Calliope

Homer invoked her before he started writing. Calliope was the eldest of the nine Muses, the Greek goddess of epic poetry, her name meaning "beautiful voice" from the roots kalli and ops — the same kalli that gives us Cali, the same ops that gives us the Greek for eye. She presided over the long works, the poems that took years and multiple scrolls, the kind of voice that needed the most powerful Muse behind it.

In nineteenth-century America, her name was borrowed for something entirely different: the steam-powered organ that sent its whistling chords across riverboats and circus midways, the calliope a music of hiss and spectacle and approaching wonder. The revival of Calliope as a baby name has gathered real momentum in the last decade, parents drawn to its mythological depth and its unusually strong nickname options. It currently sits at rank 499, still ascending, riding the wave of elaborate girl names that the naming charts have been generous to.

Four syllables — kah-LY-oh-pee — the stress on the second, the name then unfolding through two more open beats before landing on that final vowel. It is a name that requires the full width of the mouth to say well, which is appropriate for the Muse of epic voice. Cali and Callie are both available as nicknames, and the name sits naturally in sibling sets with Arielle and Dayana and Cali. Picture the girl who reads the liner notes, who can explain where the style came from and who came before, who makes you feel that any music worth listening to has a history worth knowing.