Drew

Everything unnecessary has already been removed. Drew began as a medieval shortening of Andrew, from the Greek Andreas meaning "manly" or "brave," worn down by daily use until only the essential remained: one syllable, four letters, a vowel doing the emotional work between two consonant bookends.

For much of the twentieth century it lived as a nickname — on school rosters, on locker room doors, on the backs of jerseys. Then Drew Barrymore made it work beautifully for a girl, Drew Brees made it a quarterback's name, and the respelling impulse left it alone because it was already as simple as it could get. It currently sits at rank 542 on the unisex charts, worn with equal ease by actors, athletes, and novelists across the gender line.

The sound is almost architectural: the DR cluster braces the front, the long OO holds the center, and the whole thing closes cleanly. Next to Briar, Monroe, Rio, or Frankie, it reads as the name in the set that requires the least explanation. The child who grows up as Drew tends to have precisely that quality — a person who moves through rooms without needing to announce themselves, competent in a way that only becomes obvious in retrospect.