Anita

Anita began as the Spanish diminutive of Ana — the Hebrew Hannah, meaning grace — and then simply refused to go home. It spread through Poland, Italy, and the English-speaking world across the twentieth century as its own fully independent name, shedding the diminutive label entirely. Anita Ekberg wading through the Trevi Fountain in La Dolce Vita and Anita in West Side Story pressed it into mid-century American popular memory at roughly the same moment, giving it two simultaneous identities: the film star and the girl next door.

Three syllables with the lift landing on the middle ee, it moves lightly, warm at the edges, impossible to make sound harsh. It peaked in the US in the 1940s and 50s, then cooled into pleasant vintage territory — uncommon enough now to feel like a genuine find, familiar enough that it needs no explanation. Softer than Barbara, more specific than Anna, with just enough Continental ease to wear well on both sides of the Atlantic.