Stavros

Stavros is the Greek word for cross, taken up as a given name in devotion to the True Cross and celebrated on September fourteenth, the feast of its Exaltation. In Greece it has been steadily popular for generations, the kind of name an uncle and a nephew share without confusion. Two close-packed syllables, STAHV-ros, with a rolling r and a decisive finish. It carries shipyard grit and church silver in equal measure, the name of men who build things and men who keep small promises. Shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos gave it a mid-century gleam, though the name remains, at bottom, a workingman's word.