Rome

Rome names a city and, by extension, an empire, a language family, and three millennia of aqueducts, basilicas, and marble-footed saints. As a given name it's a very recent arrival, part of the place-name wave that has given us Memphis, Cairo, and Paris on the playground. At rank 453, it's climbing steadily, most often for boys but quietly open to girls. A single syllable, the long O rolling into a soft m, the kind of name that takes up a surprising amount of room for its size. Rome sounds like something carved, a name with dome-light in it and cobblestones underneath.