Jessica

Jessica is one of literature's great unintended gifts. Shakespeare coined or adapted the name for Shylock's daughter in The Merchant of Venice, likely drawing on the Hebrew Yiskah, mentioned in Genesis and sometimes rendered as one who sees or beholds. It traveled quietly for centuries until the 1980s, when Jessica became the reigning girl's name in the United States, holding the number-one spot throughout much of that decade. Its three syllables still chime with a generation of playground roll calls. Now settled into a graceful plateau, Jessica has softened from ubiquity into warm, familiar classicism.