Isaiah

The name traces to the Hebrew Yeshayahu, formed from linguistic roots signifying deliverance. It entered English print in the sixteenth century alongside widespread vernacular translations, appearing in early colonial census rolls as an alternative to William or Thomas. American parents maintained it on a low, quiet simmer for over a century before accelerating its use near the turn of the twenty-first.

An Isaiah today reads almost exclusively as someone born in the mid-two-thousands. The name carries the smooth, vowel-heavy cadence popular in maternity wards around 2006, when it reached its peak at thirty-ninth in the country. He is generally imagined carrying a reusable water bottle and a phone whose screen has been cracked for six months. With an estimated average age of eighteen, the name has barely begun its working life. Most of them are currently trying to remember where they parked a 2012 Honda Civic.