Grant

Grant comes from the Anglo-Norman graund — tall, great — an epithet that hardened into a surname and, later, a given name with clear American weight. Ulysses S. Grant took Appomattox and the presidency; Cary Grant took the silver screen and never gave it back. The name entered regular U.S. use in the late nineteenth century and has held steadily inside the top 250 for most of the past forty years. One syllable, one clean consonant cluster at the close, no room for ambiguity. Grant reads as capable and slightly laconic — a name that means what it says and doesn't explain twice.