Meredith

The name came down from Wales carrying the weight of princes. Meredith is the anglicized form of the Welsh Maredudd, thought to mean "great lord" or "great ruler," and it was for centuries a masculine name — borne by Welsh kings and court poets before it crossed into English and, somewhere along the way, switched sides entirely. By the mid-twentieth century it had become firmly, almost exclusively, feminine in America.

Meredith Willson wrote The Music Man in 1957 and put the name on every playbill in America. Meredith Baxter spent years on television in family dramas that the 1980s could not get enough of. Grey's Anatomy named its protagonist Meredith Grey, and that 2005 debut ran long enough to imprint the name on a generation of viewers. It now sits at rank 492, a vintage name held in steady affection without quite surging back to the top.

Three syllables — MER-eh-dith — the middle syllable quieter than the flanking ones, giving the name a slight dip in its center, like a bridge. That structure means it pairs well with shorter middles: Meredith June, Meredith Claire. It neighbors Amanda and Clementine and Fernanda in its bracket, all long names with strong histories, and shares their quality of sounding equally appropriate at a kindergarten roll call and a college graduation. Picture the woman who arrives knowing exactly what she wants to accomplish and is already three steps into accomplishing it before the meeting starts.