Justin

The name descends from the Latin Justinus, an extension of Justus, meaning lawful or upright. Emperor Justin the First brought it to the imperial administration in sixth-century Constantinople. American parents used it sparingly for nearly a century before an unexpected surge in the nineteen-seventies made it a fixture of late-twentieth-century yearbooks.

A Justin tends to be pictured holding a baseball cap by the brim or adjusting the stereo in an older sedan. The name reads as fundamentally nineteen-eighty-eight, having peaked when neon ski jackets and cassette singles were standard issue. With an estimated average age of thirty-four today, the name has settled into adulthood without quite shaking its recess energy. It carries the faint scent of a middle school gymnasium after the floor was freshly waxed.