Victoria

A small woman in black took the British throne at eighteen on a June morning in 1837, reigned for sixty-three years and seven months (the longest reign of any British monarch until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II), and lent her name to an entire century of architecture, literature, sensibility, and global imperial overreach — Victoria ruled before she was a style, but the style has had a long memory. Her century gave us Victorian houses with their fretwork porches, the Victorian novel (Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Eliot, Brontës), Victorian mourning customs, the Victorian era's expansion of the British Empire to roughly a quarter of the Earth's surface, and the gradual industrialization of nearly everything.

The Latin victoria means simply victory, and before the queen there was a Roman goddess with wings — Victoria, the equivalent of the Greek Nike — who handed out laurel wreaths to the winning chariots and inspired both ancient Roman triumphal processions and a great deal of nineteenth-century neoclassical statuary. The name has held a steady top-50 American position for over a century, currently at rank forty-eight.

Famous Victorias include Queen Victoria, Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice and the fashion designer), Victoria Pedretti (the actress), Victoria Justice, Victoria Coren Mitchell, and Victoria de los Ángeles (the Spanish soprano). Four syllables — vik-TO-ree-a — stately without being stiff, with a strong central stress and a soft landing. Pairs beautifully with everything (Victoria Rose, Victoria Mae, Victoria Wren, Victoria June). Nicknames span Tori for the off-duty hours, Vic for the modern, Vicki for the 1980s, Toria for the affectionate, and Vita in the British literary tradition. A name with a throne in the closet and a cardigan on over it.