Celeste

Celeste comes from the Latin caelestis, "heavenly," a name scented with stars and church Latin. Babar's queen was Celeste; the elegant French actress Céleste Albaret kept house for Marcel Proust and later wrote a memoir about those sealed-off years. In 2020 the indie video game Celeste, about climbing a mountain and one's own mind, gave the name another layer of resonance. Currently at rank 198 in the U.S., it's rising as parents look toward names that sound both ethereal and grounded. Two syllables, the soft c and the final st that closes cleanly. Celeste is quiet, cinematic, faintly French, and unfailingly graceful.