Francesca

Francesca is the Italian cousin of Frances and Francis, all three descending from Franciscus, the Latin word for a Frenchman. Dante immortalized Francesca da Rimini in the Inferno, her doomed love affair lingering in the fifth canto like a held breath. The name suits that poetic weight, three syllables that rise and fall like a phrase of Puccini. In the United States it has steadily crept upward, now settling into the low 300s as families reach for names with European pedigree. Confident, cinematic, and just a little romantic. Francesca never enters a room unnoticed.