Holden

Holden arrives carrying a paperback in its back pocket. The Old English surname meant "deep valley," a place name for families who lived in hollowed land, but for most American ears it belongs irrevocably to Salinger's restless narrator in The Catcher in the Rye. That literary weight has given the name a brooding, bookish charm since it broke into the Top 1000 in the late 1980s and climbed steadily ever since. Two tight syllables, a crisp consonant finish—it sounds like a kid who asks good questions. Now holding near the top 300, Holden still reads as thoughtful without tipping into precious.