Cody

Cody gallops in wearing a cowboy hat and its own biography. The name anglicizes the Irish Ó Cuidighthigh, meaning descendant of the helpful one, but in American memory it belongs to Buffalo Bill Cody and the rodeo town in Wyoming named for him. It peaked as a boys' name in 1990 at number 22, the era of flannel and frontier revival, and has since drifted to a gentler 289. Two bright syllables, both ending in open vowels, give it a freewheeling, wide-open quality. Friendly, outdoorsy, faintly mythical, Cody still sounds like a kid who waves from the saddle.