Barbara

Barbara comes from the Greek barbaros, the word the Greeks coined for anyone whose speech sounded like "bar-bar," foreign, other. Saint Barbara, the third-century martyr associated with towers, lightning, and miners' protection, carried the name deep into Polish tradition, where December the fourth is still her day. In American usage it peaked spectacularly in the 1930s and 40s, the second-most-popular girls' name of its decade, producing a generation of Barbaras named after Streisand and Stanwyck. Three syllables with the pleasant rumble of those double r's. Out of fashion long enough now to be circling back, with Barb and Bobbie waiting in the wings.