Camille

She starts as a Roman child doing sacred work. The Camillus was a title given to noble children who served at religious ceremonies in ancient Rome, ritual attendants in linen and silence. The French softened the title into two syllables of quiet glamour — ka-MEEL — and Alexandre Dumas fils turned it into La Dame aux camélias in 1848, a consumption-ravaged heroine whose grace under dying Verdi transformed into La Traviata. Greta Garbo played her on screen; the sculptor Camille Claudel gave the name a second brilliant association.

The name has been a reliable fixture in the American top 400 for most of the past century, never surging to dominance, never disappearing. It now sits at rank 239, carried by families who want something with genuine European literary weight and a sound that doesn't require translation.

Two syllables move with a particular economy — the ka- opening cleanly, the -MEEL closing with a long vowel that sustains. It pairs naturally with names from its neighborhood — Camille Kiara, Camille Dahlia, Camille Diana — and offers Cami or Milli if a shorter form is wanted. The girl named Camille tends to have the most interesting shelf in the room, reads the things she isn't assigned, and brings her own opinions to the table fully formed.