Taylor

Cloth-cutting was the trade, and tailleur was the Old French word for the one who did it — Taylor began as an occupational surname for the person who shaped fabric into form, an honest working name attached to skilled hands. It became something else entirely in the 1980s and 1990s, when it crossed the gender line and became one of the first great unisex successes in American naming history, climbing high for girls especially before leveling into comfortable everyday use for both boys and girls without friction.

Elizabeth Taylor lent it violet-eyed Hollywood glamour from the golden age of cinema; Taylor Swift turned it into something of a different magnitude — a cultural force large enough that a generation now associates the name with specific chord progressions and specific heartbreaks, with stadium tours and journals full of songs written at nineteen that turned out to describe everyone. The name currently sits at rank 353, still in steady, reliable use across genders and regions. It has outlasted its trend peak while keeping its essential ease.

Two syllables — TAY-lor — with an easy swing, no spelling complications, and the ability to pair cleanly with almost any surname of any length or origin. Alongside siblings named London or Baylor it would feel at home in any decade from 1995 forward; a Rylan or Sterling beside it would round out the unisex contemporary set. The person who carries Taylor well tends to be adaptable in the best sense — capable of being serious without becoming solemn, playful without becoming impossible to take seriously.