Marianne

A French fusion of Marie and Anne, deriving from Hebrew roots meaning bitter or beloved, and grace. The name took on political weight in the late eighteenth century as the national personification of the French Republic. American parents adopted the single-word spelling in steady numbers after the First World War as an alternative to hyphenated double names.

A Marianne is usually pictured with a fountain pen and a cardigan that has outlived three washing machines. The name reached its height in 1957, which puts the average bearer in her early sixties today. It carries the cadence of midcentury boarding schools without the domestic plainness of Mary Ann. She remains the only person in the room who writes thank-you notes on engraved stock.