Emma

The name traces to the Germanic root ermen, meaning whole or universal. Emma of Normandy brought it to England in 1002, securing it in royal records centuries before Jane Austen published Emma in 1815. In the United States, it debuted near the top of the inaugural 1880 counts, subsided by the mid-twentieth century, and staged a massive resurgence near the turn of the millennium.

The name reads today as a college junior carrying a canvas tote bag and an unread syllabus. Because the average living bearer is twenty-one, she is far more likely to inhabit a dorm common room than a boardroom or a retirement community. Gen Z and Gen Alpha account for eighty-six percent of living holders between them, giving the name the population density of a mid-sized state university. If four people turn around when the name is called at a campus coffee stand, none of them will be over thirty.