Aurora

There is something quietly hopeful stitched right into Aurora. It is Latin, and it means "dawn", first light, fresh starts, the whole optimistic package wrapped up in three syllables. For a name you tend to choose while running on very little sleep, there is a rather nice irony in picking one that cheerfully promises the sunrise at the end of it all.

It is a grand, three-syllable flourish of a name, and yet it comes fitted with cosy escape hatches for the everyday. There is the spirited Rory for the playground and the soft, glowing Aura for the tender, half-asleep moments. Full-length it feels rather like a ballgown; shortened it slips into something far more comfortable, genuinely the best of both worlds, which is not a bad thing to offer a child.

Quietly, the world has been won over. Aurora sits at number 33 in Australia and keeps warm company more or less everywhere else: number 34 in Canada, number 36 in the United States, number 41 in Brazil, number 43 in England and Wales, number 46 in New Zealand, number 59 in Mexico City and number 61 in Argentina. It is that genuinely enviable thing, a name that feels special without ever tipping over into strange.

It has a suitably luminous roll-call behind it, as well. The Norwegian musician AURORA carries it as a striking one-word stage name, Aurora Galli flies it out on the football pitch, and fiction has cherished it for generations, from a beloved fairy-tale princess to Aurora Sinistra, who taught astronomy in much-loved fiction. Singer, sportswoman or storybook royalty, the name suits every last one of them.

For a sibling set it leans handsomely into the celestial-and-natural mood of the moment. Line it up with Jasper, Luna, Felix or Iris and the whole household starts to sound rather like a lovely dawn chorus warming up.

There is a gentle grandeur to it that never quite crosses into showing off, as well. A name meaning dawn sets a hopeful tone without ever feeling heavy, and the sound has a fairy-tale sweep that most three-syllable names would trip over. It is elaborate enough to feel like an occasion and warm enough to shout across a playground, which is a genuinely tricky balance for any name to strike.

The snag, naturally, is that a name this radiant makes almost everything else on the list look a touch grey by comparison, right up until the next radiant one comes along and starts the whole thing over. That is the beautiful, maddening loop of choosing a name: every dawn feels like the one, until the following morning arrives with another. Sleep on it. Then, honestly, sleep on it again.