Leroy

The name traces back to Norman French le roy, an occupational surname or nickname meaning 'the king.' English speakers carried the surname for generations before nineteenth-century American families began using it as a given name. By the turn of the twentieth century, parents had stripped away courtly pretension in favor of a plain, two-syllable domestic staple.

A Leroy rarely enters modern imagination under the age of sixty. The name reads as someone who keeps a socket set older than his children and still writes checks at the hardware store with a metal ballpoint pen. About 42 percent of living holders are Baby Boomers, though the high-water mark belongs to 1924, when Calvin Coolidge was president. Today, hearing the name given to an infant feels like watching a toddler handed a thermos of black coffee.