Troy

The name traces back to the ancient city of Homeric legend, alongside an alternate derivation from the French town of Troyes and a Gaelic root denoting a foot soldier. American parents used it sparsely through the nineteenth century until midcentury Hollywood intervened. In the late 1950s, studio executives rechristened actor Merle Johnson Jr. as Troy Donahue, after which the name surged directly into maternity wards.

The name reads as a product of 1970, built from four letters and a hard stop. A Troy tends to be pictured troubleshooting an outboard motor or rewinding a cassette tape with a pencil. Generation X accounts for 43 percent of all living bearers, leaving the name parked squarely in the late twentieth century. With the average holder now forty-six years old, a Troy is statistically far more likely to be inspecting a water heater than sitting on a preschool rug.