Reid

Reid is a name whittled down to essentials. From the Old English read, meaning "red-haired" or "red-complexioned," it spent a thousand years as a Scottish and northern English surname before quietly crossing into first-name territory in the twentieth century. One brisk syllable, four letters, no fuss—the spelling variant Reed is equally at home but Reid carries the older Scottish signature. The name slipped into the American Top 1000 in the 1980s and has climbed patiently to number 300. Clean, consonantal, faintly bookish in the way a well-cut blazer is bookish. Reid sounds capable without needing to prove it.