Lorelai

She came out of the Rhine. The original Loreley was a siren perched on a rock at the river's narrowest bend, her song pulling boatmen onto the stones — the name combining a local dialect word for murmuring with ley, meaning rock, so she is literally the murmuring rock. Heinrich Heine set her in verse in 1824 and gave the legend its definitive literary form. A century and a half later, Gilmore Girls handed the name a coffee mug, a quick wit, and prime-time American real estate, transforming the siren into something warmer and more caffeinated.

The Gilmore Girls version of the name — this particular spelling — is almost entirely a television creation, and the show's devoted following has kept it on the charts long past its original air dates. It currently sits at rank 402, sustained by parents who grew up watching Lorelai Gilmore and want to honor that particular kind of sharp, loving, slightly chaotic maternal energy. The name requires spelling out at the doctor's office but is recognized on first hearing.

Three syllables that move in a wave — Lor-e-lai — the final syllable rising so the name seems to end on a question, which fits a siren whose whole purpose was to make men stop and listen. It pairs beautifully in a sibling set with Ivory, Alyssa, Trinity, or Matilda. The girl who grows up as Lorelai tends to talk faster than most rooms expect and to be right more often than the room is comfortable admitting.