Zane

Originated as an English surname and as a Venetian regional variant of Gianni. It entered the American registry almost entirely through Western novelist Zane Grey, whose mother carried it as a maiden name. It lingered on the fringes of the charts for decades before modern namers discovered the utility of a single-syllable name starting with Z.

The name reads young, mobile, and mildly adventurous. With an average age around twenty-one, a Zane is far more likely to be finishing college or learning to drive than sitting in a boardroom. It carries the dusty cool of a paperback Western without any of the actual dust.