favored by parents drawn to operatic weight without Verdi's thunder. Graceful, international, almost sung rather than spoken.