Shizuka

Shizuka begins with a hush, the sh softening everything that follows. In Japanese the name is often written with the kanji 静, meaning quiet or still, which gives it one of the most transparent meanings in the canon. It belonged to a famous twelfth-century dancer, Shizuka Gozen, whose loyalty to the warrior Yoshitsune became one of Japan's enduring romantic legends. The name has kept that sense of composed grace across the centuries. Three syllables, each lighter than the last, it trails off rather than lands. Meditative without being austere. A name for a watchful, interior child.