Celine

A French name that sounds like a concert hall filling with light before the music starts. Celine is a French form of the Latin Caelina, from caelum — heaven, sky — and it was worn by a sixth-century French saint before it became, many centuries later, globally synonymous with a particular kind of operatic vocal power. Céline Dion reshaped the name's worldwide profile from the 1990s onward, her voice and her name impossible to separate in the cultural imagination.

Celine has also moved through fashion — the Parisian house spelled it without an accent and made it shorthand for a certain minimalist elegance, the kind that costs more than it looks. American charts have welcomed the name steadily since the 1990s, and it sits now at rank 227, carried by parents who hear either the singer or the leather handbag or both, and find the combination suits them.

Two syllables, the first light and the second landing open — Ce-line — the whole name moving upward slightly, like a phrase ending on a question that is also an answer. Alongside Vera, Amy, Presley, Nyla, and Norah, it brings a continental note to the cluster. The girl named Celine tends to know exactly what she wants, acquire it with minimum fuss, and make the whole process look like something other people simply weren't paying close enough attention to do.