Woodrow

Derived from an English surname meaning a row of cottages bordering a wood. American parents took to it almost exclusively after the political rise of Thomas Woodrow Wilson, who went by his middle name. Its presence in American nurseries was largely an act of civic allegiance during the nineteen-tens.

A Woodrow sounds like someone who understands the mechanical workings of an auger and keeps spare cotter pins in a tin. The name carries the dense, wool-and-ink weight of the First World War era. On a modern child, it suggests parents who prefer cast iron to teflon and take wooden toys seriously. It remains stubbornly resistant to casual modern slang.