Simon

Simon comes from the Hebrew Shim'on — he has heard — and belongs to one of Jacob's twelve sons, and later to the apostle Peter, born Simon. The Greeks reshaped it; the Latins carried it forward; Simón Bolívar liberated half a continent wearing it. Paul Simon wrote an American songbook; Simon Rattle conducts across European capitals. The name held a steady British presence through the twentieth century and has grown in American use, now sitting in the top 250. Two syllables, soft S, clean N. Simon reads as quietly intellectual, a touch European, the kind of boy who has opinions about books.