Kira

Kira lives in several languages at once, a short form of the Russian Kirill and a sister to the Greek Kyra, meaning lady, as well as a transliteration of the Japanese kira, a word for glitter or shine. That multiplicity gives the name an easy internationalism, recognizable from Moscow to Kyoto. At rank 455, Kira has been quietly beloved for decades in the U.S., buoyed by characters from The Dark Crystal to Star Trek. Two tidy syllables, a bright K and a softening ah, crisp at the front, warm at the close. Small, luminous, and capable, Kira sounds like a word meaning light in some forgotten tongue.