Logan

The surname traces to the Scottish Gaelic lagan, meaning a hollow or low-lying pocket of land. American parents took it up in the nineteenth century, honoring figures like Civil War general John A. Logan. It sat in modest rotation for a century before widespread adoption took off in the 1990s.

The name reads as an eighteenth birthday party held in a gymnasium parking lot. With an average age of eighteen, Logan still inhabits the territory of learner permits, track jackets, and dorm bins. It was part of the turn-of-the-century Scottish surname boom that populated youth soccer rosters. About eight percent of recorded bearers are girls, though the tally remains overwhelmingly male. It is a name that has almost never had to schedule a colonoscopy.