Leslie

Leslie comes down out of the Scottish lowlands, originally a place name—possibly from leas celyn, holly garden, or a similar pastoral compound—before becoming a clan surname and eventually a given name for both boys and girls. The gender has drifted across the Atlantic: once firmly masculine, as in Leslie Howard and Leslie Nielsen, it shifted toward the feminine in mid-century America while holding its ground as male in Britain. The two soft syllables move easily between registers, polite rather than assertive. It carries a slight mist of tweed and heather, and a quiet, bookish warmth. Genuinely unisex, rare trait.