Meera comes from the Sanskrit for “ocean” and “prosperous,” but in India the name belongs to one woman above all: Meera Bai, the Rajput princess who became one of the great poet-saints of the bhakti movement.

“She was born into a palace and chose the road instead — barefoot, singing, carrying nothing.”

Married into the royal house of Mewar, Meera refused to live the life expected of her. Her devotion was to Krishna, and she expressed it the way she knew how — by writing. Hundreds of her bhajans survive, sung in temples and kitchens across the country five centuries later. They are plain, direct and unafraid, written by someone who had already decided what mattered.

The name has become a kind of quiet promise: that a girl may hold her own convictions, express them in her own voice, and be remembered for exactly that. Short, musical and instantly understood anywhere in India, Meera has never gone out of use — and probably never will.