Justin

Justinus, from the Latin justus — just, righteous, a person aligned with what is correct rather than what is expedient — named a second-century philosopher who converted to Christianity and was executed for it, a martyr whose arguments outlasted the people who silenced him. Later it named a Byzantine emperor whose legal code was so thorough and well-organized it still runs beneath much of Western law like a buried structural wire, completely invisible and entirely load-bearing.

America encountered Justin in successive waves: Timberlake's falsetto carrying the name into arenas in the early 2000s, Bieber's teen-pop takeover making it inescapable for a full decade of radio play, Trudeau turning it into a kind of Canadian political shorthand for a certain style of liberal governance. The name peaked in the top 10 in the late 1980s and early 1990s and has eased to its current rank of 199 — the comfortable position of a name that had its generational moment and aged into something dependable without curdling into cliché.

Two syllables, the first one stressed and the second trailing cleanly — JUS-tin — nothing angular, nothing wasted. Alongside Tucker, Andres, Kevin, or Zayden in a sibling row it reads solid and unfussy. The Justin who grows up tends to have better taste than he advertises, who seems easygoing right up until something actually matters to him, and then it becomes clear he has been thinking about it carefully for quite some time.