Yasmin

Yasmin is the Persian and Arabic name for jasmine, the small white flower whose scent defines courtyards from Damascus to Isfahan to Andalusian gardens left behind by the Moors. The word passed into English, French, and Spanish as jasmine itself, but Yasmin kept its original shape in the Muslim world and returned to Western usage in the late twentieth century, carried into the British top hundred by the 1990s. Two syllables, the opening Y almost sung, the closing n softening the whole. The name is shared by Queen Rania of Jordan's sister and countless poets. Yasmin is fragrant, composed, and unforced.