Juliette

Juliette comes wrapped in the soft lamplight of a French novel, a little more lace at the cuff than its cousin Juliet. It descends from the Latin Julia, a name of the ancient Julian clan, through French diminutive tradition, and it carries equal parts balcony scene and rive gauche. Actresses from Juliette Binoche to Juliette Lewis have kept it in circulation, and American parents now place it at rank 129, a quiet climb. Three syllables that trip lightly and then land on that final T, crisp as a kiss on each cheek. Romantic, literary, the hint of a foreign film still flickering.