Alicia

Three liquid syllables that slip easily between Spanish balconies and English drawing rooms, Alicia is a Latinized bloom of Alice, tracing back through Old French Adelais to the Germanic Adalheidis, meaning noble kind. It flourished in Victorian novels and then again on 1980s playgrounds, cresting in the U.S. Top 50 before mellowing to its current rank of 436. Alicia Keys keeps it tethered to modern cool, all candlelit piano and velvet vowels. The name carries gentility without stiffness, a whisper of lace and a touch of brass. Feminine, musical, and secure in itself, Alicia never dates.