Vera

The name entered English from the Russian noun vera, meaning faith, though English speakers frequently linked it to the Latin verus, meaning true. It gained momentum in late Victorian literature before crossing the Atlantic on the stage. The record shows consistent American adoption starting in 1880, lifting it into the national top seventy by 1918.

The name currently divides its living presence between retirement communities and preschool classrooms. It carries the dry rhythm of 1918, the year it peaked at number sixty-eight with about four thousand births. Today, a Vera is nearly as likely to be renewing a driver's license by mail as learning to hold a crayon, with Boomers and Gen Alpha each claiming thirty-one percent of living bearers. The middle generations largely stepped aside, leaving the name with almost no representatives between thirty and forty.