Alanna

The old Breton and Gaelic name Alan has been crossing the Irish Sea for a long time, picking up resonance on both coasts, and Alanna is its feminine form — three syllables that soften the original without losing its depth. Some scholars trace the root to a word for little rock, others to harmony; Irish parents hear the echo of a leanbh, the Gaelic term of endearment for a child, humming underneath any etymology you choose.

Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet in the 1980s gave the name a generation of devoted readers — Alanna of Trebond, a girl who disguises herself as a boy to train as a knight and spends four books becoming herself. That fictional anchor gave the name literary credibility that has lasted. Alanna currently sits at rank 289, chosen by parents who want something Gaelic and melodic that has not been overrun.

Three syllables, ah-LAN-ah, with a clear central stress and an open close, it sits comfortably beside Luciana, Kamila, or Amora in a sibling set — names with a musical quality and some geographic range. The girl who carries Alanna tends to have a particular self-possession — not loudly confident but simply certain, the kind of person who decides a thing and does it without needing to explain her reasoning to anyone, who earns the respect of people twice her age through consistency rather than performance.