Felix

Felix, energetic and upbeat with a felicitous meaning, has finally transcended its negative associations to Felix The Cat and the persnickety Felix Unger.

The name of four popes and sixty-seven saints, Felix has long been fashionable in upscale London and is rapidly becoming a nameberry fave. The name was first adopted by the ancient Roman Sulla, who believed that he was especially blessed with luck by the gods. In the Bible, Felix is a Roman procurator of Judea.

The name appears in literature as the central character in George Eliot's novel Felix Holt, the protagonist of Thomas Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull, in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Henry James's The Europeans, Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, and as a member of the Volturi Guard in the Twilight series. In movies Felix has popped up in everything from several James Bond films to "Spy Kids" and "The Hangover."

Gillian Anderson and Elizabeth Banks are two modern celebrities who chose Felix for their baby boys. A notable namesake is Felix Frankfurter, a long-term Supreme Court Justice.

Popular in the Hispanic community, Felix is also celebrating a surge in Germany and Austria, where it is in the Top 10. Felix has been on the US popularity for as long as records have been kept, now at Number 311.