Dylan

A harmonica in a smoky Greenwich Village basement, a Welsh coastline where the tide keeps rewriting the rocks — Dylan draws its energy from both. The name comes from Welsh mythology, where Dylan ail Don is a sea god born from a magical line of descent, with the meaning often translated as son of the sea or born of the wave. For most of history it was a deeply local Welsh name, rare even within Wales. Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet who wrote Do not go gentle into that good night and drank himself toward an early death in New York in 1953, gave the name its first wave of literary visibility.

Bob Dylan — born Robert Zimmerman in Hibbing, Minnesota — borrowed the name from Thomas and pulled it across the Atlantic, into folk songs and Greenwich Village basements, and finally into the global popular imagination. American parents began choosing it in earnest in the 1990s; Dylan entered the SSA top 30 in 2003 and has held there ever since, currently at rank twenty-eight.

The name has loosened into unisex territory in recent years (it ranks high for both boys and girls in some American regions). Famous bearers include Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Dylan Sprouse, Dylan O'Brien, Dylan McDermott, and Dylan Farrow. Two syllables, a soft landing on the central l — DIL-un — and just enough edge in the opening D. Pairs with everything from folk-leaning (Dylan Wolf, Dylan Cash) to classical (Dylan Henry, Dylan James). Nicknames are limited; the name is already a contraction. A name that hums rather than announces, and moves easily across a lifetime.