Norbert

Norbert comes from the Old German for "bright north," nord and beraht, and belonged to Saint Norbert of Xanten, the twelfth-century founder of the Premonstratensian order. Long common in Poland, Germany, and Hungary, the name carries a faintly professorial air, the kind of Norbert who argues good-naturedly over coffee. Norbert Wiener, the mathematician who coined cybernetics, pressed the name into twentieth-century scientific history. Two crisp syllables, the b and r and t stacked close. Almost unknown on American baby lists, making it a genuinely unusual choice in English-speaking countries. Central European in flavor, slightly vintage, with a sturdy, slightly rumpled charm all its own.