Finnegan

He bounds in before you've finished saying the name. Finnegan is an Irish surname anglicized from O Fionnagain, "descendant of the fair one," and it carries the energy of that etymology — bright, open-faced, impossible to ignore. James Joyce gave it literary immortality in Finnegans Wake, his last and most labyrinthine novel, though the bricklayer of the old music-hall song who falls from a ladder and wakes at his own funeral to the smell of whiskey may be closer to the name's true spirit.

Finnegan has been climbing the American charts since the early 2000s, the three-syllable Irish surname a natural companion to the Decklans and Callahans and Finnleys of the era. It now sits at rank 492, still ascending, pulling in parents who want the warmth of Irish heritage without the brevity of a Finn or the formality of a Fionnbarr. The nickname Finn is always available, which is part of the name's appeal — you get the whole long thing and a short elegant exit whenever you want it.

Three rolling syllables — FIN-eh-gan — the stress front-loaded, the rest of the name trailing with cheerful momentum. Sibling pairings with Hezekiah and Emanuel give a sibling set that is large-named and confident; with Rodrigo or Marcelo, it picks up an international breadth. Picture the boy at the kitchen table doing three things at once and getting all of them right, the one who shows up an hour early to help set up and stays an hour late to help clean up, and somehow makes both feel effortless.