Aitana

A mountain range rises above the Valencian coast of Spain, dry and blue and named Aitana, and a poet named Rafael Alberti gave the name to his daughter in 1941 as an act of devotion — to the landscape, to the place, to the particular quality of light that falls on those peaks. Spanish-speaking parents have been following his lead ever since, and in the United States the name entered the top 500 in the late 2010s and has been climbing quickly since.

The Spanish pop singer Aitana Ocaña has accelerated the name's American visibility, giving it a contemporary musical association that sits comfortably alongside the geographical one. Currently at rank 211, the name is still rising — one of the more interesting climbers among nature-origin girls' names, carrying both a specific Spanish landscape and a general feeling of altitude and cool air.

Three syllables — ai-TA-na — the stress landing in the middle, the name opening at both ends. As siblings, Alaina, Delaney, Adalyn, Alora, or Ariella give it vowel-forward, flowing company. The girl named Aitana tends to have an instinctive relationship with high places — mountains, rooftops, the tallest tree in any yard — not from recklessness but from a preference for the view.