The second installment in The Chronicles of Narnia opens today, and so the name for May 16?  Caspian.

It’s an appealing, romantic name.  But would it wear well on your son?

There is a fuzzy line between cutting-edge cool choices and names that are over-the-top.  It’s subject to change as the years pass.  In the 90s, we’d have said that Romeo was too much name for a boy.  Today, it still sounds dramatic, but not impossibly so.  On the other hand, we’re still quite certain that naming your son Anakin is a bad idea.

Caspian treads just barely on the right side of that line.  While Caspian was not a given name until CS Lewis bestowed it on his character, it is an ancient and well-used choice for the region surrounding a large inland sea, and the body of water itself.

Located between Russia and Iran, you’ve probably never heard of the major cities surrounding the Caspian Sea.  Sumqayit, Azerbaijan, anyone?  Babolsar, Iran?  Only the most intrepid of travelers has planned his vacation for the region.

In any case, it’s an interestingly exotic and ancient place.  And so we think that Caspian remains a viable option.  It has never appeared in the Top 1000 in the US, but would be instantly familiar to anyone who hears it.

In fact, when we wrote our C is for Boys Alphabet post, several readers commented that Caspian ought to make the list.  (Kathryn even told us she’d used the name for her son!)  And so we correct our oversight with today’s Name of the Day – the heroic, literary, ancient and now silver-screen dominating Caspian.