Bodhi

Bodhi is Sanskrit for enlightenment or awakening—the state achieved by the Buddha beneath the bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya some twenty-five hundred years ago. For most of the twentieth century the name belonged almost entirely to Buddhist monastics; then came Patrick Swayze's charismatic surfer in Point Break in 1991, and something shifted. Parents began reaching for it in earnest in the 2010s, and the name has climbed rapidly to near 302. Two bright syllables, BOH-dee, that sound equal parts monastery and beach. Spiritual without being solemn, fresh without feeling made-up, Bodhi carries its centuries lightly.