Mallory

From an Anglo-Norman surname derived from the Old French maloret, meaning unfortunate or ill-omened. Sir Thomas Malory gave the name literary pedigree in the fifteenth century, but American parents only began adopting it in volume in the 1980s. A prime-time sitcom helped turn an Old French surname into a staple of suburban birth announcements.

The name reads as a product of the mid-1980s boom that never entirely aged out. It carries an organized, collegiate energy that leans toward sweater vests and field hockey schedules. Today, with an average bearer around age twenty-seven, it occupies a middle ground between millennial nostalgia and steady modern use. It rarely has to introduce itself twice.