{ "license": "CC BY 4.0", "attribution": "NameLore — https://namelore.israynotarray.dev", "count": 417, "names": [ { "slug": "luna", "name": "Luna", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "the moon", "pronunciation": "LOO-nah", "description": "Luna is the Latin word for the moon and the name of the Roman goddess who drove her silver chariot across the night sky. Once a quiet choice, it surged after appearing in the Harry Potter series and through celebrity use, and its soft sound works equally well in English, Spanish, and Italian.", "themes": [ "moon", "night" ], "popularity": "A top-ten girls' name in the United States in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "selene", "name": "Selene", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "moon", "pronunciation": "seh-LEE-nee", "description": "Selene was the Greek Titan goddess who personified the moon itself, sister to Helios the sun and Eos the dawn. Her name is the ancient Greek word for moon, and it survives in modern forms like Selena, made famous by two beloved singers.", "themes": [ "moon", "night" ], "popularity": "Less common than its variant Selena, which has charted in the US top 1000 for decades." }, { "slug": "chandra", "name": "Chandra", "gender": "u", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "moon, shining", "pronunciation": "CHUN-drah", "description": "In Hindu tradition Chandra is the god of the moon, and the Sanskrit word carries senses of shining and glittering. Traditionally masculine in India, the name found separate life as a girls' name in midcentury America, where its sound aligned with Sandra and Sondra.", "themes": [ "moon", "light" ], "popularity": "Appeared in the US girls' top 1000 from the 1950s through the 1990s." }, { "slug": "mahina", "name": "Mahina", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hawaiian", "meaning": "moon, moonlight", "pronunciation": "mah-HEE-nah", "description": "Mahina is the Hawaiian word for the moon and the name of a lunar deity in Hawaiian tradition. It carries the islands' affection for nature names and offers a fresh alternative for parents who love Luna but want something rarer.", "themes": [ "moon", "night" ], "popularity": "Well used in Hawaii but rare on the U.S. mainland." }, { "slug": "aylin", "name": "Aylin", "gender": "f", "origin": "Turkish", "meaning": "halo of the moon", "pronunciation": "ay-LEEN", "description": "Aylin builds on ay, the Turkish word for moon, and is usually interpreted as the ring of light that haloes it. Popular in Turkey and Azerbaijan, the name has traveled widely through Turkish and Latin American communities and adapts easily to English pronunciation.", "themes": [ "moon", "light" ], "popularity": "Has ranked in the US girls' top 500 since the 2010s, boosted by Spanish-speaking families." }, { "slug": "ayla", "name": "Ayla", "gender": "f", "origin": "Turkish", "meaning": "moonlight, halo around the moon", "pronunciation": "AY-lah", "description": "In Turkish, Ayla denotes the glow of light surrounding the moon. English speakers met the name through the heroine of Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear novels, and it now thrives independently, sometimes overlapping with the unrelated Hebrew name Eilah, meaning oak or terebinth tree.", "themes": [ "moon", "light" ], "popularity": "Climbed into the US girls' top 100 in the early 2020s." }, { "slug": "tsukiko", "name": "Tsukiko", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "moon child", "pronunciation": "tsoo-KEE-koh", "description": "Tsukiko joins the Japanese characters for moon and child, a construction with a long history in feminine Japanese naming. It is uncommon in modern Japan, where the -ko ending has fallen from fashion, which makes it feel both classic and distinctive to Western ears.", "themes": [ "moon", "night" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "hilal", "name": "Hilal", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "crescent moon", "pronunciation": "hee-LAHL", "description": "Hilal names the slender crescent moon whose sighting begins each month of the Islamic calendar, giving the word deep religious resonance. It has been used as a personal name since early Islamic history and remains current across the Middle East and Turkey.", "themes": [ "moon", "night" ], "popularity": "Common in Turkey and the Arab world, where it is also used for girls; rare in English-speaking countries." }, { "slug": "qamar", "name": "Qamar", "gender": "u", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "moon", "pronunciation": "kah-MAR", "description": "Qamar is simply the Arabic word for moon, used for both sons and daughters across the Muslim world. Classical Arabic poetry constantly compares the beloved's face to the qamar, lending the name a romantic literary pedigree.", "themes": [ "moon", "night" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "badr", "name": "Badr", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "full moon", "pronunciation": "BAH-der", "description": "Badr refers specifically to the moon at its fullest and brightest, a traditional Arabic image of perfected beauty. The name also recalls the Battle of Badr, a foundational moment in early Islamic history, which has kept it in steady use for boys.", "themes": [ "moon", "light" ], "popularity": "A familiar name in North Africa and the Gulf states." }, { "slug": "neoma", "name": "Neoma", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "new moon", "pronunciation": "nee-OH-mah", "description": "Neoma is generally traced to the Greek elements neos, new, and mene, moon, naming the dark sliver of a fresh lunar cycle. It enjoyed modest American use in the early twentieth century and is now ripe for revival among vintage hunters.", "themes": [ "moon", "rebirth" ], "popularity": "Appeared on the fringes of the US top 1000 in the early 1900s." }, { "slug": "diana", "name": "Diana", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "divine, heavenly", "pronunciation": "dy-AN-ah", "description": "Diana derives from an ancient Indo-European root meaning divine or heavenly, and the Roman goddess Diana ruled the moon, the hunt, and wild places. The name's modern glow owes much to Diana, Princess of Wales, and to Wonder Woman's alter ego Diana Prince.", "themes": [ "moon", "light" ], "popularity": "A steady presence in the US girls' top 300 for nearly a century." }, { "slug": "esmeray", "name": "Esmeray", "gender": "f", "origin": "Turkish", "meaning": "dark moon", "pronunciation": "ES-meh-rye", "description": "Esmeray pairs the Turkish words esmer, dark or brunette, and ay, moon, into an evocative image of the moon in shadow. It was borne by a beloved Turkish singer of the 1970s and remains a poetic choice within Turkey.", "themes": [ "moon", "dark" ], "popularity": "Used in Turkey; almost unknown in the English-speaking world." }, { "slug": "soma", "name": "Soma", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "the moon; the sacred ritual drink", "pronunciation": "SOH-mah", "description": "Soma named the sacred drink of the Vedic rituals and the god embodied in it, and in later Hindu tradition the word became a standard name for the moon and its deity, which is why Monday in Sanskrit is Somavara, moon day. The name persists in India, often within compounds like Somnath.", "themes": [ "moon", "night" ], "popularity": "Found across India, frequently as an element in longer names." }, { "slug": "aybek", "name": "Aybek", "gender": "m", "origin": "Turkic", "meaning": "moon lord", "pronunciation": "EYE-bek", "description": "Aybek joins the Turkic ay, moon, with bek, lord or chieftain, a title-name carried since medieval times; the Mamluk sultan Aybak ruled Egypt in the thirteenth century. It remains in use across Central Asia, from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, where moon names honor sons as readily as daughters.", "themes": [ "moon", "strength" ], "popularity": "A familiar men's name in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan." }, { "slug": "sol", "name": "Sol", "gender": "u", "origin": "Spanish and Latin", "meaning": "sun", "pronunciation": "SOHL", "description": "Sol is the Latin and Spanish word for the sun, the name of the Roman sun god, and a warm single-syllable choice across the Spanish-speaking world, where girls are also named María del Sol. As a Jewish men's name it historically served as a short form of Solomon.", "themes": [ "sun", "light" ], "popularity": "A familiar name in Spain and Latin America, often via the compound Marisol." }, { "slug": "soleil", "name": "Soleil", "gender": "f", "origin": "French", "meaning": "sun", "pronunciation": "soh-LAY", "description": "Soleil is the French word for sun, glamorous and unmistakably Gallic, though it is rarely used as a given name in France itself. Americans know it through actress Soleil Moon Frye, television's Punky Brewster, who helped establish it as a usable English-market name.", "themes": [ "sun", "light" ], "popularity": "Entered the lower reaches of the US girls' top 1000 in recent years." }, { "slug": "elio", "name": "Elio", "gender": "m", "origin": "Italian", "meaning": "sun", "pronunciation": "EH-lee-oh", "description": "Elio descends from Helios, the Greek god who drove the sun across the sky, filtered through the Latin name Aelius. The film Call Me by Your Name gave this Italian classic sudden international visibility, and its vowel-rich sound fits the current taste for European boys' names.", "themes": [ "sun", "light" ], "popularity": "Rising quickly in the US and France since the late 2010s." }, { "slug": "apollo", "name": "Apollo", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "uncertain; god of the sun and light", "pronunciation": "ah-POL-oh", "description": "Apollo named the Greek god of the sun, light, music, prophecy, and healing, one of the most worshipped deities of the ancient world; the name's literal origin predates Greek and remains debated by scholars. NASA's moon program and Rocky's Apollo Creed gave it modern swagger, and parents now use it without hesitation.", "themes": [ "sun", "light" ], "popularity": "Re-entered the US top 1000 in 2014 and has climbed into the top 500 since." }, { "slug": "cyrus", "name": "Cyrus", "gender": "m", "origin": "Persian", "meaning": "traditionally linked to the sun", "pronunciation": "SY-rus", "description": "Cyrus is the Greek form of Kurush, the name of the Persian king who founded the Achaemenid Empire; ancient writers connected it to the Persian word for sun, though its true origin is debated. It carries imperial gravitas softened by the friendly nickname Cy.", "themes": [ "sun", "strength" ], "popularity": "A consistent US top-500 boys' name with renewed momentum in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "samson", "name": "Samson", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "sun", "pronunciation": "SAM-sun", "description": "Samson derives from the Hebrew shemesh, the sun, fitting for the biblical judge whose strength blazed and burned out spectacularly. The name reads as both rugged and biblical, and the built-in nickname Sam keeps it practical.", "themes": [ "sun", "strength" ], "popularity": "Hovers in the US boys' top 600, lifted by the broader revival of Old Testament names." }, { "slug": "sunniva", "name": "Sunniva", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old English and Norwegian", "meaning": "sun gift", "pronunciation": "soon-NEE-vah", "description": "Sunniva is the Scandinavian form of the Old English Sunngifu, combining sun with gift. Legend holds that Saint Sunniva was an Irish princess who fled to Norway, where she became the patron saint of the country's western coast, and the name remains in use there today.", "themes": [ "sun", "light" ], "popularity": "A familiar name in Norway; a rarity elsewhere." }, { "slug": "solana", "name": "Solana", "gender": "f", "origin": "Spanish", "meaning": "sunshine, sunny place", "pronunciation": "soh-LAH-nah", "description": "Solana comes from a Spanish word for a spot where the sun falls, the warm side of a hill or house. It shares its glow with Luna and Soleil but remains far less common, though the cryptocurrency of the same name has recently raised its profile.", "themes": [ "sun", "light" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "surya", "name": "Surya", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "sun", "pronunciation": "SOOR-yah", "description": "Surya is the Hindu sun god, worshipped since the Vedic era, and his name is the standard Sanskrit word for the sun; the yoga sequence surya namaskar, sun salutation, greets him each morning. The name is widespread for boys across India, with the Tamil film star Suriya keeping it current.", "themes": [ "sun", "fire" ], "popularity": "A mainstay among Indian boys' names, especially in the south." }, { "slug": "ravi", "name": "Ravi", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "sun", "pronunciation": "RAH-vee", "description": "Ravi is one of the Sanskrit names for the sun and for the solar deity, and it anchors compound names like Ravindra. Sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar carried it to global audiences in the 1960s, making it among the most recognizable Indian names in the West.", "themes": [ "sun", "light" ], "popularity": "Common throughout India and the Indian diaspora." }, { "slug": "arun", "name": "Arun", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "reddish glow of the rising sun", "pronunciation": "ah-ROON", "description": "Arun comes from Aruna, the charioteer of the sun god Surya in Hindu mythology, whose name describes the red-gold light just before sunrise. It is a gentle, widely used boys' name in India and Thailand, where the Temple of Dawn, Wat Arun, shares its source.", "themes": [ "sun", "light" ], "popularity": "Popular across India; the related Arjun ranks even higher among diaspora families." }, { "slug": "shams", "name": "Shams", "gender": "u", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "sun", "pronunciation": "SHAMS", "description": "Shams is the Arabic word for the sun, used for both sexes and carried by Shams of Tabriz, the wandering dervish whose friendship transformed the poet Rumi. The name appears across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, often in compounds like Shamsuddin, sun of the faith.", "themes": [ "sun", "light" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "aine", "name": "Áine", "gender": "f", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "radiance, brilliance", "pronunciation": "AWN-yah", "description": "Áine was an Irish goddess of summer, sovereignty, and abundance, associated with the sun and Midsummer rites at her hill in County Limerick. The name comes from an Old Irish word for radiance and splendor and remains a quietly traditional pick in Ireland, sometimes anglicized as Anya.", "themes": [ "sun", "light" ], "popularity": "A steady fixture in Ireland's top 100 girls' names." }, { "slug": "stella", "name": "Stella", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "star", "pronunciation": "STEL-ah", "description": "Stella is the Latin word for star, first popularized as a given name by Sir Philip Sidney's sixteenth-century sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella. It balances vintage charm with brightness, and Marlon Brando's anguished cry in A Streetcar Named Desire made it unforgettable.", "themes": [ "star", "light" ], "popularity": "A fixture in the US girls' top 100 since 2010." }, { "slug": "esther", "name": "Esther", "gender": "f", "origin": "Persian and Hebrew", "meaning": "star", "pronunciation": "ES-ter", "description": "Esther, the Jewish queen of Persia who saved her people in the biblical book bearing her name, most likely takes her name from the Persian word for star, though some scholars link it to the goddess Ishtar. Long beloved in Jewish families, it now rides the broader revival of vintage biblical names.", "themes": [ "star", "night" ], "popularity": "Returned to the US girls' top 200 in the 2010s after a long midcentury decline." }, { "slug": "seren", "name": "Seren", "gender": "f", "origin": "Welsh", "meaning": "star", "pronunciation": "SEH-ren", "description": "Seren is the Welsh word for star and one of the most popular girls' names in Wales, though it barely registers outside Britain. Its crisp two syllables and gentle meaning make it a quiet gem for parents seeking Celtic names beyond the familiar Irish set.", "themes": [ "star", "night" ], "popularity": "Regularly ranks among the top ten girls' names in Wales." }, { "slug": "sitara", "name": "Sitara", "gender": "f", "origin": "Persian and Urdu", "meaning": "star", "pronunciation": "sih-TAH-rah", "description": "Sitara comes from the Persian setareh, star, and traveled with Persian culture into Urdu and Hindi usage across South Asia. Lush and melodic, it offers the star meaning of Stella in an entirely different musical register.", "themes": [ "star", "night" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "tara", "name": "Tara", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "star", "pronunciation": "TAH-rah", "description": "In Sanskrit, Tara means star and names a goddess revered in both Hindu and Buddhist traditions, where she embodies compassion. Western use blends this source with the Irish Hill of Tara, seat of ancient kings, giving the name a rare double inheritance.", "themes": [ "star", "hope" ], "popularity": "Peaked in the US top 40 in the 1970s and remains in steady use." }, { "slug": "hoshi", "name": "Hoshi", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "star", "pronunciation": "HOH-shee", "description": "Hoshi is the Japanese word for star, written with a single bright character. As a standalone given name it is rare even in Japan, where star imagery more often forms part of longer names, but its simplicity has charmed English-speaking parents browsing Japanese vocabulary names.", "themes": [ "star", "night" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "citlali", "name": "Citlali", "gender": "f", "origin": "Nahuatl", "meaning": "star", "pronunciation": "seet-LAH-lee", "description": "Citlali comes from citlalin, the Nahuatl word for star, and has been carried by Mexican families since Aztec times. Alongside its variant Citlalli it remains a proud Indigenous choice in Mexico and Mexican-American communities, honoring a language still spoken by over a million people.", "themes": [ "star", "night" ], "popularity": "Regularly appears among popular girls' names in Mexico and in US Latino communities." }, { "slug": "danica", "name": "Danica", "gender": "f", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "morning star", "pronunciation": "DAN-ih-kah", "description": "Danica is the South Slavic name for the morning star, the planet Venus shining before sunrise, and a figure in Slavic folklore. Racing driver Danica Patrick and actress Danica McKellar made it familiar to Americans without ever making it common.", "themes": [ "star", "light" ], "popularity": "Charted in the lower half of the US girls' top 1000 through the 2000s and 2010s." }, { "slug": "nova", "name": "Nova", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "new", "pronunciation": "NOH-vah", "description": "Nova is Latin for new, but its naming power comes from astronomy, where a nova is a star that abruptly flares to dazzling brightness. The name's blend of science, space, and a fashionable -a ending propelled one of the fastest rises in recent American naming.", "themes": [ "star", "rebirth" ], "popularity": "Soared into the US girls' top 40 by the early 2020s." }, { "slug": "orion", "name": "Orion", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "uncertain; the hunter of Greek myth", "pronunciation": "oh-RY-un", "description": "Orion was the giant huntsman of Greek mythology whom Zeus placed among the stars, where his belted constellation dominates winter skies; the name's pre-Greek origin is unknown. It delivers full celestial drama while sounding close enough to Ryan to feel wearable.", "themes": [ "star", "night" ], "popularity": "Climbed into the US boys' top 300 during the 2020s." }, { "slug": "sirius", "name": "Sirius", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "scorching, glowing", "pronunciation": "SEER-ee-us", "description": "Sirius, from a Greek word meaning scorching, names the brightest star in Earth's night sky, the Dog Star whose summer rising gave us the dog days. Harry Potter's godfather Sirius Black introduced the name to a generation, though it remains a daring choice.", "themes": [ "star", "fire" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "altair", "name": "Altair", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "the flying eagle", "pronunciation": "al-TYRE", "description": "Altair, the brightest star in the constellation Aquila, takes its name from the Arabic phrase al-ta'ir, the flyer or flying eagle, a legacy of the golden age of Arabic astronomy. Gamers know it from Assassin's Creed, which has nudged this scholarly star name toward the mainstream.", "themes": [ "star", "sky" ], "popularity": "Used quietly in Latin America and Brazil; rare but rising in the US." }, { "slug": "najm", "name": "Najm", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "star", "pronunciation": "NAJM", "description": "Najm is the Arabic word for star, and an entire chapter of the Quran, An-Najm, bears the name. It has served as a male given name and honorific since medieval times, often in compounds like Najmuddin, star of the faith, while the feminine form Najma is equally established.", "themes": [ "star", "night" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "hoku", "name": "Hoku", "gender": "u", "origin": "Hawaiian", "meaning": "star", "pronunciation": "HOH-koo", "description": "Hoku is the Hawaiian word for star and also names the night of the full moon in the Hawaiian lunar calendar. It is used for both boys and girls in Hawaii, frequently within longer names such as Hokulani, heavenly star.", "themes": [ "star", "night" ], "popularity": "A local favorite in Hawaii, rarely heard elsewhere." }, { "slug": "skye", "name": "Skye", "gender": "f", "origin": "Scottish", "meaning": "from the Isle of Skye; the sky", "pronunciation": "SKY", "description": "Skye borrows the name of the misty Hebridean island off Scotland's west coast, which itself may derive from a Norse word for cloud, while doubling as the English word for the heavens. The island spelling softens the word-name effect and dominates usage for girls.", "themes": [ "sky", "freedom" ], "popularity": "A steady US top-400 girls' name; also popular in Scotland itself." }, { "slug": "celeste", "name": "Celeste", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "heavenly", "pronunciation": "seh-LEST", "description": "Celeste descends from the Latin caelestis, meaning heavenly or of the sky, a name borne by early saints of both sexes. Its airy elegance has kept it in continuous use for more than a century, and French, Italian, and Spanish all maintain their own versions.", "themes": [ "sky", "star" ], "popularity": "Has appeared in the US girls' top 1000 every year since records began in 1880." }, { "slug": "cielo", "name": "Cielo", "gender": "u", "origin": "Spanish", "meaning": "sky, heaven", "pronunciation": "see-EH-loh", "description": "Cielo is the Spanish word for both sky and heaven, and as an endearment it means darling, the way English speakers might say angel. As a given name it skews feminine in Latin America, where it sometimes arrives through the Marian title María del Cielo.", "themes": [ "sky", "love" ], "popularity": "Used in Latin America and US Latino communities; entered the US girls' top 1000 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "lani", "name": "Lani", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hawaiian", "meaning": "sky, heaven, royal", "pronunciation": "LAH-nee", "description": "Lani means sky or heaven in Hawaiian and, by extension, denotes royalty, since Hawaiian chiefs were considered heavenly. It stands gracefully alone and powers a whole family of island names, from Leilani to Kalani.", "themes": [ "sky", "light" ], "popularity": "Re-entered the US girls' top 1000 in the late 2010s." }, { "slug": "leilani", "name": "Leilani", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hawaiian", "meaning": "heavenly garland of flowers", "pronunciation": "lay-LAH-nee", "description": "Leilani joins lei, the Hawaiian flower garland, with lani, sky or heaven, and is often translated as heavenly flowers or royal child. Mainland America embraced it during the midcentury tiki craze and again in recent years, when it leapt up the charts.", "themes": [ "sky", "love" ], "popularity": "Reached the US girls' top 100 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "akash", "name": "Akash", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "sky, open space", "pronunciation": "AH-kahsh", "description": "Akash is the Sanskrit word for sky, and in classical Indian philosophy akasha names the fifth element, the ether that holds all space. The name is widespread among Indian boys and translates effortlessly into the diaspora.", "themes": [ "sky", "freedom" ], "popularity": "A perennial favorite for boys across India." }, { "slug": "sora", "name": "Sora", "gender": "u", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "sky", "pronunciation": "SOH-rah", "description": "Sora is the Japanese word for sky, given to boys and girls alike and usually written with the single character for sky or heavens. The hero of the Kingdom Hearts video games carried it abroad, where its open vowels make it easy for non-Japanese speakers to love.", "themes": [ "sky", "freedom" ], "popularity": "Ranks among Japan's popular unisex names; growing slowly in Western use." }, { "slug": "alya", "name": "Alya", "gender": "f", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "sky, heaven, loftiness", "pronunciation": "AHL-yah", "description": "Alya comes from an Arabic root meaning loftiness and exaltation, and is understood as sky or heaven across the Arabic-speaking world. The name also exists independently in Russian as a pet form of Alexandra, and in Turkish, giving it a passport few names can match.", "themes": [ "sky", "light" ], "popularity": "Widely used from Morocco to Malaysia; appears in the US top 1000 as Aliya and related spellings." }, { "slug": "nephele", "name": "Nephele", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "cloud", "pronunciation": "NEF-eh-lee", "description": "In Greek myth, Nephele was a woman shaped from a cloud by Zeus, mother of the golden ram whose fleece launched the Argonauts. Her name is the ancient Greek word for cloud, and it remains a rarity with serious mythological depth for adventurous parents.", "themes": [ "sky", "dream" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "anil", "name": "Anil", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "air, wind", "pronunciation": "ah-NEEL", "description": "Anil is a Sanskrit name for the wind and an epithet of Vayu, the Vedic wind god. A standard in twentieth-century India and borne by Bollywood star Anil Kapoor, it offers a breath of air to the sky-name category.", "themes": [ "sky", "storm" ], "popularity": "Very common among Indian men born in the later twentieth century." }, { "slug": "ilma", "name": "Ilma", "gender": "f", "origin": "Finnish", "meaning": "air", "pronunciation": "EEL-mah", "description": "Ilma is the Finnish word for air, related to Ilmatar, the air maiden whose floating on the primordial sea opens the national epic, the Kalevala. The name saw genuine use in Finland a century ago and survives as a delicate vintage rarity.", "themes": [ "sky", "freedom" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "neil", "name": "Neil", "gender": "m", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "cloud, or champion", "pronunciation": "NEEL", "description": "Neil anglicizes the old Irish name Niall, whose meaning scholars still dispute between cloud, champion, and passionate; the great dynasty of the Uí Néill descended from the semi-legendary king Niall of the Nine Hostages. Astronaut Neil Armstrong gave the name a permanent place in the sky.", "themes": [ "sky", "strength" ], "popularity": "Peaked in the US in the 1950s; still a quiet classic in Britain and Ireland." }, { "slug": "celia", "name": "Celia", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "of the Caelian; long associated with heaven", "pronunciation": "SEE-lee-ah", "description": "Celia descends from the Roman family name Caelius, which tradition has long connected with caelum, the Latin word for heaven or sky. Shakespeare gave the name to Rosalind's loyal cousin in As You Like It, and salsa queen Celia Cruz gave it rhythm.", "themes": [ "sky", "light" ], "popularity": "In continuous quiet use in the US top 1000 since the nineteenth century." }, { "slug": "keanu", "name": "Keanu", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hawaiian", "meaning": "the cool breeze", "pronunciation": "kay-AH-noo", "description": "Keanu means the coolness in Hawaiian, traditionally understood as the cool mountain breeze, joining the article ke with anu, coolness. Actor Keanu Reeves, named for a Hawaiian great-uncle, single-handedly carried it to global recognition.", "themes": [ "sky", "ocean" ], "popularity": "Entered the US boys' top 1000 in the 1990s on the strength of Keanu Reeves's fame." }, { "slug": "layla", "name": "Layla", "gender": "f", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "night", "pronunciation": "LAY-lah", "description": "Layla comes from the Arabic word for night and stars in one of the oldest love stories on record, the seventh-century romance of Layla and Majnun. Eric Clapton's anguished rock anthem, itself inspired by that tale, fixed the name in Western culture for good.", "themes": [ "night", "dark" ], "popularity": "A US top-30 girls' name across all its spellings for more than a decade." }, { "slug": "nyx", "name": "Nyx", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "night", "pronunciation": "NIKS", "description": "Nyx was the Greek primordial goddess of night, born from Chaos at the beginning of all things and so powerful that even Zeus feared to cross her. Her name is the ancient Greek word for night, and its single sharp syllable appeals to parents who want maximum myth in minimum space.", "themes": [ "night", "dark" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "nisha", "name": "Nisha", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "night", "pronunciation": "NEE-shah", "description": "Nisha is a Sanskrit word for night, smooth and complete in two syllables. It has been a steadily popular girls' name across India for generations and travels well, requiring no pronunciation coaching in English.", "themes": [ "night", "dark" ], "popularity": "Common in India and the South Asian diaspora." }, { "slug": "rajani", "name": "Rajani", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "night", "pronunciation": "RAH-jah-nee", "description": "Rajani is a classical Sanskrit word for night, sometimes counted among the epithets of the goddess Durga. Its rolling three syllables give it a more ornate character than Nisha, its everyday synonym, and it remains in traditional use across India.", "themes": [ "night", "dark" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "chausiku", "name": "Chausiku", "gender": "f", "origin": "Swahili", "meaning": "born at night", "pronunciation": "chow-SEE-koo", "description": "Chausiku is a Swahili name given to daughters born during the night, part of the wide East African tradition of naming children for the circumstances of their birth. It is built on usiku, the Swahili word for night.", "themes": [ "night" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "otieno", "name": "Otieno", "gender": "m", "origin": "Luo", "meaning": "born at night", "pronunciation": "oh-tee-EH-noh", "description": "Otieno is a Luo name from western Kenya given to boys born at night, one of a paired system in which birth-time names are bestowed almost automatically. It is among the most common Luo names and is familiar throughout Kenya as both given name and surname.", "themes": [ "night" ], "popularity": "Extremely common among the Luo of Kenya and Tanzania." }, { "slug": "ilta", "name": "Ilta", "gender": "f", "origin": "Finnish", "meaning": "evening", "pronunciation": "EEL-tah", "description": "Ilta is simply the Finnish word for evening, used as a girls' name since the era of national romanticism, when Finns mined their own language for names. It is short, soft, and almost unknown outside Finland, which is precisely its appeal.", "themes": [ "night" ], "popularity": "A vintage Finnish name enjoying mild revival at home." }, { "slug": "hesper", "name": "Hesper", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "evening star", "pronunciation": "HES-per", "description": "Hesper derives from Hesperus, the Greek personification of the evening star, the planet Venus appearing at dusk. Victorian poets adored the word, and the name retains a candlelit, literary atmosphere shared by few modern choices.", "themes": [ "night", "star" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "vesper", "name": "Vesper", "gender": "u", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "evening", "pronunciation": "VES-per", "description": "Vesper is the Latin word for evening and for the evening star, surviving in English through vespers, the church's evening prayers. Ian Fleming lent it to Bond heroine Vesper Lynd, whose 2006 film portrayal sparked genuine use for daughters.", "themes": [ "night", "star" ], "popularity": "Entered the US girls' top 1000 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "samar", "name": "Samar", "gender": "f", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "evening conversation", "pronunciation": "sah-MAR", "description": "Samar names the cherished Arab tradition of conversation that stretches into the night, storytelling under the stars. The name is used mainly for girls in the Arab world, and its meaning makes it one of the most atmospheric entries in any night-name list.", "themes": [ "night", "dream" ], "popularity": "Popular across the Levant and South Asia." }, { "slug": "isra", "name": "Isra", "gender": "f", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "night journey", "pronunciation": "ISS-rah", "description": "Isra means night journey in Arabic and refers to the Prophet Muhammad's miraculous nocturnal journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, commemorated in the Quran's seventeenth chapter. The sacred association makes it a meaningful choice for Muslim families worldwide.", "themes": [ "night", "dream" ], "popularity": "Well used in Turkey (as Esra) and throughout the Muslim world." }, { "slug": "tariq", "name": "Tariq", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "he who knocks by night; the morning star", "pronunciation": "TAH-rik", "description": "Tariq literally describes one who arrives knocking at the door by night, and in the Quran At-Tariq names the piercing morning star. The general Tariq ibn Ziyad, who crossed into Iberia in 711, left the name on the map itself: Gibraltar derives from Jabal Tariq, Tariq's mountain.", "themes": [ "night", "star" ], "popularity": "A steady presence in the US boys' top 1000 since the 1970s." }, { "slug": "nishant", "name": "Nishant", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "end of night, daybreak", "pronunciation": "nih-SHAHNT", "description": "Nishant joins the Sanskrit words for night and end into a name meaning the moment darkness lifts, daybreak. Popular with Indian parents in recent decades, it carries night and dawn in a single breath, a built-in story of hope.", "themes": [ "night", "light" ], "popularity": "A familiar modern boys' name in India." }, { "slug": "lucia", "name": "Lucia", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "light", "pronunciation": "loo-CHEE-ah", "description": "Lucia springs from the Latin lux, light, and was traditionally given to daughters born at daybreak. Saint Lucia of Syracuse, whose feast falls in the darkest stretch of December, is still honored across Scandinavia with candlelit processions, and the name shines in Italian, Spanish, and English alike.", "themes": [ "light", "sun" ], "popularity": "Risen into the US girls' top 200 while topping charts in Spain and Italy." }, { "slug": "lucian", "name": "Lucian", "gender": "m", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "light", "pronunciation": "LOO-shun", "description": "Lucian derives from the Roman name Lucianus, ultimately from lux, light, and was borne by a brilliantly satirical Greek writer of the second century. Painter Lucian Freud gave it modern artistic weight, and it offers a polished alternative to the wildly popular Luca and Lucas.", "themes": [ "light" ], "popularity": "Climbing steadily in the lower half of the US boys' top 1000." }, { "slug": "helena", "name": "Helena", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "torch, shining light", "pronunciation": "heh-LAY-nah", "description": "Helena is the Latinate form of Helen, most often traced to the Greek helene, a torch or corposant, though the face that launched a thousand ships predates certain etymology. Saint Helena, mother of Constantine, spread the name across Europe, and actress Helena Bonham Carter keeps it elegantly current.", "themes": [ "light", "fire" ], "popularity": "Holds a place in the US girls' top 500, with the stress varying by family." }, { "slug": "noor", "name": "Noor", "gender": "u", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "light", "pronunciation": "NOOR", "description": "Noor is the Arabic word for light, with profound resonance in Islam, where An-Nur, the Light, is one of the names of God. Queen Noor of Jordan, an American who took the name on her marriage, made it familiar in the West, and it is given to both daughters and sons.", "themes": [ "light", "hope" ], "popularity": "Among the most popular names for girls of Muslim heritage worldwide; in the US top 1000 as Noor and Nora-adjacent forms." }, { "slug": "anwar", "name": "Anwar", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "brighter, more luminous", "pronunciation": "AHN-war", "description": "Anwar is an Arabic comparative meaning brighter or more radiant, from the same root as Noor. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, carried the name onto the world stage in the 1970s, and it remains widespread from Morocco to Malaysia.", "themes": [ "light" ], "popularity": "Common across the Muslim world; a quiet presence in US naming records." }, { "slug": "aurora", "name": "Aurora", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "dawn", "pronunciation": "ah-ROR-ah", "description": "Aurora was the Roman goddess of dawn, whose rosy fingers opened the gates of morning, and her name doubles as the scientific term for the northern and southern lights. Disney's Sleeping Beauty wears it too, completing a trifecta of goddess, science, and fairy tale that few names can rival.", "themes": [ "light", "rebirth" ], "popularity": "A US top-40 girls' name through the early 2020s." }, { "slug": "dawn", "name": "Dawn", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "daybreak", "pronunciation": "DAWN", "description": "Dawn is the English word for first light, adopted as a given name in the late nineteenth century and beloved at midcentury, when it ranked high among American girls. Today it reads as gently retro, a one-syllable sunrise waiting for revival.", "themes": [ "light", "hope" ], "popularity": "Peaked in the US top 20 around 1970; now rare for newborns." }, { "slug": "zora", "name": "Zora", "gender": "f", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "dawn", "pronunciation": "ZOR-ah", "description": "Zora means dawn in several Slavic languages, where folk songs greet zora as the personified morning light. American parents most often choose it to honor writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, giving the name a double inheritance of daybreak and literary genius.", "themes": [ "light", "rebirth" ], "popularity": "Returned to the US girls' top 1000 in the 2010s." }, { "slug": "uriel", "name": "Uriel", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "God is my light", "pronunciation": "YUR-ee-el", "description": "Uriel combines the Hebrew words for light and God into the declaration God is my light, and tradition counts him among the archangels, often as the keeper of divine illumination. The name is well established in Jewish and Latin American communities.", "themes": [ "light", "fire" ], "popularity": "A consistent US top-500 boys' name, especially among Hispanic families." }, { "slug": "meir", "name": "Meir", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "one who gives light", "pronunciation": "may-EER", "description": "Meir means one who illuminates in Hebrew and has been treasured in Jewish communities since Rabbi Meir, a towering sage of the second century. Israel's prime minister Golda Meir bore it as a surname, and it remains a classic in observant families.", "themes": [ "light", "wisdom" ], "popularity": "Common in Israel and Orthodox Jewish communities worldwide." }, { "slug": "akari", "name": "Akari", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "light, brightness", "pronunciation": "ah-KAH-ree", "description": "Akari is a Japanese girls' name drawn from the word for lamplight or glow, often written with characters meaning bright or vermilion. It has ranked among Japan's favorite names for daughters in recent years and crosses into English effortlessly.", "themes": [ "light", "hope" ], "popularity": "A recurring top-20 girls' name in Japan during the 2010s and 2020s." }, { "slug": "hikaru", "name": "Hikaru", "gender": "u", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "light, radiance", "pronunciation": "hee-KAH-roo", "description": "Hikaru is the Japanese verb to shine used as a given name, written with the character for light, and famously borne by the radiant hero of The Tale of Genji a thousand years ago. Singer Hikaru Utada and chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura keep this unisex name visible worldwide.", "themes": [ "light", "star" ], "popularity": "A long-running unisex favorite in Japan." }, { "slug": "chiara", "name": "Chiara", "gender": "f", "origin": "Italian", "meaning": "bright, clear", "pronunciation": "kee-AH-rah", "description": "Chiara is the Italian form of Clara, from the Latin clarus, bright and famous, and it belonged to Saint Clare of Assisi, the devoted companion of Saint Francis. Italians have kept it near the top of their charts for decades, while English speakers prize its luminous kee-AH sound.", "themes": [ "light" ], "popularity": "A perennial top-ten girls' name in Italy." }, { "slug": "phoebe", "name": "Phoebe", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "bright, radiant", "pronunciation": "FEE-bee", "description": "Phoebe comes from the Greek phoibos, bright and pure, a title of the moon-associated Titan goddess and an epithet of Apollo's sister Artemis. The New Testament mentions a deaconess Phoebe, Friends gave the name its modern comic sparkle, and Phoebe Bridgers gave it indie credibility.", "themes": [ "light", "moon" ], "popularity": "Risen into the US girls' top 250; long popular in England." }, { "slug": "lior", "name": "Lior", "gender": "u", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "my light", "pronunciation": "lee-OR", "description": "Lior is a modern Hebrew name meaning my light, or light for me, given freely to both boys and girls in Israel. The feminine form Liora is also common, and both names carry the directness of Israeli naming, which favors fresh vocabulary words over inherited forms.", "themes": [ "light", "love" ], "popularity": "A staple of contemporary Israeli naming." }, { "slug": "ciara", "name": "Ciara", "gender": "f", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "dark, black-haired", "pronunciation": "KEER-ah", "description": "Ciara is the feminine of the Irish word ciar, meaning dark, and originally honored daughters with black hair; Saint Ciara was a seventh-century abbess in County Tipperary. In Ireland it is pronounced KEER-ah, while the American singer Ciara established see-AIR-ah as a separate tradition.", "themes": [ "dark", "night" ], "popularity": "A modern Irish classic; charted in the US top 1000 for three decades." }, { "slug": "kieran", "name": "Kieran", "gender": "m", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "little dark one", "pronunciation": "KEER-an", "description": "Kieran anglicizes Ciarán, a diminutive of ciar, dark, and belonged to two of Ireland's most venerated early saints, including the founder of the great monastery at Clonmacnoise. Actor Kieran Culkin has given the name fresh visibility in America.", "themes": [ "dark", "night" ], "popularity": "A steady US top-600 boys' name and a longtime favorite in Ireland and Britain." }, { "slug": "cole", "name": "Cole", "gender": "m", "origin": "English", "meaning": "coal-black, charcoal", "pronunciation": "KOHL", "description": "Cole began as a medieval byname from the Old English col, coal, describing someone dark-haired or swarthy, and the nursery rhyme's Old King Cole kept the sound merry. As a crisp single syllable it fits the modern taste for short, confident boys' names.", "themes": [ "dark" ], "popularity": "Held a place in the US boys' top 200 for most of the past three decades." }, { "slug": "duncan", "name": "Duncan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Scottish Gaelic", "meaning": "brown-haired warrior", "pronunciation": "DUN-kin", "description": "Duncan anglicizes the Gaelic Donnchadh, combining donn, brown or dark, with cath, battle, and was carried by two medieval kings of Scotland, including the ruler murdered in Macbeth. It wears its history lightly, sounding more friendly than feudal today.", "themes": [ "dark", "strength" ], "popularity": "A familiar if never trendy presence in the US boys' top 1000 since the nineteenth century." }, { "slug": "donovan", "name": "Donovan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "descendant of the dark one", "pronunciation": "DON-oh-van", "description": "Donovan comes from the Irish surname Ó Donndubháin, built on donn, brown, and dubh, black, describing a dark-featured ancestor. The mellow 1960s folk singer Donovan moved it from surname to first name, where it has stayed comfortably ever since.", "themes": [ "dark", "night" ], "popularity": "A fixture in the US boys' top 400 since the 1960s." }, { "slug": "melanie", "name": "Melanie", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "black, dark", "pronunciation": "MEL-ah-nee", "description": "Melanie descends from the Greek melaina, black or dark, through two Roman saints named Melania who gave away spectacular fortunes. Gone with the Wind's gentle Melanie Wilkes launched its twentieth-century American career, and Melanie Trump-era headlines notwithstanding, it remains a soft classic.", "themes": [ "dark", "night" ], "popularity": "A US top-200 girls' name for over half a century." }, { "slug": "raven", "name": "Raven", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "the black bird", "pronunciation": "RAY-ven", "description": "Raven takes the glossy black bird of omen and intelligence, sacred to Odin and central to Poe, and turns it into a name of sleek darkness. American use grew through the 1990s, helped by actress Raven-Symoné, and it skews feminine though boys receive it too.", "themes": [ "dark", "night" ], "popularity": "Charted in the US girls' top 1000 continuously since the late 1970s." }, { "slug": "jett", "name": "Jett", "gender": "m", "origin": "English", "meaning": "jet black gemstone", "pronunciation": "JET", "description": "Jett refers to jet, the dense black gemstone formed from fossilized wood that gave English the phrase jet black. The name carries an aviation echo as well, and John Travolta's son Jett brought it to public attention; rocker Joan Jett supplies its soundtrack.", "themes": [ "dark", "storm" ], "popularity": "Climbed into the US boys' top 300 during the 2020s." }, { "slug": "krishna", "name": "Krishna", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "black, dark", "pronunciation": "KRISH-nah", "description": "Krishna means black or dark in Sanskrit, describing the blue-black complexion of the adored Hindu deity who speaks the Bhagavad Gita and dances through centuries of devotional poetry. As a given name it is among the most widespread in India, used occasionally for girls in the form Krishnaa.", "themes": [ "dark", "love" ], "popularity": "One of the most common male names in India." }, { "slug": "kali", "name": "Kali", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "the black one", "pronunciation": "KAH-lee", "description": "Kali is the fierce Hindu goddess whose name means the black one, from the Sanskrit kala, black, with a secondary resonance of time the devourer. Western parents often arrive at the name through its sound, identical to the breezy Cali, but its theological weight is anything but casual.", "themes": [ "dark", "death" ], "popularity": "Appears regularly in the US girls' top 1000, boosted by the Cali sound-alike trend." }, { "slug": "adham", "name": "Adham", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "black", "pronunciation": "AHD-ham", "description": "Adham is an Arabic word for deep black, classically used of magnificent black horses, which lends the name an aristocratic equestrian shade. It was borne by the early Sufi saint Ibrahim ibn Adham, a prince who renounced his throne, and remains popular in Egypt.", "themes": [ "dark", "night" ], "popularity": "A common boys' name in Egypt and the Levant." }, { "slug": "sauda", "name": "Sauda", "gender": "f", "origin": "Swahili", "meaning": "dark-complexioned", "pronunciation": "sah-OO-dah", "description": "Sauda is a Swahili name from the Arabic sawda, black, traditionally bestowed admiringly on a dark-skinned daughter. The name connects to Sawda bint Zam'a, one of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad, giving it standing in both East African and Islamic naming.", "themes": [ "dark", "night" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "blake", "name": "Blake", "gender": "u", "origin": "English", "meaning": "black, or pale", "pronunciation": "BLAYK", "description": "Blake descends from two opposite Old English words, blaec, black, and blac, pale, so medieval bearers could be named for either dark or fair coloring. Poet William Blake supplies gravitas, and actress Blake Lively pushed the once-masculine surname firmly into unisex territory.", "themes": [ "dark", "light" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 boys' name for decades, with substantial use for girls since the 2010s." }, { "slug": "mara", "name": "Mara", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "bitter", "pronunciation": "MAH-rah", "description": "In the Book of Ruth, the widowed Naomi asks to be called Mara, bitter, making the name a biblical expression of grief. By coincidence the same syllables name the Buddhist demon of death and desire and a nightmare spirit of Slavic folklore, which lands gentle-sounding Mara on every list of death-touched names.", "themes": [ "death", "night" ], "popularity": "A quiet but persistent presence in the US girls' top 1000." }, { "slug": "morana", "name": "Morana", "gender": "f", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "goddess of winter and death", "pronunciation": "moh-RAH-nah", "description": "Morana, also rendered Marzanna, is the Slavic goddess of winter, death, and the year's dying, whose straw effigy is still drowned or burned each spring in Poland and Czechia to summon the thaw. Her name traces to a Proto-Slavic root connected with death, and it survives as a rare, starkly beautiful given name in the Balkans.", "themes": [ "death", "snow" ], "popularity": "Occasionally used in Croatia; essentially unknown in English-speaking countries." }, { "slug": "persephone", "name": "Persephone", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "uncertain; one ancient reading is bringer of destruction", "pronunciation": "per-SEF-oh-nee", "description": "Persephone, daughter of Demeter, was abducted by Hades and made queen of the underworld, yet her annual return to the surface brings spring, so she rules death and renewal at once. Her name's origin is genuinely obscure, with bringer of destruction one ancient guess, and modern parents drawn to mythology have begun using it in earnest.", "themes": [ "death", "rebirth" ], "popularity": "Entered the US girls' top 1000 in the 2020s amid the Greek mythology boom." }, { "slug": "hades", "name": "Hades", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "the unseen one", "pronunciation": "HAY-deez", "description": "Hades ruled the Greek underworld, and his name has traditionally been read as the unseen one, from a- and idein, to see. He was a stern but just god rather than a devil, a distinction modern mythology-loving parents cite when choosing this maximal name; the hit game Hades has only helped.", "themes": [ "death", "dark" ], "popularity": "Very rare but genuinely used, appearing in recent US naming data." }, { "slug": "osiris", "name": "Osiris", "gender": "m", "origin": "Egyptian", "meaning": "uncertain; god of the dead and resurrection", "pronunciation": "oh-SY-ris", "description": "Osiris was Egypt's green-skinned god of the dead, murdered by his brother Set and restored by Isis to rule the afterlife, making him a god of resurrection as much as death. The Greek form of his Egyptian name Wsjr resists sure translation, and the name has found real modern use among parents seeking ancient power.", "themes": [ "death", "rebirth" ], "popularity": "Appeared in the lower reaches of the US boys' top 1000 in recent years." }, { "slug": "anubis", "name": "Anubis", "gender": "m", "origin": "Egyptian", "meaning": "the jackal-headed god of embalming", "pronunciation": "ah-NOO-bis", "description": "Anubis, the jackal-headed guardian of Egyptian tombs, weighed each heart against the feather of truth and guided souls into the afterlife; his name is the Greek form of the Egyptian Anpu, whose literal meaning is debated. As a given name it is a true rarity, chosen by parents fluent in mythology.", "themes": [ "death", "dark" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "azrael", "name": "Azrael", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "God is my help; the angel of death", "pronunciation": "AZ-ray-el", "description": "Azrael is the angel of death in Islamic and later Jewish tradition, gathering souls with solemn gentleness rather than menace; the Hebrew name itself means God is my help. The contrast between fearsome office and comforting meaning draws parents who like their angel names with an edge.", "themes": [ "death", "night" ], "popularity": "Rare but rising; entered US naming records in meaningful numbers in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "samael", "name": "Samael", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "venom of God; an angel of death", "pronunciation": "SAM-ay-el", "description": "Samael appears in Jewish lore as a severe archangel, accuser and angel of death, whose name is usually parsed as venom of God. He is a far more ambivalent figure than Azrael, which keeps the name on the dark fringe of angelic choices.", "themes": [ "death", "dark" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "yama", "name": "Yama", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "twin; the god of death", "pronunciation": "YAH-mah", "description": "Yama was the first mortal to die in Vedic myth and so became the lord of death, judging souls in Hindu and Buddhist tradition from Tibet to Japan; his name literally means twin, for his sister Yami. It is used as a real given name in parts of South Asia and Afghanistan.", "themes": [ "death", "night" ], "popularity": "Found as a male given name in Afghanistan and parts of India." }, { "slug": "morrigan", "name": "Morrigan", "gender": "f", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "phantom queen", "pronunciation": "MOR-ih-gun", "description": "The Morrígan was the shape-shifting Irish goddess of war, fate, and death, settling over battlefields as a crow; her name is usually translated as phantom queen or great queen. Once strictly mythological, it now appeals to parents who want Maureen's sound with considerably more thunder.", "themes": [ "death", "dark" ], "popularity": "Rare but genuinely used in the US, with steady niche growth." }, { "slug": "valdis", "name": "Valdís", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "goddess of the slain", "pronunciation": "VAHL-dees", "description": "Valdís joins the Old Norse valr, the battle-slain, with dís, goddess or female spirit, the same elements that build Valhalla and the valkyries. It survives as a genuine Icelandic women's name, granting everyday wearability to a meaning of pure Norse steel.", "themes": [ "death", "strength" ], "popularity": "In regular use in Iceland." }, { "slug": "hel", "name": "Hel", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "hidden; ruler of the Norse underworld", "pronunciation": "HEL", "description": "Hel, daughter of Loki, ruled the Norse realm of the dead that shared her name, her body half living and half corpse; the name traces to a Germanic root meaning hidden or concealed, the same source as English hell. As a given name it is vanishingly rare, a single stark syllable for the boldest namers.", "themes": [ "death", "dark" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "mortimer", "name": "Mortimer", "gender": "m", "origin": "French", "meaning": "still water, dead sea", "pronunciation": "MOR-tih-mer", "description": "Mortimer arrived in England with Norman lords from Mortemer, a place name meaning dead or still water, a pond so calm it seemed lifeless. The mighty Mortimer earls shaped medieval English politics, and the name now sits in tweedy retirement awaiting an eccentric revival, nickname Mort included.", "themes": [ "death", "ocean" ], "popularity": "Common among English aristocracy for centuries; rare for babies today." }, { "slug": "aiden", "name": "Aiden", "gender": "m", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "little fire", "pronunciation": "AY-den", "description": "Aiden anglicizes Aodhán, a diminutive of Aodh, the Old Irish god of fire, and was borne by the gentle seventh-century Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne. Its sound conquered American naming in the 2000s, spawning a generation of rhyming -aden names, but the original carries true ember-light etymology.", "themes": [ "fire" ], "popularity": "A US top-20 boys' name through much of the 2000s and 2010s." }, { "slug": "egan", "name": "Egan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "little fire", "pronunciation": "EE-gan", "description": "Egan derives from the Irish Mac Aodhagáin, descendant of Aodhagán, itself a double diminutive of Aodh, fire. The family were hereditary lawyers to Gaelic chiefs for centuries, and the name offers Aiden's flame without Aiden's ubiquity.", "themes": [ "fire" ], "popularity": "An uncommon choice that hovers near the edge of the US top 1000." }, { "slug": "blaze", "name": "Blaze", "gender": "m", "origin": "English", "meaning": "a bright flame", "pronunciation": "BLAYZ", "description": "Blaze is the English word for leaping flame used as a name, though some bearers arrive via Blaise, the ancient saint's name carried by mathematician Blaise Pascal. The word spelling, all speed and heat, has pulled ahead in American use.", "themes": [ "fire", "light" ], "popularity": "Entered the US boys' top 1000 in the 2000s and has held on since." }, { "slug": "ember", "name": "Ember", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "glowing coal", "pronunciation": "EM-ber", "description": "Ember names the live coal that holds fire through the night, a softer, more patient heat than Blaze. It surged with the 2000s nature-name wave, offering parents the fashionable Em- opening of Emma and Emily with an original twist.", "themes": [ "fire", "light" ], "popularity": "Rose into the US girls' top 200 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "seraphina", "name": "Seraphina", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "burning ones", "pronunciation": "seh-rah-FEE-nah", "description": "Seraphina derives from the seraphim, the six-winged angels of Isaiah's vision whose Hebrew name means the burning ones. Long preserved by a twelfth-century Italian saint, the name returned to fashion after Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck chose it in 2009, and its lavish syllables shorten sweetly to Sera or Fina.", "themes": [ "fire", "light" ], "popularity": "Hovers just outside the US girls' top 1000 while thriving in stylish circles." }, { "slug": "ignatius", "name": "Ignatius", "gender": "m", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "associated with fire", "pronunciation": "ig-NAY-shus", "description": "Ignatius descends from the Roman family name Egnatius, of obscure Etruscan origin, but was reshaped centuries ago by association with ignis, the Latin word for fire, which now defines it. Saints Ignatius of Antioch and Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, give it formidable history, with Iggy as the escape-hatch nickname.", "themes": [ "fire", "wisdom" ], "popularity": "Rare in the US but persistent in Catholic families and rising among vintage revivalists." }, { "slug": "agni", "name": "Agni", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "fire", "pronunciation": "UG-nee", "description": "Agni is the Vedic god of fire and the Sanskrit word for fire itself, cognate with the Latin ignis; as the carrier of sacrifices to the gods he receives more hymns in the Rigveda than almost any deity. The name remains in use in India and carries three thousand years of sacred flame.", "themes": [ "fire", "sun" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "pele", "name": "Pele", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hawaiian", "meaning": "the volcano goddess", "pronunciation": "PEH-leh", "description": "Pele is the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes and fire who dwells in the crater of Kilauea, shaping the islands with her eruptions; her name is tied to the Hawaiian word for lava and molten rock. In Hawaii the name commands deep respect, and elsewhere it inevitably echoes the Brazilian soccer legend, an entirely unrelated nickname.", "themes": [ "fire", "strength" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "brigid", "name": "Brigid", "gender": "f", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "exalted one", "pronunciation": "BRIJ-id", "description": "Brigid was the Irish goddess of fire, poetry, and the forge, and her name means the exalted one; Saint Brigid of Kildare inherited both her name and her perpetual sacred flame, tended by nuns for a thousand years. Ireland made her feast day a national holiday in 2023, renewing interest in the original spelling.", "themes": [ "fire", "light" ], "popularity": "The variant Bridget ranked high in the US for decades; Brigid stays closer to its Irish roots." }, { "slug": "anala", "name": "Anala", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "fire", "pronunciation": "ah-NAH-lah", "description": "Anala is a Sanskrit word for fire, counted among the names of Agni in classical texts. As a given name it is uncommon even in India, but its flowing sound conceals its blaze, making it a stealth fire name for English-speaking parents.", "themes": [ "fire" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "tanwen", "name": "Tanwen", "gender": "f", "origin": "Welsh", "meaning": "white fire, holy fire", "pronunciation": "TAN-wen", "description": "Tanwen joins the Welsh tân, fire, with gwen, white, blessed, or holy, yielding a meaning often rendered as sacred fire. It is a genuinely Welsh name in modern use, rare even in Wales, with the fashionable -wen ending of Carwen and Anwen.", "themes": [ "fire", "light" ], "popularity": "An uncommon but established name in Wales." }, { "slug": "azar", "name": "Azar", "gender": "u", "origin": "Persian", "meaning": "fire", "pronunciation": "ah-ZAR", "description": "Azar is the Persian word for fire and the name of the ninth month of the Iranian calendar, recalling the sacred flames kept burning in Zoroastrian temples for millennia. In Iran it is chiefly feminine, and author Azar Nafisi of Reading Lolita in Tehran is its best-known modern bearer.", "themes": [ "fire", "light" ], "popularity": "A familiar women's name in Iran." }, { "slug": "kalama", "name": "Kalama", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hawaiian", "meaning": "the flaming torch", "pronunciation": "kah-LAH-mah", "description": "Kalama means the torch or the flame in Hawaiian and was borne by a nineteenth-century queen consort of Hawaii, wife of Kamehameha III. The name is used for both sexes in the islands and survives on the mainland mostly as a place and surname, leaving the given name fresh.", "themes": [ "fire", "light" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "kai", "name": "Kai", "gender": "u", "origin": "Hawaiian", "meaning": "sea", "pronunciation": "KYE", "description": "Kai means sea in Hawaiian, and the same syllable happens to exist in Japanese, where one common written form also means sea, plus Scandinavian, Maori, and Chinese traditions with meanings of their own. That accidental universality has made it one of the great global names of the century, used everywhere for boys and increasingly for girls.", "themes": [ "ocean" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 boys' name in the 2020s and a chart regular across Europe." }, { "slug": "moana", "name": "Moana", "gender": "f", "origin": "Maori and Hawaiian", "meaning": "ocean, open sea", "pronunciation": "moh-AH-nah", "description": "Moana is the word for the deep ocean across Polynesian languages, from Hawaii to Aotearoa, long used as a genuine given name in those cultures. Disney's 2016 wayfinding heroine introduced it to the rest of the planet, where it now reads as adventurous rather than obscure.", "themes": [ "ocean", "freedom" ], "popularity": "Traditional in Polynesia; saw a measurable bump in international use after the 2016 film." }, { "slug": "marina", "name": "Marina", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "of the sea", "pronunciation": "mah-REE-nah", "description": "Marina is the feminine of the Latin marinus, of the sea, borne by early saints and a Shakespearean princess born aboard a ship in Pericles. Its international polish keeps it current from Moscow to Madrid, even as English speakers also hear the word for a harbor of sailboats.", "themes": [ "ocean" ], "popularity": "A longtime international standard; consistently in the US girls' top 1000." }, { "slug": "morgan", "name": "Morgan", "gender": "u", "origin": "Welsh", "meaning": "sea-born, sea circle", "pronunciation": "MOR-gan", "description": "Morgan descends from the Old Welsh Morcant, whose first element is widely linked to môr, the sea, with a traditional gloss of sea-born or sea circle. Arthurian legend supplies the enchantress Morgan le Fay, and modern America has split the name almost evenly between daughters and sons before it settled feminine-leaning.", "themes": [ "ocean", "dream" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 girls' name through the 1990s and 2000s; still common for both sexes." }, { "slug": "dylan", "name": "Dylan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Welsh", "meaning": "son of the sea, great tide", "pronunciation": "DIL-an", "description": "In the Welsh Mabinogi, Dylan ail Don was a god who took to the waves the moment he was baptized, and all the seas mourned his death; his name is connected with Welsh words for flow and great tide. Poet Dylan Thomas inspired Bob Dylan's stage name, and between them they made this sea god a household sound.", "themes": [ "ocean", "storm" ], "popularity": "A US top-50 boys' name for most of three decades." }, { "slug": "maris", "name": "Maris", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "of the sea", "pronunciation": "MAH-ris", "description": "Maris comes from the Latin title Stella Maris, star of the sea, an ancient epithet of the Virgin Mary beloved by sailors. Spare and tailored where Marissa is lush, it stays genuinely rare, its most famous bearer the never-seen Maris of the sitcom Frasier.", "themes": [ "ocean", "star" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "nerissa", "name": "Nerissa", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "sea nymph", "pronunciation": "neh-RIS-ah", "description": "Nerissa was apparently coined by Shakespeare for Portia's quick-witted waiting woman in The Merchant of Venice, built on the Greek Nereids, the fifty sea nymph daughters of Nereus. It offers Melissa's familiar rhythm with salt water in its veins.", "themes": [ "ocean", "dream" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "oceane", "name": "Océane", "gender": "f", "origin": "French", "meaning": "ocean", "pronunciation": "oh-say-AHN", "description": "Océane is the French feminine of the word ocean, a name that barely existed before the 1980s and then swept France, ranking among its most popular girls' names around the millennium. It shows how readily French turns vocabulary into elegance, and it remains rare in English-speaking countries.", "themes": [ "ocean", "freedom" ], "popularity": "A top-ten girls' name in France in the early 2000s." }, { "slug": "delmar", "name": "Delmar", "gender": "m", "origin": "Spanish", "meaning": "of the sea", "pronunciation": "DEL-mar", "description": "Delmar fuses the Spanish del mar, of the sea, into a single given name that flourished quietly in early twentieth-century America. It carries midcentury charm alongside its coastal meaning, and the related Delmare and feminine Delmara extend the family.", "themes": [ "ocean" ], "popularity": "Ranked in the US boys' top 1000 from the 1880s into the 1980s." }, { "slug": "nami", "name": "Nami", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "wave", "pronunciation": "NAH-mee", "description": "Nami is the Japanese word for wave, used as a girls' name and instantly visualized by anyone who knows Hokusai's Great Wave. The navigator Nami of the manga One Piece has carried the name to an enormous global audience.", "themes": [ "ocean", "storm" ], "popularity": "An established girls' name in Japan." }, { "slug": "kaito", "name": "Kaito", "gender": "m", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "sea and soaring", "pronunciation": "KYE-toh", "description": "Kaito has ranked among Japan's most popular boys' names for two decades, most often written with the character for sea joined to characters meaning to soar or the Big Dipper, so each family inscribes its own nuance. Its crisp two-beat sound travels easily, and it is gaining notice among Western parents.", "themes": [ "ocean", "sky" ], "popularity": "A recurrent top-ten boys' name in Japan since the 2000s." }, { "slug": "bahari", "name": "Bahari", "gender": "m", "origin": "Swahili", "meaning": "ocean, sea", "pronunciation": "bah-HAH-ree", "description": "Bahari is the Swahili word for the ocean, borrowed centuries ago from the Arabic bahr as Indian Ocean trade shaped the Swahili coast. As a given name it evokes that maritime heritage of dhows and monsoon winds, and it doubles as a word for a seafarer.", "themes": [ "ocean", "freedom" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "darya", "name": "Darya", "gender": "f", "origin": "Persian", "meaning": "sea", "pronunciation": "dar-YAH", "description": "Darya is the Persian word for sea, flowing through Central Asian geography in river names like Amu Darya. As a girls' name it is well loved in Iran; in Russia the identical-looking Darya is instead the standard form of Daria, from the Persian royal name Darius, so the name carries two histories at once.", "themes": [ "ocean", "freedom" ], "popularity": "Popular in Iran and, via the Daria lineage, throughout Russia." }, { "slug": "neve", "name": "Neve", "gender": "f", "origin": "Italian and Portuguese", "meaning": "snow", "pronunciation": "NEV", "description": "Neve is the Italian and Portuguese word for snow, descended from the Latin nix; in mountaineering, a névé is the granular snow that feeds a glacier. The name doubles as a common anglicization of the Irish Niamh, which is how actress Neve Campbell came by it, giving one spelling two unrelated histories.", "themes": [ "snow", "light" ], "popularity": "A favorite in Scotland and Ireland in both Neve and Niamh spellings." }, { "slug": "eira", "name": "Eira", "gender": "f", "origin": "Welsh", "meaning": "snow", "pronunciation": "AY-rah", "description": "Eira is simply the Welsh word for snow, taken up as a girls' name during the nineteenth-century revival of Welsh culture. Pronounced AY-rah in Wales, it is small, white, and quiet, and it has begun drifting beyond the Welsh border as parents hunt for undiscovered nature names.", "themes": [ "snow" ], "popularity": "A steady presence in Welsh naming; rising gently across the UK." }, { "slug": "eirwen", "name": "Eirwen", "gender": "f", "origin": "Welsh", "meaning": "white as snow", "pronunciation": "AYR-wen", "description": "Eirwen combines the Welsh eira, snow, with gwen, white or blessed, producing a name that means snow-white without the fairy-tale baggage. Coined in the early twentieth century, it belongs to the same affectionate family of Welsh -wen names as Bronwen and Anwen.", "themes": [ "snow", "light" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "yuki", "name": "Yuki", "gender": "u", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "snow, or happiness", "pronunciation": "YOO-kee", "description": "Yuki means snow when written with the snow character, but the same sound written differently means happiness or good fortune, so each Japanese family chooses the meaning at the registry. The name is used for both sexes, and Formula 1 driver Yuki Tsunoda has lately broadcast it worldwide.", "themes": [ "snow", "joy" ], "popularity": "A perennial Japanese favorite for girls and boys alike." }, { "slug": "yukio", "name": "Yukio", "gender": "m", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "snow man, or fortunate man", "pronunciation": "YOO-kee-oh", "description": "Yukio adds the masculine ending -o to yuki, and depending on the characters chosen it can mean man of snow or man of good fortune. Novelist Yukio Mishima, three times shortlisted for the Nobel Prize, remains the name's most famous bearer.", "themes": [ "snow" ], "popularity": "A classic twentieth-century Japanese men's name." }, { "slug": "lumi", "name": "Lumi", "gender": "f", "origin": "Finnish", "meaning": "snow", "pronunciation": "LOO-mee", "description": "Lumi is the Finnish word for snow, a small luminous name that Finland itself only embraced for daughters in recent decades. Its happy accident is that it sounds like the Latin lumen, light, so English speakers hear brightness in a name that literally means snowfall.", "themes": [ "snow", "light" ], "popularity": "Ranked among Finland's most popular girls' names in the 2010s and 2020s." }, { "slug": "edurne", "name": "Edurne", "gender": "f", "origin": "Basque", "meaning": "snow", "pronunciation": "eh-DOOR-neh", "description": "Edurne is built on edur, the Basque word for snow, and was promoted in the early twentieth century as the Basque rendering of the Spanish Marian name Nieves, Our Lady of the Snows. It remains a recognizably Basque badge of identity, borne by singer Edurne and mountaineer Edurne Pasaban, the first woman to summit all fourteen eight-thousanders.", "themes": [ "snow" ], "popularity": "Well established in the Basque Country of Spain." }, { "slug": "khione", "name": "Khione", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "snow", "pronunciation": "KEE-oh-nee", "description": "Khione, from the Greek chion, snow, was a minor goddess or nymph of snow, daughter of Boreas the north wind. Rick Riordan cast her as an icy antagonist in his Heroes of Olympus novels, which introduced this frosty rarity to a generation of young readers.", "themes": [ "snow", "storm" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "frost", "name": "Frost", "gender": "m", "origin": "English", "meaning": "frozen dew", "pronunciation": "FROST", "description": "Frost moved from Old English byname to surname, describing someone white-haired or born in a freeze, and now edges back toward first-name use in the era of Wilder and Fox. Poet Robert Frost supplies a ready-made literary blessing for a child of winter.", "themes": [ "snow" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "winter", "name": "Winter", "gender": "u", "origin": "English", "meaning": "the cold season", "pronunciation": "WIN-ter", "description": "Winter is the season name that waited longest for its turn, joining Summer and Autumn in the naming pool only in recent decades. It is given mostly to girls, with a cool gravity its sister seasons lack, and celebrity use, including Gwen Stefani's niece and namesakes in hip-hop families, keeps it visible.", "themes": [ "snow", "night" ], "popularity": "Entered the US girls' top 300 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "tushar", "name": "Tushar", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "frost, snow", "pronunciation": "too-SHAR", "description": "Tushar comes from the Sanskrit tushara, meaning frost, snow, or fine winter mist, a word the ancient texts also applied to the cold mountain lands beyond the Himalayas. It is a familiar modern boys' name across northern India.", "themes": [ "snow" ], "popularity": "Common among Indian men born since the 1970s." }, { "slug": "himani", "name": "Himani", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "mass of snow, glacier", "pronunciation": "hih-MAH-nee", "description": "Himani derives from hima, the Sanskrit word for snow that also opens Himalaya, the abode of snow, and is traditionally counted among the names of the goddess Parvati, daughter of the mountain. It is a graceful, recognizably Indian choice with an unmistakably wintry core.", "themes": [ "snow" ], "popularity": "In regular use across India." }, { "slug": "fannar", "name": "Fannar", "gender": "m", "origin": "Icelandic", "meaning": "snowdrift", "pronunciation": "FAHN-nar", "description": "Fannar is an Icelandic men's name drawn from fönn, the Old Norse word for a drift of snow, weather that Iceland knows intimately. It is an ordinary, well-liked name there and an utter novelty everywhere else, which makes it a genuine find for Nordic-minded parents.", "themes": [ "snow", "storm" ], "popularity": "In steady use in Iceland." }, { "slug": "storm", "name": "Storm", "gender": "u", "origin": "English and Scandinavian", "meaning": "storm, tempest", "pronunciation": "STORM", "description": "Storm has a longer pedigree than it appears: Scandinavians used it as a byname and surname for centuries before English speakers adopted it as a first name. The weather word lands differently by gender, with the X-Men's commanding Ororo Munroe defining its feminine register and Scandinavian usage anchoring the masculine.", "themes": [ "storm", "sky" ], "popularity": "In regular use in Denmark and Norway and as a unisex pick in English-speaking countries." }, { "slug": "tempest", "name": "Tempest", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "violent storm", "pronunciation": "TEM-pist", "description": "Tempest takes the grandest English word for a storm, with Shakespeare's late masterpiece attached, and survives as both an old Yorkshire surname and a dramatic first name. Modern use leans feminine, balancing fury and poetry in three syllables.", "themes": [ "storm", "ocean" ], "popularity": "Rare but consistently recorded in US naming data." }, { "slug": "raiden", "name": "Raiden", "gender": "m", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "thunder and lightning", "pronunciation": "RAY-den", "description": "Raiden is the popular rendering of Raijin, the Japanese god of thunder, whose name joins the characters for thunder and lightning; he is depicted drumming storms out of a ring of drums. Mortal Kombat's lightning-wielding Raiden carried the name to Western parents, who also like that it rhymes with Aiden.", "themes": [ "storm", "sky" ], "popularity": "Entered the US boys' top 1000 in 2013 and climbed into the top 400." }, { "slug": "thor", "name": "Thor", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "thunder", "pronunciation": "THOR", "description": "Thor, hammer-wielding defender of gods and humans, bears the Old Norse word for thunder as his name, and Thursday still carries it in English. Long an ordinary name in Scandinavia, it has gained American traction as Marvel transformed the thunder god into a beloved blockbuster lead.", "themes": [ "storm", "strength" ], "popularity": "A standard name in Norway and Denmark; used in measurable numbers in the US since the Marvel films." }, { "slug": "aella", "name": "Aella", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "whirlwind", "pronunciation": "AY-el-ah", "description": "Aella was an Amazon warrior in Greek myth, the first to attack Heracles, and her name means whirlwind or stormwind. It compresses serious mythological force into a light, vowel-led sound that fits beside Ella and Ayla while meaning something far wilder.", "themes": [ "storm", "strength" ], "popularity": "A fast riser at the edge of the US girls' top 1000 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "zephyr", "name": "Zephyr", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "west wind", "pronunciation": "ZEF-er", "description": "Zephyr descends from Zephyrus, the Greek god of the gentle west wind that ushers in spring, and the word still means a soft breeze in English. The name's mix of mythology, music, and the rare letter Z has made it a quiet favorite among artistic families.", "themes": [ "storm", "sky" ], "popularity": "Entered the US boys' top 1000 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "gale", "name": "Gale", "gender": "u", "origin": "English", "meaning": "a strong wind", "pronunciation": "GAYL", "description": "Gale reads today as the word for a near-storm wind, though as a midcentury given name it usually abbreviated Abigail for women or carried on an English surname meaning cheerful for men. The Hunger Games' Gale Hawthorne renewed its masculine side for a new generation.", "themes": [ "storm", "sky" ], "popularity": "Peaked for American girls in the 1950s; now uncommon for either sex." }, { "slug": "baran", "name": "Baran", "gender": "u", "origin": "Persian and Kurdish", "meaning": "rain", "pronunciation": "bah-RAHN", "description": "Baran is the Persian and Kurdish word for rain, cherished in cultures where rainfall means life rather than gloom. It is mostly feminine in Iran, where Majid Majidi's film Baran burnished it, and masculine among Kurds and in Turkey, a rare name with opposite genders on either side of a border.", "themes": [ "storm", "sky" ], "popularity": "A top girls' name in Iran in recent years and a popular boys' name among Kurdish families." }, { "slug": "varsha", "name": "Varsha", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "rain, the monsoon", "pronunciation": "VAR-shah", "description": "Varsha is the Sanskrit word for rain and names the monsoon season that India's poets have celebrated for two millennia, the year's great turning from heat to abundance. It is a common, affectionate girls' name throughout the country.", "themes": [ "storm", "hope" ], "popularity": "Widely used across India." }, { "slug": "indra", "name": "Indra", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "the god of thunder and rain", "pronunciation": "IN-drah", "description": "Indra, king of the Vedic gods, wields the thunderbolt and releases the rains by slaying the drought serpent Vritra; his name's exact origin is ancient and debated, but his storm portfolio is not. The name is traditional for boys in India and Indonesia, while in Latvia, by an unrelated path, Indra is a woman's name.", "themes": [ "storm", "strength" ], "popularity": "Traditional in India and Indonesia; PepsiCo chief Indra Nooyi made the feminine usage famous." }, { "slug": "audra", "name": "Audra", "gender": "f", "origin": "Lithuanian", "meaning": "storm", "pronunciation": "AW-drah", "description": "Audra is the Lithuanian word for storm, a genuine weather name in its homeland, though most American Audras arrived via the 1960s vogue for Audrey variants spurred by The Big Valley's Audra Barkley. Broadway star Audra McDonald, winner of six Tony Awards, is the name's great modern champion.", "themes": [ "storm" ], "popularity": "Ranked in the US girls' top 1000 from the 1940s to the 2000s." }, { "slug": "barak", "name": "Barak", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "lightning", "pronunciation": "bah-RAHK", "description": "Barak means lightning in Hebrew and belonged to the biblical general who routed Sisera's chariots alongside the prophetess Deborah. It is distinct from the Arabic-derived Barack, meaning blessed, though President Obama made the sound familiar to every American ear.", "themes": [ "storm", "light" ], "popularity": "In continuous use in Israel." }, { "slug": "tufan", "name": "Tufan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Turkish and Persian", "meaning": "storm, deluge", "pronunciation": "too-FAHN", "description": "Tufan is the Turkish and Persian word for a violent storm or flood, used in those languages for the deluge of Noah; the word shares an ancient root with typhoon. It is a recognized men's name in Turkey, Iran, and the Caucasus, carrying the full force of the flood narrative.", "themes": [ "storm", "ocean" ], "popularity": "A familiar men's name in Turkey and Azerbaijan." }, { "slug": "roya", "name": "Roya", "gender": "f", "origin": "Persian", "meaning": "dream, vision", "pronunciation": "roh-YAH", "description": "Roya is the Persian word for a dream or vision seen in sleep, borrowed from Arabic and worn smooth by Persian poetry. It is a common, lovely name in Iran and Afghanistan, carried abroad by journalists and artists of the diaspora.", "themes": [ "dream", "night" ], "popularity": "Well used in Iran and Afghanistan." }, { "slug": "aisling", "name": "Aisling", "gender": "f", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "dream, vision", "pronunciation": "ASH-ling", "description": "Aisling is the Irish word for dream or vision and names an entire genre of eighteenth-century poetry in which Ireland appears as a dream-woman foretelling deliverance. Revived with Irish independence, it stays popular at home, and comedian Aisling Bea now coaches the wider world through its ASH-ling pronunciation.", "themes": [ "dream", "hope" ], "popularity": "A fixture in Ireland's top 50 girls' names for decades." }, { "slug": "morpheus", "name": "Morpheus", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "shaper of dreams", "pronunciation": "MOR-fee-us", "description": "Morpheus, named from the Greek morphe, form, was the god who shaped the figures that appear in dreams, chief of the Oneiroi in Ovid's telling. The Matrix gave the name a leather-coated modern icon, and the drug morphine, coined from the same god, shows how deep the dream association runs.", "themes": [ "dream", "night" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "yume", "name": "Yume", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "dream", "pronunciation": "YOO-meh", "description": "Yume is the Japanese word for dream, in both the sleeping and aspirational senses, and emerged as a given name as Japanese parents grew freer with vocabulary words. It is short, wishful, and increasingly common for girls born in twenty-first-century Japan.", "themes": [ "dream", "hope" ], "popularity": "A popular modern girls' name in Japan." }, { "slug": "sapna", "name": "Sapna", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hindi", "meaning": "dream", "pronunciation": "SUP-nah", "description": "Sapna is the everyday Hindi word for dream, descended from the Sanskrit svapna, and has been a warmly popular girls' name in India since the mid-twentieth century. Bollywood has cast dozens of heroines named Sapna, sealing its association with romance and aspiration.", "themes": [ "dream", "hope" ], "popularity": "Very common among Indian women born in the 1970s and 1980s." }, { "slug": "swapnil", "name": "Swapnil", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "dreamlike", "pronunciation": "SWUP-nil", "description": "Swapnil is a modern Indian name built from the Sanskrit svapna, dream, and is usually glossed as dreamlike or seen in a dream. It rose with the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in Maharashtra, giving the dream theme a solidly masculine form.", "themes": [ "dream", "night" ], "popularity": "A familiar men's name in western and northern India." }, { "slug": "hulya", "name": "Hülya", "gender": "f", "origin": "Turkish", "meaning": "daydream, reverie", "pronunciation": "HOOL-yah", "description": "Hülya means daydream or sweet reverie in Turkish, the kind of dreaming done with open eyes. It became a beloved twentieth-century girls' name in Turkey, carried by screen icon Hülya Koçyiğit, and it remains one of the most poetic entries in the Turkish naming book.", "themes": [ "dream" ], "popularity": "A classic among Turkish women born in the later twentieth century." }, { "slug": "amets", "name": "Amets", "gender": "u", "origin": "Basque", "meaning": "dream", "pronunciation": "ah-METS", "description": "Amets is the Basque word for dream, used as a given name for both boys and girls in the Basque Country, where the language's revival has filled registries with vocabulary names. Its closing -ts gives it a sound unlike anything in English, French, or Spanish.", "themes": [ "dream", "hope" ], "popularity": "In regular use in the Basque Country, more often for boys." }, { "slug": "dream", "name": "Dream", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "a vision in sleep; an aspiration", "pronunciation": "DREEM", "description": "Dream entered American naming charts in the late 2010s, a frank aspiration name in the lineage of Hope and Destiny, lifted by celebrity daughters including Rob Kardashian's. It is given almost entirely to girls and remains a statement choice, the wish worn openly.", "themes": [ "dream", "hope" ], "popularity": "Entered the US girls' top 1000 in 2017." }, { "slug": "ahlam", "name": "Ahlam", "gender": "f", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "dreams", "pronunciation": "ah-LAHM", "description": "Ahlam is the Arabic plural for dreams, a name that wraps a daughter in all of them at once. It is well established across North Africa and the Gulf, where the Emirati singer Ahlam ranks among the Arab world's biggest stars.", "themes": [ "dream", "night" ], "popularity": "Common throughout the Arabic-speaking world." }, { "slug": "maya", "name": "Maya", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "illusion, magic", "pronunciation": "MY-ah", "description": "In Sanskrit philosophy, maya is the shimmering illusion that veils ultimate reality, and Queen Maya was the mother of the Buddha. The name separately exists in Hebrew, Greek, and Spanish traditions, but the dreamlike Sanskrit meaning is its oldest, and bearers from Maya Angelou to Maya Rudolph have made it beloved in America.", "themes": [ "dream", "night" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 girls' name for most of the past two decades." }, { "slug": "arman", "name": "Arman", "gender": "m", "origin": "Persian", "meaning": "wish, ideal, aspiration", "pronunciation": "ar-MAHN", "description": "Arman is a Persian word for a deep wish or ideal, the dream a life is aimed at, and it thrives as a boys' name from Iran through Central Asia to Kazakhstan. Its accidental closeness to the French Armand helps it pass without comment in the West.", "themes": [ "dream", "hope" ], "popularity": "A popular men's name in Iran, Armenia, and Kazakhstan." }, { "slug": "murad", "name": "Murad", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "wished for, desired", "pronunciation": "moo-RAHD", "description": "Murad comes from an Arabic root meaning to want, yielding the sense of the desired one, the longed-for goal. Five Ottoman sultans bore the name, spreading it from the Balkans to Bengal, and it remains widespread in Muslim communities everywhere.", "themes": [ "dream", "love" ], "popularity": "Common across the Middle East, the Caucasus, and South Asia." }, { "slug": "hope", "name": "Hope", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "hope, expectation", "pronunciation": "HOHP", "description": "Hope is one of the great Puritan virtue names, given since the sixteenth century to plant the quality itself in a daughter, and unlike many of its siblings it never fell out of use. It anchors sister sets with Faith and Grace and slips gracefully into middle-name position.", "themes": [ "hope" ], "popularity": "Has remained in the US girls' top 300 for decades." }, { "slug": "nadia", "name": "Nadia", "gender": "f", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "hope", "pronunciation": "NAH-dee-ah", "description": "Nadia began as the affectionate short form of the Russian Nadezhda, the word for hope, and went international early, adopted by French and Italian speakers a century ago. Gymnast Nadia Comaneci's perfect tens in 1976 gave the name its global golden moment.", "themes": [ "hope" ], "popularity": "A US top-300 girls' name across recent decades and a standard throughout Europe and the Arab world." }, { "slug": "amal", "name": "Amal", "gender": "u", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "hope", "pronunciation": "ah-MAHL", "description": "Amal is the Arabic word for hope, given to daughters and sons alike across the Arab world. Human-rights lawyer Amal Clooney made it one of the best-known Arabic names in the West, attaching it to courage and accomplishment as much as to optimism.", "themes": [ "hope" ], "popularity": "Widespread in the Arab world; rising gently in Western use since the mid-2010s." }, { "slug": "asha", "name": "Asha", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "hope, wish", "pronunciation": "AH-shah", "description": "Asha is the Sanskrit word for hope and a classic Indian girls' name, carried for seventy years by playback legend Asha Bhosle, one of the most recorded voices in history. In East Africa the same name circulates independently as a Swahili form of Aisha, meaning life, so two continents share it with two meanings.", "themes": [ "hope", "rebirth" ], "popularity": "Common in India and East Africa; a quiet presence in US naming data." }, { "slug": "esperanza", "name": "Esperanza", "gender": "f", "origin": "Spanish", "meaning": "hope", "pronunciation": "es-peh-RAHN-sah", "description": "Esperanza is the Spanish word for hope, long used as a given name and woven into Latin American literature, from Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street to jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding's marquee. Its full four syllables shorten warmly to Espe or Anza.", "themes": [ "hope" ], "popularity": "Traditional throughout the Spanish-speaking world and steady in US Latino communities." }, { "slug": "tikvah", "name": "Tikvah", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "hope", "pronunciation": "teek-VAH", "description": "Tikvah is the Hebrew word for hope, sung by Jews worldwide in Hatikvah, the anthem of Israel whose title means The Hope. As a given name it is used mainly in Jewish communities, sometimes honoring the anthem itself, and the city of Petah Tikva, gateway of hope, carries it on the map.", "themes": [ "hope" ], "popularity": "Used in Israel and observant Jewish communities." }, { "slug": "toivo", "name": "Toivo", "gender": "m", "origin": "Finnish", "meaning": "hope", "pronunciation": "TOY-voh", "description": "Toivo is the Finnish word for hope, adopted as a man's name during the nineteenth-century national awakening when Finns translated virtues directly into names. It reads as grandfather-vintage in Finland today, which is precisely why young Finnish parents have started reviving it.", "themes": [ "hope" ], "popularity": "A classic Finnish name enjoying a vintage revival at home." }, { "slug": "umut", "name": "Umut", "gender": "m", "origin": "Turkish", "meaning": "hope", "pronunciation": "oo-MOOT", "description": "Umut is the modern Turkish word for hope and one of the country's most popular republican-era names, given overwhelmingly to boys though occasionally to girls. Like many Turkish vocabulary names it states its wish without ornament.", "themes": [ "hope" ], "popularity": "A perennial top-50 boys' name in Turkey." }, { "slug": "omid", "name": "Omid", "gender": "m", "origin": "Persian", "meaning": "hope", "pronunciation": "oh-MEED", "description": "Omid is the Persian word for hope, an everyday men's name in Iran and Afghanistan and the name Iran chose for its first satellite. Comedian and actor Omid Djalili has made it familiar to British audiences.", "themes": [ "hope" ], "popularity": "Very common in Iran and the Iranian diaspora." }, { "slug": "nozomi", "name": "Nozomi", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "hope, wish", "pronunciation": "noh-ZOH-mee", "description": "Nozomi means hope or heart's desire in Japanese, usually written with the character for wish, and Japan trusted the word enough to name its fastest bullet train after it. It is a mainstream girls' name with an unusually direct emotional meaning.", "themes": [ "hope", "dream" ], "popularity": "A recurring favorite for girls in Japan." }, { "slug": "taraji", "name": "Taraji", "gender": "f", "origin": "Swahili", "meaning": "hope, expectation", "pronunciation": "tah-RAH-jee", "description": "Taraji is a Swahili word for hope and expectation, drawn from the verb kutaraji, to hope for. Actress Taraji P. Henson, whose father chose the name deliberately for its meaning, has made it an emblem of African-American naming that reaches back across the Atlantic.", "themes": [ "hope", "joy" ], "popularity": "Rare but instantly recognizable thanks to Taraji P. Henson." }, { "slug": "elpis", "name": "Elpis", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "hope", "pronunciation": "EL-pis", "description": "Elpis is the ancient Greek word for hope and the spirit who alone remained in Pandora's jar after every evil had flown out into the world. The name saw real use among early Christians and survives today as a scholarly rarity with one of mythology's most consoling stories attached.", "themes": [ "hope", "light" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "evangeline", "name": "Evangeline", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "bearer of good news", "pronunciation": "ee-VAN-jeh-leen", "description": "Evangeline builds on the Greek euangelion, good news, the word that became gospel, and entered the naming pool through Longfellow's 1847 epic poem about a faithful Acadian heroine. Its lacy Victorian fullness, with nicknames Evie and Eva, suits the current taste for romantic revival names.", "themes": [ "hope", "joy" ], "popularity": "Climbed back into the US girls' top 300 in the 2010s and 2020s." }, { "slug": "esme", "name": "Esmé", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old French", "meaning": "esteemed, beloved", "pronunciation": "EZ-may", "description": "Esmé comes from an Old French past participle meaning esteemed or loved, first recorded among sixteenth-century Scottish nobility, where it was originally masculine. J.D. Salinger's story For Esmé, with Love and Squalor and Twilight's Esme Cullen secured its modern feminine identity.", "themes": [ "love" ], "popularity": "Entered the US girls' top 500 in the 2010s; a top-100 staple in England." }, { "slug": "david", "name": "David", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "beloved", "pronunciation": "DAY-vid", "description": "David comes from a Hebrew word for beloved, fitting for the shepherd-king whose psalms and slingshot have echoed through three millennia. It has never left the inner circle of Western names, claimed by Wales as its patron saint and worn by kings, artists, and at least one Beckham.", "themes": [ "love", "strength" ], "popularity": "Has ranked in the US boys' top 35 every year for over a century." }, { "slug": "carys", "name": "Carys", "gender": "f", "origin": "Welsh", "meaning": "love", "pronunciation": "KA-ris", "description": "Carys grows from the Welsh caru, to love, joined to the affectionate -ys ending heard in Gladys and Nerys, and is a twentieth-century Welsh creation that quickly became a classic. Catherine Zeta-Jones chose it for her daughter, introducing it far beyond Wales.", "themes": [ "love" ], "popularity": "A long-running top-100 name in Wales." }, { "slug": "freya", "name": "Freya", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "lady; the goddess of love", "pronunciation": "FRAY-ah", "description": "Freya, literally the lady in Old Norse, was the Norse goddess of love and beauty who rode a chariot drawn by cats and claimed half of all battle-slain heroes. Britain fell for the name first, and America followed, drawn by the rare combination of softness and Viking steel.", "themes": [ "love", "strength" ], "popularity": "A top-20 girls' name in England and Wales; entered the US top 200 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "mila", "name": "Mila", "gender": "f", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "dear, gracious", "pronunciation": "MEE-lah", "description": "Mila distills the Slavic element mil, dear or gracious, that runs through dozens of names from Milena to Miroslava. Actress Mila Kunis, born Milena, propelled the short form up the American charts, where its pat-of-butter simplicity did the rest.", "themes": [ "love", "joy" ], "popularity": "A US top-30 girls' name through the late 2010s and 2020s." }, { "slug": "milan", "name": "Milan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "dear, gracious", "pronunciation": "mee-LAHN", "description": "Milan is the masculine pillar of the Slavic mil family, meaning dear or beloved, and a centuries-old standard in Czech, Serbian, and Slovak naming, borne by novelist Milan Kundera. The shimmer of the Italian fashion capital, an unrelated place name, has broadened its appeal worldwide.", "themes": [ "love" ], "popularity": "Entered the US boys' top 500 in the 2010s while remaining a classic across Central Europe." }, { "slug": "kalila", "name": "Kalila", "gender": "f", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "beloved, darling", "pronunciation": "kah-LEE-lah", "description": "Kalila is traditionally linked to the Arabic khalil family of words for dearest friend and beloved, and the medieval story collection Kalila wa-Dimna spread the sound from Baghdad to Europe. It offers the fashionable lilt of Layla and Delilah with a meaning of pure affection.", "themes": [ "love" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "habib", "name": "Habib", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "beloved", "pronunciation": "hah-BEEB", "description": "Habib is the Arabic word for beloved, so warm a term that habibi, my dear, is the most common endearment in the language. As a given name it spans the Muslim world, and honorifics like Habiburrahman, beloved of the Merciful, extend it into devotion.", "themes": [ "love" ], "popularity": "Common from West Africa through the Middle East to South Asia." }, { "slug": "priya", "name": "Priya", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "beloved", "pronunciation": "PREE-yah", "description": "Priya means beloved or dear in Sanskrit, a word of endearment in classical poetry, where the heroine is forever the priya of the hero. It has been one of India's most dependable girls' names for half a century and travels frictionlessly into English.", "themes": [ "love" ], "popularity": "A perennial favorite across India and the diaspora." }, { "slug": "prem", "name": "Prem", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "love", "pronunciation": "PRAYM", "description": "Prem is the Sanskrit word for love in its tender, devotional register, the affection celebrated in bhakti poetry. It is a staple men's name in India and Nepal, and Bollywood has named so many heroes Prem, most famously those played by Salman Khan, that the name is shorthand for the romantic lead.", "themes": [ "love", "joy" ], "popularity": "Common throughout India and Nepal." }, { "slug": "aiko", "name": "Aiko", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "beloved child", "pronunciation": "EYE-koh", "description": "Aiko joins the Japanese characters for love and child into the gentle declaration beloved child, a name with deep history among Japanese girls and current royal standing through Princess Aiko, daughter of the emperor. Singer Jhené Aiko has given the name a second, American life.", "themes": [ "love", "joy" ], "popularity": "A traditional Japanese girls' name kept visible by the imperial family." }, { "slug": "thando", "name": "Thando", "gender": "u", "origin": "Zulu and Xhosa", "meaning": "love", "pronunciation": "TAHN-doh", "description": "Thando comes from uthando, the Zulu and Xhosa word for love, and is one of South Africa's most popular unisex names, also flowering into Thandiwe, the loved one. Actress Thandiwe Newton, who reclaimed her name's original spelling in 2021, told the world exactly what it means.", "themes": [ "love" ], "popularity": "A top name in South Africa for both boys and girls." }, { "slug": "rudo", "name": "Rudo", "gender": "u", "origin": "Shona", "meaning": "love", "pronunciation": "ROO-doh", "description": "Rudo is the Shona word for love, given to children of both sexes in Zimbabwe, where Shona names routinely carry whole sentences of meaning. It is short, balanced, and unambiguous in its affection, a one-word love letter from parent to child.", "themes": [ "love" ], "popularity": "In common use in Zimbabwe." }, { "slug": "felicity", "name": "Felicity", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "happiness, good fortune", "pronunciation": "feh-LIS-ih-tee", "description": "Felicity descends from the Latin felicitas, the Romans' word and goddess for happiness and good luck, and arrived in English through the early martyr Saint Felicity. The Puritans used it as a virtue name, the 1998 television series revived it, and the nickname Fliss keeps it nimble.", "themes": [ "joy", "hope" ], "popularity": "A steady US top-400 girls' name with stronger standing in Britain and Australia." }, { "slug": "felix", "name": "Felix", "gender": "m", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "happy, fortunate", "pronunciation": "FEE-liks", "description": "Felix means happy and fortunate in Latin, a lucky title Roman generals appended to their own names, and it went on to serve four popes and countless saints. Despite the cartoon cat, it has aged remarkably well, sounding both classical and fresh to modern parents across Europe and America.", "themes": [ "joy" ], "popularity": "Returned to the US boys' top 200 in the 2020s while ranking top-50 in Germany and Austria." }, { "slug": "asher", "name": "Asher", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "happy, blessed", "pronunciation": "ASH-er", "description": "Asher was Jacob's eighth son, whose name his mother explained with the words happy am I, and the tribe he founded was promised rich land and abundance. Dormant for centuries outside Jewish use, the name exploded in twenty-first-century America, where its soft Ash opening fits perfectly beside Aiden and Austin.", "themes": [ "joy", "hope" ], "popularity": "Rose into the US boys' top 25 by the 2020s." }, { "slug": "abigail", "name": "Abigail", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "my father is joy", "pronunciation": "AB-ih-gayl", "description": "Abigail comes from the Hebrew Avigayil, my father is joy, and the biblical Abigail talked David out of vengeance with such grace that she became a byword for wise beauty. Colonial America loved the name, First Lady Abigail Adams ennobled it, and Abby keeps it approachable today.", "themes": [ "joy", "wisdom" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 girls' name continuously since the late 1980s." }, { "slug": "joy", "name": "Joy", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "joy, delight", "pronunciation": "JOY", "description": "Joy is the English word taken whole, used as a name since medieval times and adopted enthusiastically by the Victorians. It is the most compact of the virtue names, doing in three letters what Felicity does in four syllables, and it shines especially in the middle spot.", "themes": [ "joy", "love" ], "popularity": "A US top-1000 fixture for over a century, peaking in the 1950s and 1970s." }, { "slug": "beatrice", "name": "Beatrice", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "she who makes happy", "pronunciation": "BEE-ah-triss", "description": "Beatrice derives from the Latin Beatrix, traditionally understood as she who makes happy or brings blessings, reshaped from the older Viatrix, voyager, by association with beatus, blessed. Dante made his Beatrice the guide to Paradise, Shakespeare gave the name his wittiest heroine, and a British princess keeps it royal.", "themes": [ "joy", "love" ], "popularity": "Re-entered the US girls' top 600 amid the vintage revival; long popular in Italy." }, { "slug": "farah", "name": "Farah", "gender": "f", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "joy", "pronunciation": "FAH-rah", "description": "Farah is the Arabic word for joy, gladness in its purest form, and a given name across the Middle East and South Asia, elevated by Empress Farah Pahlavi of Iran. English speakers often meet it through the unrelated spelling Farrah, made famous by Farrah Fawcett, whose name shares the same Arabic root.", "themes": [ "joy" ], "popularity": "Widespread in the Muslim world; both Farah and Farrah have charted in the US top 1000." }, { "slug": "saeed", "name": "Saeed", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "happy, fortunate", "pronunciation": "sah-EED", "description": "Saeed comes from an Arabic root meaning happiness and good fortune, making it the masculine counterpart to names like Saida and a cousin of the common greeting for a happy day. It is one of the most evenly distributed names of the Muslim world, from Morocco to Indonesia.", "themes": [ "joy" ], "popularity": "Very common across the Arab world, Iran, and South Asia." }, { "slug": "allegra", "name": "Allegra", "gender": "f", "origin": "Italian", "meaning": "cheerful, lively", "pronunciation": "ah-LEG-rah", "description": "Allegra is the Italian word for cheerful and quick, the same root that gives music its allegro tempo, and Lord Byron chose it for his daughter in 1817. Ballet dancer Allegra Kent kept it graceful in America, though the allergy medication of the same name now shares the stage.", "themes": [ "joy" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "ayo", "name": "Ayo", "gender": "u", "origin": "Yoruba", "meaning": "joy", "pronunciation": "AH-yaw", "description": "Ayo is the Yoruba word for joy and the radiant core of a whole constellation of Nigerian names, including Ayodele, joy comes home, and Ayotunde, joy returns. On its own it is a compact unisex name, increasingly visible in the diaspora through figures like basketball coach Ayo and comedian Ayo Edebiri.", "themes": [ "joy" ], "popularity": "Common in Nigeria and growing in international visibility." }, { "slug": "ananda", "name": "Ananda", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "bliss", "pronunciation": "AH-nun-dah", "description": "Ananda is the Sanskrit word for bliss, the spiritual joy that Hindu philosophy counts among the very nature of the divine, and it was the name of the Buddha's devoted attendant who recited his teachings from memory. It remains in use across South and Southeast Asia, mostly for men, sometimes for women in the form Anandi.", "themes": [ "joy", "wisdom" ], "popularity": "Traditional across India and Sri Lanka." }, { "slug": "blythe", "name": "Blythe", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "carefree, merry", "pronunciation": "BLYTHE", "description": "Blythe preserves the Old English blithe, meaning gentle, merry, and free of care, the word Shelley pinned to his skylark. The proverb Monday's child quality of it, plus actress Blythe Danner, gives this rare single syllable a patrician sparkle.", "themes": [ "joy", "freedom" ], "popularity": "Rare but persistent at the edge of the US girls' top 1000." }, { "slug": "isaac", "name": "Isaac", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "he will laugh", "pronunciation": "EYE-zik", "description": "Isaac comes from the Hebrew Yitzchak, he will laugh, commemorating Sarah's laughter at the news she would bear a son at ninety. The name has carried that wry joy through Newton, Asimov, and Bashevis Singer, and it remains a rare biblical name whose literal meaning is a smile.", "themes": [ "joy" ], "popularity": "A US top-50 boys' name continuously since the 2000s." }, { "slug": "sophia", "name": "Sophia", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "wisdom", "pronunciation": "soh-FEE-ah", "description": "Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom, revered by philosophers and personified in the great church of Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom, in Istanbul. European royalty wore it for centuries before it conquered modern America, where it and its spelling twin Sofia dominated the charts of the 2010s.", "themes": [ "wisdom" ], "popularity": "Ranked number one for US girls from 2011 to 2013 and remains in the top ten." }, { "slug": "athena", "name": "Athena", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "the goddess of wisdom", "pronunciation": "ah-THEE-nah", "description": "Athena, born in armor from the head of Zeus, ruled wisdom, strategy, and craft, and gave her name to Athens; the name itself is older than Greek and defies translation. Modern parents have embraced it as the thinking warrior's goddess name, more cerebral than Aphrodite and more wearable than Artemis.", "themes": [ "wisdom", "strength" ], "popularity": "Climbed into the US girls' top 100 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "minerva", "name": "Minerva", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "the goddess of wisdom; linked to the word for mind", "pronunciation": "mih-NER-vah", "description": "Minerva was Rome's goddess of wisdom and the crafts, her name connected by scholars to an ancient root meaning mind or thought. Harry Potter's formidable Professor McGonagall introduced the name to millions, and the nickname Minnie gives its four stately syllables a soft landing.", "themes": [ "wisdom" ], "popularity": "Ranked in the US girls' top 1000 until the 1970s; now a quiet revival candidate." }, { "slug": "sage", "name": "Sage", "gender": "u", "origin": "English", "meaning": "wise one; the herb", "pronunciation": "SAYJ", "description": "Sage means a person of deep wisdom, from the Latin sapere, to be wise, while doubling as the name of the silvery healing herb. That two-for-one of intellect and garden has made it one of the most evenly unisex names in America.", "themes": [ "wisdom" ], "popularity": "In the US top 300 for girls and top 500 for boys in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "solomon", "name": "Solomon", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "peace", "pronunciation": "SOL-oh-mun", "description": "Solomon derives from the Hebrew shalom, peace, but three thousand years of stories about the king who asked God for an understanding heart have made it the proverbial name of wisdom. Long sustained in Jewish communities, it now rides the Old Testament revival alongside Ezra and Asher.", "themes": [ "wisdom", "hope" ], "popularity": "Returned to the US boys' top 400 in recent years." }, { "slug": "hakim", "name": "Hakim", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "wise", "pronunciation": "hah-KEEM", "description": "Hakim means wise in Arabic and is counted among the ninety-nine names of God as Al-Hakim, the All-Wise; in much of the Muslim world the same word also means physician, wisdom applied to healing. Basketball great Hakeem Olajuwon spread a variant spelling across America.", "themes": [ "wisdom" ], "popularity": "Common throughout the Muslim world; both Hakim and Hakeem have appeared in the US top 1000." }, { "slug": "akili", "name": "Akili", "gender": "u", "origin": "Swahili", "meaning": "intellect, wisdom", "pronunciation": "ah-KEE-lee", "description": "Akili is the Swahili word for mind, intelligence, and good sense, drawn from the Arabic aql, reason. As a given name it is used for both sexes in East Africa and was adopted by African-American families during the heritage-naming movement of the 1970s.", "themes": [ "wisdom" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "alfred", "name": "Alfred", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old English", "meaning": "elf counsel", "pronunciation": "AL-fred", "description": "Alfred joins the Old English aelf, elf, with raed, counsel, an ancient idiom for wisdom beyond the human, and Alfred the Great, the scholar-king who saved Wessex, remains the only English monarch called Great. Batman's butler, Hitchcock, and Nobel founder Alfred Nobel keep the name in cultural circulation while Freddie does the daily work.", "themes": [ "wisdom" ], "popularity": "A top-20 name in England in the Victorian era; now rising again there as Alfie." }, { "slug": "hugo", "name": "Hugo", "gender": "m", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "mind, intellect, spirit", "pronunciation": "HYOO-goh", "description": "Hugo descends from the Germanic element hug, meaning mind, thought, and spirit, carried across medieval Europe by Frankish nobles and a clutch of saints. Victor Hugo gave it literary immortality, and its o-ending confidence has made it a twenty-first-century favorite from Madrid to Stockholm.", "themes": [ "wisdom" ], "popularity": "A top-ten boys' name in Spain, France, and Sweden in recent years; rising in the US." }, { "slug": "veda", "name": "Veda", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "knowledge", "pronunciation": "VAY-dah", "description": "Veda is the Sanskrit word for knowledge, the title of Hinduism's oldest and most sacred texts, hymns composed more than three thousand years ago. As a girls' name it has quiet history in both India and early twentieth-century America, where it rode the era's taste for V-names like Vera and Velma.", "themes": [ "wisdom" ], "popularity": "Ranked in the US girls' top 1000 from the 1880s to the 1950s and recently returned." }, { "slug": "prudence", "name": "Prudence", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "good judgment, foresight", "pronunciation": "PROO-dens", "description": "Prudence comes from the Latin prudentia, the cardinal virtue of practical wisdom, seeing clearly what a situation requires. A Puritan staple that the Beatles serenaded in Dear Prudence, it waits with its ready nickname Prue for the vintage revival to reach the P's.", "themes": [ "wisdom" ], "popularity": "Common in Puritan New England; rare for American babies today." }, { "slug": "cato", "name": "Cato", "gender": "m", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "wise, shrewd", "pronunciation": "KAY-toh", "description": "Cato derives from the Latin catus, meaning shrewd or wise, and was worn by two of Rome's sternest moralists, the censor and the stoic who defied Caesar. The American founders revered the younger Cato, which is why the name dots colonial history, and its crisp o-ending suits current fashion.", "themes": [ "wisdom", "strength" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "quinn", "name": "Quinn", "gender": "u", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "descendant of Conn, a name meaning chief or intellect", "pronunciation": "KWIN", "description": "Quinn anglicizes the Irish surname Ó Cuinn, descendant of Conn, an old name interpreted as chief, sense, or intelligence. It crossed to first-name use in America in the surname-name wave and has settled into genuine unisex standing, helped along by Glee's Quinn Fabray and Harley Quinn.", "themes": [ "wisdom", "strength" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 girls' name in the 2020s with steady use for boys." }, { "slug": "audrey", "name": "Audrey", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old English", "meaning": "noble strength", "pronunciation": "AW-dree", "description": "Audrey is the medieval short form of Aethelthryth, an Anglo-Saxon name joining noble and strength, borne by a queen-turned-abbess saint of Ely. Audrey Hepburn permanently fused it with grace, and few names deliver so much etymological iron in so soft a package.", "themes": [ "strength" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 girls' name continuously since the early 2000s." }, { "slug": "valentina", "name": "Valentina", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "strong, healthy", "pronunciation": "vah-len-TEE-nah", "description": "Valentina is the feminine of the Roman name Valentinus, from valens, strong and vigorous, the root that named Saint Valentine. Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, gave the name a literal launch, and its lush syllables have carried it up charts across the Americas and Europe.", "themes": [ "strength", "love" ], "popularity": "Reached the US girls' top 100 in the 2020s and ranks top-ten across much of Latin America." }, { "slug": "gabriel", "name": "Gabriel", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "God is my strength", "pronunciation": "GAY-bree-el", "description": "Gabriel is the archangel of announcement, appearing in Daniel, the Gospel of Luke, and the Quran, and his Hebrew name declares God is my strength. Beloved across Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions alike, the name's global reach is matched by few others, and Gabe keeps it informal.", "themes": [ "strength" ], "popularity": "A US top-40 boys' name for three decades and a chart-topper across Latin America and France." }, { "slug": "ethan", "name": "Ethan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "firm, enduring", "pronunciation": "EE-than", "description": "Ethan comes from a Hebrew word meaning firm, enduring, and long-lived, attached in the Bible to Ethan the Ezrahite, a sage whose wisdom only Solomon surpassed. Revolutionary hero Ethan Allen planted it in American soil, and Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt has kept it running ever since.", "themes": [ "strength", "wisdom" ], "popularity": "Spent two decades in the US boys' top ten through the 2000s and 2010s." }, { "slug": "kenzo", "name": "Kenzo", "gender": "m", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "strong and healthy", "pronunciation": "KEN-zoh", "description": "Kenzo is a Japanese boys' name whose most common written forms open with ken, the character for health and strength, followed by a numeral or studious element chosen by each family. Fashion designer Kenzo Takada made it a global brand, and French parents in particular have adopted the name enthusiastically.", "themes": [ "strength" ], "popularity": "A top-100 boys' name in France in recent years." }, { "slug": "takeshi", "name": "Takeshi", "gender": "m", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "warrior, fierce", "pronunciation": "tah-KEH-shee", "description": "Takeshi is a classic Japanese men's name most often written with the character for warrior or military might, carrying the samurai virtues of courage and discipline. Filmmaker and comedian Takeshi Kitano, of Takeshi's Castle fame, is its best-known modern bearer.", "themes": [ "strength" ], "popularity": "A standard twentieth-century Japanese men's name." }, { "slug": "matilda", "name": "Matilda", "gender": "f", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "might in battle", "pronunciation": "mah-TIL-dah", "description": "Matilda fuses the Germanic elements maht, might, and hild, battle, and belonged to the empress who fought a civil war for England's crown in the twelfth century. Roald Dahl's book-loving telekinetic heroine won the name a new century of admirers, with Tilly and Mattie as its friendly faces.", "themes": [ "strength", "wisdom" ], "popularity": "A top-40 name in England and Australia; climbing the US charts." }, { "slug": "andrew", "name": "Andrew", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "manly, brave", "pronunciation": "AN-droo", "description": "Andrew comes from the Greek andreios, manly and courageous, built on aner, man, and was the name of the first-called apostle, patron saint of Scotland, Russia, and Greece. Centuries of kings, presidents, and saints have kept it a bedrock classic, with Andy and Drew as its workhorse nicknames.", "themes": [ "strength" ], "popularity": "Ranked in the US boys' top 75 every year for more than a century." }, { "slug": "imara", "name": "Imara", "gender": "f", "origin": "Swahili", "meaning": "firm, resolute", "pronunciation": "ee-MAH-rah", "description": "Imara is the Swahili word for firm, stable, and strong, used of buildings, resolve, and character alike. As a given name it is a modern East African and diaspora choice whose flowing sound disguises its granite meaning.", "themes": [ "strength" ], "popularity": null }, { "slug": "aziz", "name": "Aziz", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "mighty, beloved", "pronunciation": "ah-ZEEZ", "description": "Aziz carries a double meaning in Arabic, both powerful and dear, and Al-Aziz, the Almighty, stands among the ninety-nine names of God. The name spans the Muslim world from Morocco to Indonesia, and comedian Aziz Ansari has made it familiar on American screens.", "themes": [ "strength", "love" ], "popularity": "Common throughout the Muslim world." }, { "slug": "shakti", "name": "Shakti", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "power, divine energy", "pronunciation": "SHUK-tee", "description": "Shakti is the Sanskrit word for power and names the dynamic feminine energy that, in Hindu theology, animates the entire cosmos; every goddess is an expression of Shakti. As a given name it is used in India for girls and occasionally boys, a single word that means nothing less than the engine of the universe.", "themes": [ "strength", "fire" ], "popularity": "In traditional use across India." }, { "slug": "oz", "name": "Oz", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "strength, courage", "pronunciation": "OZ", "description": "Oz is the Hebrew word for strength and courage, used as a given name in modern Israel and as a short form of names like Oziel. To English speakers it summons the Emerald City, novelist Amos Oz supplies the literary reference, and the two-letter whole packs more meaning than names five times its length.", "themes": [ "strength" ], "popularity": "In regular use in Israel." }, { "slug": "ezekiel", "name": "Ezekiel", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "God strengthens", "pronunciation": "ee-ZEE-kee-el", "description": "Ezekiel means God strengthens in Hebrew, fitting for the exiled prophet whose visions of wheels and dry bones rank among scripture's most vivid. Once confined to Puritan and Jewish use, it has surged in modern America, where the nickname Zeke gives the four-syllable prophet a cowboy ease.", "themes": [ "strength", "hope" ], "popularity": "Climbed into the US boys' top 60 by the 2020s." }, { "slug": "saoirse", "name": "Saoirse", "gender": "f", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "freedom, liberty", "pronunciation": "SEER-sha", "description": "Saoirse is the Irish word for freedom, adopted as a girls' name in the 1920s as Ireland won independence, which makes every Saoirse a small monument to that struggle. Four-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan taught the world to say SEER-sha, and the name now travels far beyond Ireland.", "themes": [ "freedom" ], "popularity": "A top-25 girls' name in Ireland; entered the US top 1000 in 2016." }, { "slug": "liberty", "name": "Liberty", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "freedom", "pronunciation": "LIB-er-tee", "description": "Liberty is the English word for freedom worn as a name, with documented use spiking around the American Revolution, the Bicentennial, and again after 2001. It is given mostly to girls, shortens to the cheerful Libby, and remains one of the few overtly patriotic names in regular use.", "themes": [ "freedom" ], "popularity": "Has appeared in the US girls' top 1000 in patriotic waves since 1918." }, { "slug": "charles", "name": "Charles", "gender": "m", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "free man", "pronunciation": "CHARLZ", "description": "Charles descends from the Germanic karl, a free man, the common freeman of early medieval society, and Charlemagne, Charles the Great, made it the most royal name in Europe. Kings of France, Spain, and Britain have answered to it for twelve centuries, while Charlie keeps it in sneakers.", "themes": [ "freedom", "strength" ], "popularity": "Has never left the US boys' top 75 since records began." }, { "slug": "caroline", "name": "Caroline", "gender": "f", "origin": "Germanic via French", "meaning": "free woman", "pronunciation": "KAR-oh-line", "description": "Caroline is the French feminine of Charles, inheriting its root meaning of a free person, and arrived in English courts with two Georgian queens. Sweet Caroline supplies its anthem, the Kennedys its American gloss, and its three-century run shows no sign of ending.", "themes": [ "freedom", "love" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 girls' name almost continuously since the 1990s." }, { "slug": "frank", "name": "Frank", "gender": "m", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "a Frank; free man", "pronunciation": "FRANK", "description": "Frank names a member of the Franks, the Germanic people who gave France its name, and because only Franks held full freedom under their rule, the word came to mean free, then honest, in English. Sinatra carried the name through the twentieth century, and its plainspoken integrity is due for rediscovery.", "themes": [ "freedom" ], "popularity": "A US top-ten boys' name for five straight decades before 1930; still in the top 500." }, { "slug": "azad", "name": "Azad", "gender": "m", "origin": "Persian", "meaning": "free", "pronunciation": "ah-ZAHD", "description": "Azad is the Persian word for free, resonant across Iran, Kurdistan, and South Asia, where the independence leader Maulana Abul Kalam Azad took it as his pen name. In classical Persian the azad also named the cypress, the free tree, straight and unbowed.", "themes": [ "freedom" ], "popularity": "Common among Persian, Kurdish, and South Asian families." }, { "slug": "azadeh", "name": "Azadeh", "gender": "f", "origin": "Persian", "meaning": "free, noble-spirited", "pronunciation": "ah-zah-DEH", "description": "Azadeh is the feminine elaboration of the Persian azad, free, with classical overtones of nobility of spirit, the freedom of character that Persian poetry prized. It is a well-loved women's name in Iran and its diaspora, carried by journalists and scholars such as Azadeh Moaveni.", "themes": [ "freedom" ], "popularity": "A familiar women's name in Iran." }, { "slug": "dror", "name": "Dror", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "freedom; sparrow", "pronunciation": "DROR", "description": "Dror is a biblical Hebrew word meaning both freedom and a sparrow, the bird that nests where it pleases, and Leviticus uses it in the great command to proclaim liberty throughout the land. Modern Israel revived it as a given name, one of many vocabulary words pressed into the new nation's naming stock.", "themes": [ "freedom", "sky" ], "popularity": "In steady use in Israel since the mid-twentieth century." }, { "slug": "uhuru", "name": "Uhuru", "gender": "m", "origin": "Swahili", "meaning": "freedom", "pronunciation": "oo-HOO-roo", "description": "Uhuru is the Swahili word for freedom, the rallying cry of East African independence, and Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta, born as the country approached self-rule and later its president, is its most famous bearer. Star Trek honored the word too: Lieutenant Uhura's name was adapted from it.", "themes": [ "freedom" ], "popularity": "Used in Kenya and Tanzania, where the word carries national significance." }, { "slug": "mukta", "name": "Mukta", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "liberated; a pearl", "pronunciation": "MOOK-tah", "description": "Mukta means liberated in Sanskrit, from the same root as moksha, the soul's final release in Hindu thought, and by a separate classical usage it also means a pearl, freed from its shell. The name is traditional for girls in India, especially Maharashtra, where the poet-saint Muktabai bore it in the thirteenth century.", "themes": [ "freedom" ], "popularity": "In traditional use in India." }, { "slug": "ozgur", "name": "Özgür", "gender": "m", "origin": "Turkish", "meaning": "free", "pronunciation": "oz-GYOOR", "description": "Özgür is the modern Turkish word for free and independent, part of the republic's wave of secular vocabulary names. It is given mainly to boys and occasionally to girls, and like Umut and Deniz it states a value rather than honoring an ancestor.", "themes": [ "freedom" ], "popularity": "A common men's name in Turkey." }, { "slug": "freeman", "name": "Freeman", "gender": "m", "origin": "English", "meaning": "a free man", "pronunciation": "FREE-man", "description": "Freeman began as a medieval English status surname for a man who was not bound to a lord, and it moved into first-name use most powerfully among formerly enslaved Americans after emancipation, when the name was a declaration. Physicist Freeman Dyson gave it a scientific afterlife.", "themes": [ "freedom" ], "popularity": "Ranked in the US boys' top 1000 from the 1880s into the 1930s." }, { "slug": "eleftheria", "name": "Eleftheria", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "freedom", "pronunciation": "eh-lef-theh-REE-ah", "description": "Eleftheria is the Greek word for freedom, blazoned in the national motto Eleftheria i Thanatos, freedom or death, from the war of independence. It is a genuine Greek women's name with the name day of its own, and the island rhythm of its five syllables rewards the effort.", "themes": [ "freedom" ], "popularity": "In regular use in Greece and Cyprus." }, { "slug": "phoenix", "name": "Phoenix", "gender": "u", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "the bird reborn from ashes; deep crimson", "pronunciation": "FEE-niks", "description": "Phoenix names the legendary bird of Greek and Egyptian myth that burns itself to ash and rises young again, the ancient world's great emblem of renewal; the Greek word also denoted a Tyrian crimson dye. Joaquin Phoenix, the Arizona city, and the X-Men's Jean Grey have together pushed it into mainstream use for both sexes.", "themes": [ "rebirth", "fire" ], "popularity": "A US top-250 boys' name and top-400 girls' name in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "renee", "name": "Renée", "gender": "f", "origin": "French", "meaning": "reborn", "pronunciation": "reh-NAY", "description": "Renée is the French feminine of the Latin Renatus, born again, a name early Christians gave to mark baptismal rebirth. Midcentury America adored it, often in the middle spot, and actresses Renée Zellweger and René Russo's near-namesake keep its Gallic polish current.", "themes": [ "rebirth" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 girls' name through the 1960s and 1970s; now a stylish vintage pick." }, { "slug": "renata", "name": "Renata", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "reborn", "pronunciation": "reh-NAH-tah", "description": "Renata is the Latin feminine of Renatus, reborn, kept alive across Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish naming traditions. Opera gave it two luminous bearers in Renata Tebaldi and Renata Scotto, and Big Little Lies recently reintroduced it to American ears.", "themes": [ "rebirth" ], "popularity": "An international classic; consistently in the US girls' top 1000." }, { "slug": "renato", "name": "Renato", "gender": "m", "origin": "Italian", "meaning": "reborn", "pronunciation": "reh-NAH-toh", "description": "Renato is the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese form of the Latin Renatus, born again, a name with deep roots in Catholic baptismal tradition. It remains standard across southern Europe and Latin America, where Brazilian and Italian footballers keep it on the team sheet.", "themes": [ "rebirth" ], "popularity": "Common in Italy, Brazil, and across Latin America." }, { "slug": "anastasia", "name": "Anastasia", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "resurrection", "pronunciation": "ah-nah-STAH-see-ah", "description": "Anastasia comes from the Greek anastasis, resurrection, and was traditionally bestowed on daughters born near Easter. The lost Romanov grand duchess wrapped it in twentieth-century legend, and the name's full imperial sweep shortens to Ana, Stacy, or the fashionable Nastya.", "themes": [ "rebirth", "hope" ], "popularity": "A US top-400 girls' name and a perennial favorite in Russia and Greece." }, { "slug": "vivian", "name": "Vivian", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "alive, full of life", "pronunciation": "VIV-ee-an", "description": "Vivian descends from the Latin vivus, alive, through the late Roman name Vivianus, and spent centuries as an English boys' name before settling feminine in America. Gone with the Wind's Vivien Leigh and photographer Vivian Maier embody its two registers, glamour and quiet observation.", "themes": [ "rebirth", "light" ], "popularity": "Returned to the US girls' top 100 in the 2010s." }, { "slug": "zoe", "name": "Zoe", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "life", "pronunciation": "ZOH-ee", "description": "Zoe is the Greek word for life, adopted by Hellenistic Jews as a translation of Eve and carried by Byzantine empresses. Its bright double vowel has made it a modern international hit, spelled Zoe, Zoey, or Zoë depending on how much the family likes diacritics.", "themes": [ "rebirth", "joy" ], "popularity": "All spellings combined place it near the US girls' top 30 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "eve", "name": "Eve", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "life, living one", "pronunciation": "EEV", "description": "Eve anglicizes the Hebrew Chawwah, understood as life or living one, the name scripture gives the mother of all the living. As a given name it is the rare biblical heavyweight that stays feather-light, a single syllable that contains the whole human story's first chapter.", "themes": [ "rebirth", "love" ], "popularity": "A steady US top-500 girls' name, with the variant Eva ranking far higher." }, { "slug": "aviva", "name": "Aviva", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "springtime", "pronunciation": "ah-VEE-vah", "description": "Aviva is a modern Hebrew name drawn from aviv, spring, the season of renewal that also names Tel Aviv, the hill of spring. Its perfect palindrome structure delights pattern-lovers, and it is well used in Israel and Jewish communities abroad.", "themes": [ "rebirth", "joy" ], "popularity": "Popular in Israel; a distinctive choice among Jewish families elsewhere." }, { "slug": "aviv", "name": "Aviv", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "spring", "pronunciation": "ah-VEEV", "description": "Aviv is the Hebrew word for spring, the season of barley ripening in the biblical calendar, revived as a given name in modern Israel where nature words fill the registries. It is used mainly for boys, with Aviva as its feminine twin.", "themes": [ "rebirth" ], "popularity": "In regular use in Israel." }, { "slug": "vesna", "name": "Vesna", "gender": "f", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "spring", "pronunciation": "VES-nah", "description": "Vesna is the old Slavic word for spring and the name of the mythological figure whose arrival ends winter in South Slavic folklore. It was a beloved girls' name in twentieth-century Yugoslavia and remains common from Slovenia to Serbia, carrying the season's promise in two syllables.", "themes": [ "rebirth", "hope" ], "popularity": "Common among women born in the former Yugoslavia." }, { "slug": "neo", "name": "Neo", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek and Tswana", "meaning": "new; gift", "pronunciation": "NEE-oh", "description": "Neo is the Greek prefix for new, and independently a Tswana name meaning gift, well established in Botswana and South Africa long before Hollywood. The Matrix turned the Greek sense into a global icon of awakening and second life, and parents on several continents now reach for it.", "themes": [ "rebirth" ], "popularity": "A top boys' name in Botswana and South Africa; entered European charts after The Matrix." }, { "slug": "navin", "name": "Navin", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "new, fresh", "pronunciation": "nah-VEEN", "description": "Navin comes from the Sanskrit navina, new and fresh, the same ancient root that produced the Latin novus and English new. It is a familiar men's name across India and the Indian diaspora, a quiet everyday word for beginning again.", "themes": [ "rebirth" ], "popularity": "Common in India, Nepal, and diaspora communities." }, { "slug": "amara", "name": "Amara", "gender": "f", "origin": "Igbo and Sanskrit", "meaning": "grace; immortal", "pronunciation": "ah-MAH-rah", "description": "Amara means grace in Igbo, where it forms names like Amarachi, God's grace, while the unrelated Sanskrit amara means immortal, deathless, the word behind the mythic city of Amaravati. The happy convergence of meanings and its melodic shape have driven a remarkable American rise.", "themes": [ "rebirth", "love" ], "popularity": "Climbed into the US girls' top 150 by the 2020s." }, { "slug": "anahita", "name": "Anahita", "gender": "f", "origin": "Persian", "meaning": "immaculate, undefiled", "pronunciation": "ah-nah-HEE-tah", "description": "Anahita was the great Iranian goddess of the waters, invoked for rivers, rain, and fertility, and her full title Aredvi Sura Anahita described a mighty world river. The name itself means immaculate or undefiled, and it remains in steady use in Iran and across the Persian diaspora.", "themes": [ "water" ], "popularity": "Well established in Iran; rare but recognizable in English-speaking countries." }, { "slug": "yara", "name": "Yara", "gender": "f", "origin": "Tupi", "meaning": "lady of the water", "pronunciation": "YAH-rah", "description": "In Brazilian folklore Iara is a water spirit, the lady of the lake who sings from the rivers of the Amazon, and her name comes from Tupi words for lady and water. Yara also exists independently as an Arabic name, which has helped it travel widely; actress Yara Shahidi raised its profile in the United States.", "themes": [ "water" ], "popularity": "A top-100 girls' name in Brazil and the Netherlands; climbing in the US since the 2010s." }, { "slug": "thalassa", "name": "Thalassa", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "the sea", "pronunciation": "thah-LAH-sah", "description": "Thalassa is simply the ancient Greek word for the sea, personified in myth as a primordial sea goddess. A moon of Neptune carries the name today, and it offers parents a grander, rarer alternative to popular water names like Marina.", "themes": [ "water", "ocean" ], "popularity": "Very rare; used occasionally in Greece and as a bold choice elsewhere." }, { "slug": "ondine", "name": "Ondine", "gender": "f", "origin": "French", "meaning": "little wave", "pronunciation": "ohn-DEEN", "description": "Ondine derives from the Latin unda, meaning wave, and names the water nymphs of European legend who could gain a soul by marrying a mortal. The French spelling was fixed in literature through Giraudoux's play Ondine, giving the name a theatrical, watery elegance.", "themes": [ "water", "ocean" ], "popularity": "Rare everywhere; better known from ballet and theater than from birth records." }, { "slug": "brooke", "name": "Brooke", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "small stream", "pronunciation": "BRUUK", "description": "Brooke is the English word for a small stream, used as a surname for families who lived beside one before it became a given name. Actress Brooke Shields carried it to prominence, and its single crisp syllable made it a staple of late twentieth-century American naming.", "themes": [ "water" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 girls' name through the 1990s and 2000s; still in the top 500." }, { "slug": "maren", "name": "Maren", "gender": "f", "origin": "Danish", "meaning": "of the sea", "pronunciation": "MAH-ren", "description": "Maren began as a Danish form of Marina, the Latin name meaning of the sea, and was once so common in Denmark that it appeared in folk songs. Country singer Maren Morris introduced the name to many American parents, who appreciate its no-frills Scandinavian style.", "themes": [ "water", "ocean" ], "popularity": "Historically a top name in Denmark and Norway; entered the US top 1000 in the 2010s." }, { "slug": "nerida", "name": "Nerida", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "sea nymph", "pronunciation": "neh-REE-dah", "description": "Nerida comes from the Nereids, the fifty sea nymph daughters of the old sea god Nereus in Greek mythology. The name found an unexpected second home in Australia, where it has been used since the early twentieth century and is sometimes associated with a water lily.", "themes": [ "water", "ocean" ], "popularity": "Modestly popular in mid-century Australia; rare elsewhere." }, { "slug": "deniz", "name": "Deniz", "gender": "u", "origin": "Turkish", "meaning": "sea", "pronunciation": "deh-NEEZ", "description": "Deniz is the Turkish word for the sea, given to both boys and girls across Turkey. Its sound happens to echo Dennis and Denise, which makes it one of the easiest Turkish names for English speakers to adopt without explanation.", "themes": [ "water", "ocean" ], "popularity": "A perennial top name in Turkey for both sexes." }, { "slug": "river", "name": "River", "gender": "u", "origin": "English", "meaning": "river", "pronunciation": "RIV-er", "description": "River is a direct English nature name, evoking moving water and the landscapes it shapes. Actor River Phoenix gave it a poignant early association, and in the 2010s and 2020s it became one of the most successful truly unisex names in the United States.", "themes": [ "water" ], "popularity": "In the US top 200 for boys and top 200 for girls in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "jordan", "name": "Jordan", "gender": "u", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "to flow down", "pronunciation": "JOR-dan", "description": "Jordan names the river where John baptized Jesus, and the Hebrew Yarden comes from a verb meaning to descend or flow down. Crusaders brought water from the river home for baptisms, planting the name in medieval Europe, and basketball legend Michael Jordan powered its modern American peak.", "themes": [ "water" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 name for boys through the 1990s and 2000s, with heavy use for girls as well." }, { "slug": "moses", "name": "Moses", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "drawn out of the water", "pronunciation": "MOH-zes", "description": "In the book of Exodus, Pharaoh's daughter names the baby she rescues from the Nile Moses because she drew him out of the water. Scholars suspect the name's deeper root is the Egyptian word for son, found in names like Thutmose, which only adds to its layered history.", "themes": [ "water" ], "popularity": "Steady, never trendy; consistently in the US top 1000 for over a century." }, { "slug": "douglas", "name": "Douglas", "gender": "m", "origin": "Scottish Gaelic", "meaning": "dark stream", "pronunciation": "DUG-las", "description": "Douglas combines the Gaelic elements dubh, dark, and glais, stream, originally naming a river and then the powerful Scottish clan who lived along it. It carries centuries of border-warfare history and peaked as an American given name in the 1940s and 1950s.", "themes": [ "water", "dark" ], "popularity": "A US top-50 boys' name in the mid-twentieth century; now a quiet classic." }, { "slug": "irving", "name": "Irving", "gender": "m", "origin": "Scottish", "meaning": "green water, fresh water", "pronunciation": "UR-ving", "description": "Irving comes from a Scottish place and surname tied to the River Irvine, whose Celtic name is usually interpreted as green or fresh water. Songwriter Irving Berlin, born Israel Beilin, helped establish it as a given name among Jewish American families in the early twentieth century.", "themes": [ "water" ], "popularity": "Common in early 1900s America; uncommon today." }, { "slug": "beck", "name": "Beck", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "stream", "pronunciation": "BEK", "description": "Beck is the northern English word for a mountain stream, inherited from the Old Norse bekkr and still heard across Yorkshire and Cumbria. As a given name it feels modern and musical, helped along by the one-named alternative rock artist Beck.", "themes": [ "water" ], "popularity": "Rare as a formal first name; more familiar as a surname and nickname." }, { "slug": "murray", "name": "Murray", "gender": "m", "origin": "Scottish", "meaning": "settlement by the sea", "pronunciation": "MUR-ee", "description": "Murray derives from the Scottish region of Moray, whose name goes back to a Celtic term for a seaboard settlement. It became a clan surname and then a given name, especially popular among Scottish and Jewish families in the early twentieth century.", "themes": [ "water", "ocean" ], "popularity": "Peaked in the US in the 1920s; now mostly heard in Scotland and Canada." }, { "slug": "gaia", "name": "Gaia", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "earth", "pronunciation": "GY-ah", "description": "Gaia is the ancient Greek personification of the earth itself, the primordial mother who bore the sky, the sea, and the Titans. Modern environmental science borrowed her name for the Gaia hypothesis, and Italian parents have made it a mainstream choice there.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "A top-30 girls' name in Italy; rare but rising in English-speaking countries." }, { "slug": "terra", "name": "Terra", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "earth, land", "pronunciation": "TEHR-ah", "description": "Terra is the Latin word for earth and the Roman counterpart of the Greek Gaia, honored as Terra Mater, Mother Earth. American parents of the 1970s embraced it partly as a respelling of Tara, giving the name a brief run of genuine popularity.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "In the US top 1000 from the 1960s through the 1990s." }, { "slug": "demeter", "name": "Demeter", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "earth mother (probable)", "pronunciation": "dih-MEE-ter", "description": "Demeter is the Greek goddess of the harvest and the grieving mother whose search for Persephone explains the seasons. Her name is most often read as earth mother, from an old word for earth joined to meter, mother, though scholars still debate the first element.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "Very rare as a given name; its forms Demetria and Demetrius are more familiar." }, { "slug": "jord", "name": "Jord", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "earth", "pronunciation": "YORD", "description": "Jörð is the Old Norse word for earth and the name of the giantess who was mother of Thor. She embodies the land itself in Norse cosmology, making this short, stark name one of mythology's most direct earth names.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "Essentially confined to mythology; almost never given today." }, { "slug": "avani", "name": "Avani", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "earth", "pronunciation": "ah-VAH-nee", "description": "Avani is a Sanskrit word for the earth, used as a girls' name across India. Its bright three-syllable rhythm fits comfortably alongside Western favorites like Avery and Imani, which has helped it gain ground among Indian families abroad.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "Popular in India; entered the US top 1000 in the late 2010s." }, { "slug": "bhumi", "name": "Bhumi", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "earth, soil", "pronunciation": "BOO-mee", "description": "Bhumi is the Sanskrit word for earth and the name of the Hindu earth goddess, honored as the consort of Varaha and mother of the planet's bounty. Bollywood actress Bhumi Pednekar keeps the name visible in contemporary India.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "In regular use in India; rare elsewhere." }, { "slug": "eartha", "name": "Eartha", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "earth", "pronunciation": "UR-thah", "description": "Eartha is a direct English name built on the word earth, recorded among American families in the South in the nineteenth century. Singer and actress Eartha Kitt, the original Catwoman, gave it a velvet glamour no other earth name can match.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "Rare; inseparable from Eartha Kitt for most who hear it." }, { "slug": "adamina", "name": "Adamina", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "earth, ground", "pronunciation": "ad-ah-MEE-nah", "description": "Adamina is the feminine form of Adam, coined in Scotland where adding -ina to a father's name was a common way to name a daughter. It carries Adam's Hebrew root adamah, the ground or red earth from which the first human was formed.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "A rarity, found mostly in older Scottish records." }, { "slug": "georgia", "name": "Georgia", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "farmer, earth-worker", "pronunciation": "JOR-jah", "description": "Georgia is the feminine of George, whose Greek root georgos means earth-worker or farmer. The American state, named for King George II, and painter Georgia O'Keeffe both lend it a sun-baked, artistic warmth that keeps it perennially fashionable.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "A US top-200 girls' name in the 2020s and a top-20 name in Australia and England." }, { "slug": "petra", "name": "Petra", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "rock, stone", "pronunciation": "PEH-trah", "description": "Petra is the feminine form of Peter, from the Greek petra, rock, and also names the ancient city carved directly into the rose-colored cliffs of Jordan. It is a staple across central and eastern Europe, from Germany to Croatia.", "themes": [ "earth", "strength" ], "popularity": "Very common in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Croatia; uncommon in the US." }, { "slug": "adam", "name": "Adam", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "earth, ground", "pronunciation": "AD-am", "description": "Adam, the first man of Genesis, takes his name from the Hebrew adamah, the ground from which he was formed, with a likely echo of adom, red, for the color of clay. Few names link a person to the earth more literally, and it has remained current in nearly every Western language for a millennium.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "A top-100 boys' name across the US, UK, and France for decades." }, { "slug": "george", "name": "George", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "farmer, earth-worker", "pronunciation": "JORJ", "description": "George comes from the Greek georgos, a compound of ge, earth, and ergon, work, literally one who works the soil. Borne by a dragon-slaying saint, six British kings, and the first American president, it is among the most storied names in the English language.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "A top-10 boys' name in England in the 2020s; steady in the US top 200." }, { "slug": "clay", "name": "Clay", "gender": "m", "origin": "English", "meaning": "clay", "pronunciation": "KLAY", "description": "Clay began as a surname for people who lived near or worked clay soil, and as a first name it honors statesman Henry Clay in many American families. Its single earthy syllable gives it a frontier plainness that never feels invented.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "A modest but persistent presence in the US top 1000 since the 1800s." }, { "slug": "peter", "name": "Peter", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "rock, stone", "pronunciation": "PEE-ter", "description": "Peter translates the Aramaic nickname Cephas, rock, which Jesus gave the apostle Simon, declaring him the rock on which the church would be built. From czars to Peter Pan, the name's two crisp syllables have anchored it in every European language.", "themes": [ "earth", "strength" ], "popularity": "A former US top-50 staple, still widely used across Europe." }, { "slug": "heath", "name": "Heath", "gender": "m", "origin": "English", "meaning": "heathland", "pronunciation": "HEETH", "description": "Heath is an English surname for someone who lived on a heath, the open, shrubby moorland of the British countryside. Australian actor Heath Ledger, named for Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff, gave the name its modern resonance.", "themes": [ "earth" ], "popularity": "Charted modestly in the US since the 1960s; a quiet nature pick today." }, { "slug": "aurelia", "name": "Aurelia", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "golden", "pronunciation": "aw-REE-lee-ah", "description": "Aurelia is the feminine of the Roman family name Aurelius, derived from aureus, golden or gilded. Julius Caesar's mother bore the name, and its antique shimmer has carried it back into fashion alongside other revived Roman names like Octavia.", "themes": [ "gold", "light" ], "popularity": "Re-entered the US top 1000 in 2014 and has climbed steadily since." }, { "slug": "zlata", "name": "Zlata", "gender": "f", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "golden", "pronunciation": "ZLAH-tah", "description": "Zlata comes straight from the Slavic word zlato, gold, and is used from Croatia to Ukraine and Russia. Zlata Filipović's wartime diary from Sarajevo introduced the name to readers worldwide in the 1990s.", "themes": [ "gold" ], "popularity": "A familiar name across Slavic countries; recently fashionable in Ukraine." }, { "slug": "orla", "name": "Orla", "gender": "f", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "golden princess", "pronunciation": "OR-lah", "description": "Orla is the anglicized form of Órfhlaith, joining ór, gold, with flaith, a princess or sovereign. It was borne by sisters and nieces of the high king Brian Boru, making it one of the most royal names of medieval Ireland.", "themes": [ "gold", "royal" ], "popularity": "A top-100 girls' name in Ireland and the UK." }, { "slug": "eurwen", "name": "Eurwen", "gender": "f", "origin": "Welsh", "meaning": "golden and fair", "pronunciation": "AYR-wen", "description": "Eurwen joins the Welsh aur, gold, with gwen, white, fair, or blessed, producing a name that gleams in two directions at once. It belongs to the early twentieth-century wave of Welsh coinages celebrating the language's own poetry.", "themes": [ "gold", "light" ], "popularity": "Rare even in Wales; a distinctive heritage choice." }, { "slug": "hema", "name": "Hema", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "gold", "pronunciation": "HAY-mah", "description": "Hema is a Sanskrit word for gold, familiar across India and especially in the south. Veteran Bollywood star Hema Malini, once billed as the Dream Girl of Hindi cinema, remains the name's most famous bearer.", "themes": [ "gold" ], "popularity": "Common among older generations in India; quieter among newborns today." }, { "slug": "golda", "name": "Golda", "gender": "f", "origin": "Yiddish", "meaning": "gold", "pronunciation": "GOHL-dah", "description": "Golda is the Yiddish word for gold, long used among Ashkenazi Jewish families and often paired in records with its diminutive Goldie. Israeli prime minister Golda Meir made it a byword for steely leadership.", "themes": [ "gold" ], "popularity": "Common in pre-war Jewish communities; rare today outside Orthodox families." }, { "slug": "xanthe", "name": "Xanthe", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "golden, yellow", "pronunciation": "ZAN-thee", "description": "Xanthe comes from the Greek xanthos, the word for golden or yellow hair, and appears in mythology as an Oceanid nymph and an Amazon. The showy initial X gives this ancient name an unexpectedly modern edge.", "themes": [ "gold", "light" ], "popularity": "Rare in the US; better known in Australia and Britain." }, { "slug": "flavia", "name": "Flavia", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "golden, yellow-haired", "pronunciation": "FLAH-vee-ah", "description": "Flavia is the feminine of the Roman clan name Flavius, from flavus, golden or yellow, originally a nickname for fair hair. The Flavian emperors built the Colosseum, and the name still feels at home in Italy, Brazil, and Romania.", "themes": [ "gold" ], "popularity": "A steady classic in Italy and Brazil; rare in English-speaking countries." }, { "slug": "cressida", "name": "Cressida", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "golden", "pronunciation": "KRES-ih-dah", "description": "Cressida is the medieval and Shakespearean form of Chryseis, the Trojan girl of the Iliad whose name derives from the Greek chrysos, gold. Despite her faithless reputation in the old romances, the name reads today as literary and quietly aristocratic.", "themes": [ "gold" ], "popularity": "An upper-class rarity in Britain; almost unknown in the US." }, { "slug": "zarina", "name": "Zarina", "gender": "f", "origin": "Persian", "meaning": "golden", "pronunciation": "zah-REE-nah", "description": "Zarina builds on the Persian zar, gold, and is widespread across Central and South Asia, from Kazakhstan to Pakistan. Ancient Greek writers even recorded a Saka warrior queen named Zarina, giving the name a touch of steppe legend.", "themes": [ "gold", "royal" ], "popularity": "Popular in Central Asia; occasional in Muslim communities worldwide." }, { "slug": "aurelius", "name": "Aurelius", "gender": "m", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "golden", "pronunciation": "aw-REE-lee-us", "description": "Aurelius was a Roman family name from aureus, golden, carried to immortality by the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius, author of the Meditations. Parents drawn to stoic gravitas have been reviving it, often with the friendly nickname Aur, or Relius.", "themes": [ "gold" ], "popularity": "Entered the US top 1000 in 2021 amid the revival of Roman names." }, { "slug": "zlatan", "name": "Zlatan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "golden", "pronunciation": "ZLAH-tahn", "description": "Zlatan is the masculine form of the South Slavic word for golden, common in Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia. Footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović turned it into a one-word brand for audacious confidence across Europe.", "themes": [ "gold" ], "popularity": "Familiar throughout the Balkans; saw a spike in Sweden during Ibrahimović's career." }, { "slug": "altan", "name": "Altan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Mongolian", "meaning": "golden", "pronunciation": "ahl-TAHN", "description": "Altan means golden in Mongolian and in several Turkic languages, and it was the title-name of Altan Khan, the sixteenth-century ruler who first granted the title Dalai Lama. In Turkey the same name evokes a red-gold dawn.", "themes": [ "gold" ], "popularity": "In regular use in Mongolia and Turkey; rare in the West." }, { "slug": "flavio", "name": "Flavio", "gender": "m", "origin": "Italian", "meaning": "golden, yellow-haired", "pronunciation": "FLAH-vyoh", "description": "Flavio is the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese descendant of Flavius, the Roman clan name meaning golden-haired. It has never needed reviving in southern Europe and Latin America, where it remains an everyday classic with an imperial pedigree.", "themes": [ "gold" ], "popularity": "A staple in Italy and Brazil; uncommon in English-speaking countries." }, { "slug": "kanak", "name": "Kanak", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "gold", "pronunciation": "KUH-nuk", "description": "Kanak is a Sanskrit word for gold, used as a given name in India for boys, with Kanaka appearing in older texts and southern traditions. It names sacred golden imagery throughout Hindu literature, from temple domes to divine ornaments.", "themes": [ "gold" ], "popularity": "An established but uncommon choice in India." }, { "slug": "crystal", "name": "Crystal", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "ice, clear ice", "pronunciation": "KRIS-tal", "description": "Crystal traces to the Greek krystallos, which meant ice before it meant rock crystal, since the ancients believed clear quartz was water frozen too hard to melt. The name boomed in 1980s America, fueled by the glamorous Krystle Carrington of the TV drama Dynasty.", "themes": [ "ice", "light" ], "popularity": "A US top-30 girls' name in the 1980s; far less common for babies now." }, { "slug": "isolde", "name": "Isolde", "gender": "f", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "ice battle (probable)", "pronunciation": "ih-ZOHL-dah", "description": "Isolde, the Irish princess whose doomed love for Tristan haunts medieval romance and Wagner's opera, bears a name most often traced to Germanic elements meaning ice and battle, though Welsh roots have also been proposed. It remains one of the most tragic and beautiful names in European literature.", "themes": [ "ice" ], "popularity": "Rare everywhere; chosen mainly by lovers of opera and Arthurian legend." }, { "slug": "kirsi", "name": "Kirsi", "gender": "f", "origin": "Finnish", "meaning": "frost", "pronunciation": "KEER-see", "description": "Kirsi is a Finnish name taken from the word for night frost, the silver coating that signals the turn toward winter. It doubles as a Finnish short form of Christina, which helped it become a mainstream name in mid-century Finland.", "themes": [ "ice", "snow" ], "popularity": "Very common among Finnish women born in the 1960s and 1970s." }, { "slug": "miyuki", "name": "Miyuki", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "beautiful snow", "pronunciation": "mee-YOO-kee", "description": "Miyuki is a Japanese girls' name most often written with characters meaning beautiful snow, though parents can also choose kanji meaning deep snow or beautiful happiness. The snow reading gives the name a hushed, wintry delicacy.", "themes": [ "ice", "snow" ], "popularity": "A familiar name in Japan, especially for women born in the Shōwa era." }, { "slug": "fuyuko", "name": "Fuyuko", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "winter child", "pronunciation": "foo-YOO-koh", "description": "Fuyuko combines the Japanese fuyu, winter, with ko, child, a naming pattern traditionally used for girls born in the cold months. The -ko ending, once nearly universal for Japanese daughters, now lends the name a graceful vintage air.", "themes": [ "ice", "snow" ], "popularity": "Uncommon in modern Japan as -ko names have faded from fashion." }, { "slug": "tuhina", "name": "Tuhina", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "snow, frost", "pronunciation": "too-HEE-nah", "description": "Tuhina is a Sanskrit word covering snow, frost, and dew, the cold moisture of dawn in classical Indian poetry. It is used as a girls' name particularly in Bengal, where its soft syllables suit the literary tradition of nature names.", "themes": [ "ice", "snow" ], "popularity": "An uncommon but recognized name in eastern India." }, { "slug": "haukea", "name": "Haukea", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hawaiian", "meaning": "white snow", "pronunciation": "how-KEH-ah", "description": "Haukea pairs the Hawaiian hau, snow or ice, with kea, white, describing the snows that genuinely cap Mauna Kea each winter. It is a reminder that even tropical Hawaii has a word-hoard for the frozen world.", "themes": [ "ice", "snow" ], "popularity": "Rare, found almost exclusively in Hawaii." }, { "slug": "skadi", "name": "Skadi", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "harm (possible); goddess of winter", "pronunciation": "SKAH-dee", "description": "Skadi is the Norse goddess of winter, skiing, and the snowy mountains, who marched armed into Asgard to avenge her father and chose her husband by looking only at the gods' feet. Her name may relate to an Old Norse word for harm or shadow, and Scandinavia itself may share its root.", "themes": [ "ice", "snow" ], "popularity": "Very rare as a given name; occasionally used in Germany and Scandinavia." }, { "slug": "neus", "name": "Neus", "gender": "f", "origin": "Catalan", "meaning": "snows", "pronunciation": "NEH-oos", "description": "Neus is the Catalan word for snows, given in honor of the Marian title Mare de Déu de les Neus, Our Lady of the Snows. It is the Catalan sister of the Spanish name Nieves and stays close to home in Catalonia and Valencia.", "themes": [ "ice", "snow" ], "popularity": "A familiar traditional name in Catalonia; almost unknown elsewhere." }, { "slug": "talvi", "name": "Talvi", "gender": "u", "origin": "Finnish", "meaning": "winter", "pronunciation": "TAHL-vee", "description": "Talvi is simply the Finnish word for winter, used as a given name for girls and occasionally boys. Like many Finnish nature names it is short, vowel-bright, and easy to carry across languages.", "themes": [ "ice", "snow" ], "popularity": "Rare in Finland; a fresh pick among Nordic nature names." }, { "slug": "jokull", "name": "Jökull", "gender": "m", "origin": "Icelandic", "meaning": "glacier, ice", "pronunciation": "YUR-kutl", "description": "Jökull is the Icelandic word for glacier, visible on any map of the island in names like Vatnajökull. It appears in the medieval sagas as a personal name and is still given to Icelandic boys, a name that is literally a wall of ice.", "themes": [ "ice" ], "popularity": "In steady use in Iceland; effectively unique elsewhere." }, { "slug": "vetle", "name": "Vetle", "gender": "m", "origin": "Norwegian", "meaning": "winter traveler", "pronunciation": "VET-leh", "description": "Vetle descends from the Old Norse Vetrliði, winter traveler, a poetic term the Norse also applied to a bear cub in its first winter. The modern form is a familiar boys' name in Norway with an unmistakably wintry pedigree.", "themes": [ "ice", "snow" ], "popularity": "A regular presence in Norway's top 100 in recent decades." }, { "slug": "ayaz", "name": "Ayaz", "gender": "m", "origin": "Turkish", "meaning": "frost, dry cold", "pronunciation": "ah-YAHZ", "description": "Ayaz names the dry, biting cold of a clear winter night in Turkish and other Turkic languages. Medieval Persian literature celebrated Ayaz, the devoted companion of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, making the name a byword for loyalty as well as frost.", "themes": [ "ice" ], "popularity": "A top-100 boys' name in Turkey in recent years." }, { "slug": "boreas", "name": "Boreas", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "north wind", "pronunciation": "BOR-ee-as", "description": "Boreas was the Greek god of the north wind, the bringer of winter who swept down from Thrace with ice in his beard. His name survives in the aurora borealis, the northern lights, giving this mythological pick a built-in connection to polar skies.", "themes": [ "ice", "storm" ], "popularity": "Essentially unused as a given name; a bold mythological option." }, { "slug": "edur", "name": "Edur", "gender": "m", "origin": "Basque", "meaning": "snow", "pronunciation": "eh-DOOR", "description": "Edur is the masculine Basque name built on edurra, snow, the counterpart to the far more common feminine Edurne. It belongs to the modern revival of Basque nature names that followed the language's twentieth-century resurgence.", "themes": [ "ice", "snow" ], "popularity": "Rare even in the Basque Country." }, { "slug": "flora", "name": "Flora", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "flower", "pronunciation": "FLOR-ah", "description": "Flora was the Roman goddess of flowers and spring, her festival the riotous Floralia of late April. The name has bloomed in Scotland since Flora MacDonald helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape, and it anchors the entire family of floral names.", "themes": [ "flower", "rebirth" ], "popularity": "A top-100 name in France and Hungary; a vintage revival pick in the US and UK." }, { "slug": "anthea", "name": "Anthea", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "flower, blossom", "pronunciation": "AN-thee-ah", "description": "Anthea comes from the Greek antheia, flowery, an epithet of the goddess Hera and the source of words like anthology, literally a gathering of flowers. English poets of the seventeenth century, especially Robert Herrick, made her a muse.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "A quiet British classic, never common, kept alive by literary charm." }, { "slug": "hana", "name": "Hana", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "flower", "pronunciation": "HAH-nah", "description": "Hana is the Japanese word for flower, but the same four letters also mean bliss in Arabic and one in Korean, and serve as a Czech form of Hannah. Few names belong so comfortably to so many cultures at once.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "Popular in Japan, the Czech Republic, and across the Arab world." }, { "slug": "zahra", "name": "Zahra", "gender": "f", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "flower, blossom; radiant", "pronunciation": "ZAH-rah", "description": "Zahra comes from an Arabic root that yields both zahrah, flower or blossom, and zahra, radiant white and shining. Al-Zahra, the Radiant, is the revered epithet of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, which keeps the name beloved across the Muslim world.", "themes": [ "flower", "light" ], "popularity": "A top name in many Muslim communities; in the US top 1000 since the 2010s." }, { "slug": "fleur", "name": "Fleur", "gender": "f", "origin": "French", "meaning": "flower", "pronunciation": "FLUR", "description": "Fleur is the French word for flower, popularized in English by John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga and later by the Harry Potter champion Fleur Delacour. Oddly, it is the Dutch rather than the French who have made it a mainstream baby name.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "A top-30 girls' name in the Netherlands; an exotic rarity in the US." }, { "slug": "lily", "name": "Lily", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "lily", "pronunciation": "LIL-ee", "description": "Lily names the flower whose Latin word lilium passed through Old English, a bloom long associated with purity in Christian art. After ranking high in the Victorian era it returned in force around 2000 and has stayed near the top of English-speaking charts since.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "A top-50 girls' name in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "violet", "name": "Violet", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "violet flower", "pronunciation": "VY-oh-let", "description": "Violet comes through French from the Latin viola, the small purple flower of early spring. Used in Scotland since the Middle Ages, it led the Victorian flower-name fashion and returned a century later, helped by celebrity babies and Downton Abbey's dowager countess.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "Back in the US top 40 in the 2020s after a long absence." }, { "slug": "sakura", "name": "Sakura", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "cherry blossom", "pronunciation": "sah-KOO-rah", "description": "Sakura is the Japanese cherry blossom, the flower whose brief, spectacular blooming each spring has symbolized the beauty of impermanence for centuries. As a girls' name it is both deeply traditional and perennially current in Japan.", "themes": [ "flower", "rebirth" ], "popularity": "Consistently among Japan's most popular girls' names." }, { "slug": "kamala", "name": "Kamala", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "lotus", "pronunciation": "KAH-mah-lah", "description": "Kamala is the Sanskrit word for the lotus, the flower that rises unstained from muddy water and serves as Hinduism's central image of purity; it is also an epithet of the goddess Lakshmi. US Vice President Kamala Harris made it a household name far beyond India.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "Traditional in India; saw a surge of American interest after 2020." }, { "slug": "shoshana", "name": "Shoshana", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "lily, rose", "pronunciation": "shoh-SHAH-nah", "description": "Shoshana is the Hebrew flower word behind Susanna and Susan, understood as lily in the Bible and as rose in modern Hebrew. The name's long history runs from the apocryphal heroine Susanna to Broadway star Shoshana Bean.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "A standard name in Israel; used in Jewish communities worldwide." }, { "slug": "poppy", "name": "Poppy", "gender": "f", "origin": "English", "meaning": "poppy flower", "pronunciation": "POP-ee", "description": "Poppy names the vivid red flower that became Britain's emblem of remembrance after the First World War. The British have embraced it as a cheerful given name for over a century, and Americans began catching on in the 2010s.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "A top-20 girls' name in England and Wales; entered the US top 1000 in 2016." }, { "slug": "florian", "name": "Florian", "gender": "m", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "flowering, flourishing", "pronunciation": "FLOR-ee-ahn", "description": "Florian comes from the Roman name Florianus, rooted in flos, flower, and was borne by a soldier-saint who became the patron of firefighters. That sturdy patronage makes it one of the few flower names worn comfortably by men across Austria, Germany, and France.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "A long-running favorite in Austria and Germany; rare in English-speaking countries." }, { "slug": "fiorello", "name": "Fiorello", "gender": "m", "origin": "Italian", "meaning": "little flower", "pronunciation": "fyoh-REL-loh", "description": "Fiorello means little flower in Italian, a diminutive of fiore. New York's beloved Depression-era mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who read comics to children over the radio during a newspaper strike, gave the name its enduring American sparkle.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "Rare in both Italy and the US; instantly associated with Mayor La Guardia." }, { "slug": "aravind", "name": "Aravind", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "lotus", "pronunciation": "AH-rah-vind", "description": "Aravind is a Sanskrit word for the lotus, the flower of purity and awakening throughout Indian tradition, and a masculine name common in southern India. Writer Aravind Adiga, whose novel The White Tiger won the Booker Prize, carries it on the world stage.", "themes": [ "flower" ], "popularity": "Well used in India, especially Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala." }, { "slug": "crisanto", "name": "Crisanto", "gender": "m", "origin": "Spanish", "meaning": "golden flower", "pronunciation": "kree-SAHN-toh", "description": "Crisanto descends from the Greek Chrysanthos, golden flower, the root of the chrysanthemum, via an early martyr saint Chrysanthus. The Spanish form took hold in Latin America and the Philippines, where saints' names settled deepest.", "themes": [ "flower", "gold" ], "popularity": "An old-fashioned but recognized name in the Spanish-speaking world and the Philippines." }, { "slug": "conan", "name": "Conan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "little wolf, little hound", "pronunciation": "KOH-nan", "description": "Conan is an old Irish name built on cú, the word for hound or wolf, with a diminutive ending, and it was borne by early saints and Dukes of Brittany. Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert E. Howard's barbarian, and talk-show host Conan O'Brien have each given it a different kind of fame.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "Uncommon but instantly familiar thanks to its famous bearers." }, { "slug": "wolfgang", "name": "Wolfgang", "gender": "m", "origin": "German", "meaning": "wolf path", "pronunciation": "VUULF-gahng", "description": "Wolfgang joins the Old German wolf with gang, a path or going, suggesting one who travels with wolves. Mozart and Goethe between them made it the most cultured wolf name in Europe, and chef Wolfgang Puck keeps it on American menus.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "A classic in Austria and Germany, now mostly given by tradition-minded parents." }, { "slug": "wolf", "name": "Wolf", "gender": "m", "origin": "German", "meaning": "wolf", "pronunciation": "WUULF", "description": "Wolf is the animal name at its most direct, used for centuries in German as both a standalone name and a short form of Wolfgang, and in Jewish communities as a traditional pairing with the tribe of Benjamin's wolf emblem. It is as elemental as a name can be.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "Rare as a legal first name in English; familiar in German-speaking countries." }, { "slug": "lowell", "name": "Lowell", "gender": "m", "origin": "French", "meaning": "little wolf", "pronunciation": "LOH-el", "description": "Lowell comes from a Norman French surname derived from lou, wolf, with a diminutive ending, so the polished New England surname secretly means wolf cub. The Boston Lowells, including poets James Russell and Robert Lowell, made it an emblem of Yankee letters.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "Charted steadily in the US through the twentieth century; a quiet vintage pick now." }, { "slug": "rudolph", "name": "Rudolph", "gender": "m", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "famous wolf", "pronunciation": "ROO-dolf", "description": "Rudolph unites the Germanic hrod, fame, with wulf, making its bearer a famous wolf, a name carried by Habsburg emperors and the silent-film idol Rudolph Valentino. The red-nosed reindeer, invented for a 1939 store promotion, permanently changed how English speakers hear it.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 name in the 1910s; rare for newborns today." }, { "slug": "ralph", "name": "Ralph", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "wolf counsel", "pronunciation": "RALF", "description": "Ralph descends from the Old Norse Ráðúlfr, joining rad, counsel, with ulfr, wolf, and arrived in England with the Vikings and again with the Normans. From philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson to designer Ralph Lauren, it has been a dependable English standard for a thousand years.", "themes": [ "wolf", "wisdom" ], "popularity": "A US top-30 name in the early twentieth century; now an underused classic." }, { "slug": "ulf", "name": "Ulf", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "wolf", "pronunciation": "UULF", "description": "Ulf is the plain Old Norse word for wolf, a Viking name borne by the jarl Ulf, brother-in-law of King Cnut the Great. It survives as an everyday name in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, one syllable of unfiltered Norse heritage.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "Common among older generations in Scandinavia; rare for babies now." }, { "slug": "faolan", "name": "Faolán", "gender": "m", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "little wolf", "pronunciation": "FAY-lawn", "description": "Faolán is the Irish diminutive of fáel, wolf, a name worn by early Irish saints and by warriors of the legendary Fianna. Its anglicized forms Phelan and Whelan live on as common Irish surnames, but the original given name is enjoying a small revival.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "Rare; chosen by parents seeking an authentic Irish wolf name." }, { "slug": "conall", "name": "Conall", "gender": "m", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "strong as a wolf", "pronunciation": "KON-al", "description": "Conall is an ancient Irish name usually interpreted as strong as a wolf or hound, combining cú with a word for valor. The Ulster Cycle hero Conall Cernach avenged his foster brother Cúchulainn, and several early Irish kings carried the name into history.", "themes": [ "wolf", "strength" ], "popularity": "In quiet use in Ireland; far rarer than its cousin Connor." }, { "slug": "vuk", "name": "Vuk", "gender": "m", "origin": "Serbian", "meaning": "wolf", "pronunciation": "VOOK", "description": "Vuk is the Serbian word for wolf, traditionally given in the belief that the animal's strength would protect a child from harm. Vuk Karadžić, the nineteenth-century reformer who standardized the Serbian language, made it a national name.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "A top-20 boys' name in Serbia and Montenegro." }, { "slug": "zev", "name": "Zev", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "wolf", "pronunciation": "ZEHV", "description": "Zev, from the Hebrew ze'ev, wolf, connects to Jacob's blessing of his son Benjamin as a ravening wolf, which made the animal a traditional Jewish name motif often paired with the Yiddish Wolf. Short and forceful, it fits today's taste for compact boys' names.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "A standard name in Israel and Orthodox communities; rising gently in the US." }, { "slug": "ylva", "name": "Ylva", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "she-wolf", "pronunciation": "UYL-vah", "description": "Ylva is the Old Norse word for she-wolf, one of the very few female wolf names with deep historical roots, recorded in Scandinavia since the Viking Age. Modern Swedish and Norwegian parents have kept it steadily alive.", "themes": [ "wolf", "strength" ], "popularity": "A familiar name in Sweden and Norway; striking and rare elsewhere." }, { "slug": "ulvhild", "name": "Ulvhild", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "wolf battle", "pronunciation": "OOLV-hild", "description": "Ulvhild fuses the Old Norse ulfr, wolf, with hildr, battle, and was carried by Ulvhild Håkonsdotter, a twelfth-century queen consort of both Sweden and Denmark. Sigrid Undset revived its memory in her medieval novels of Norway.", "themes": [ "wolf", "warrior" ], "popularity": "A medieval rarity, occasionally given in Norway today." }, { "slug": "otsana", "name": "Otsana", "gender": "f", "origin": "Basque", "meaning": "she-wolf", "pronunciation": "oh-TSAH-nah", "description": "Otsana is the feminine of the Basque otso, wolf, recorded in medieval Navarre in forms like Otsanda. Its revival belongs to the modern movement reclaiming pre-Roman Basque names, and it remains one of Europe's few authentic she-wolf names.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "Very rare, found mainly in the Basque Country." }, { "slug": "zeeva", "name": "Zeeva", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "wolf", "pronunciation": "zeh-EH-vah", "description": "Zeeva is the modern Hebrew feminine of Ze'ev, wolf, giving daughters a share in one of Judaism's oldest animal names. It is an uncommon choice even in Israel, which makes it feel both rooted and fresh.", "themes": [ "wolf" ], "popularity": "Rare in Israel and the diaspora alike." }, { "slug": "sarah", "name": "Sarah", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "princess, noblewoman", "pronunciation": "SAIR-ah", "description": "Sarah is the Hebrew word for princess or noblewoman, the name God gives the biblical matriarch Sarai when she is promised to become the mother of nations. Few names have matched its staying power: it has been a top choice in English for over three centuries.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "A US top-10 girls' name from the late 1970s through 2002; still in the top 100." }, { "slug": "regina", "name": "Regina", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "queen", "pronunciation": "reh-JEE-nah", "description": "Regina is the Latin word for queen, an early Christian name honoring Mary as Regina Caeli, Queen of Heaven, and the official royal style of British queens. Comedy fans now know it equally from actress Regina King and Mean Girls' Regina George.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "A steady presence in the US top 1000 for more than a century." }, { "slug": "rhiannon", "name": "Rhiannon", "gender": "f", "origin": "Welsh", "meaning": "great queen", "pronunciation": "ree-AN-on", "description": "Rhiannon, the patient horse-goddess of the Welsh Mabinogi, bears a name traced to the old Celtic Rigantona, great queen. Stevie Nicks heard the name in a novel, wrote the Fleetwood Mac song in ten minutes, and sent a Welsh deity up the American charts.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "Entered the US top 1000 after the 1976 song; a steady favorite in Wales." }, { "slug": "vasilisa", "name": "Vasilisa", "gender": "f", "origin": "Russian", "meaning": "royal, queenly", "pronunciation": "vah-see-LEE-sah", "description": "Vasilisa is the Russian feminine of the Greek basileus, king, and belongs to Vasilisa the Beautiful, the fairy-tale heroine who outwits the witch Baba Yaga with the help of a magic doll. The name carries both crown and folktale in equal measure.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "A top-20 girls' name in Russia in recent years." }, { "slug": "amira", "name": "Amira", "gender": "f", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "princess, commander", "pronunciation": "ah-MEER-ah", "description": "Amira is the feminine of the Arabic amir, a prince or commander, the same title behind the English word emir. Its open vowels travel effortlessly between Arabic, Hebrew, and English, making it a favorite across the Middle East and increasingly in the West.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "In the US top 200 in the 2020s and popular throughout the Arab world." }, { "slug": "harriet", "name": "Harriet", "gender": "f", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "home ruler", "pronunciation": "HAIR-ee-et", "description": "Harriet is the English form of the French Henriette, the feminine of Henry, ruler of the home. Abolitionist Harriet Tubman and author Harriet Beecher Stowe give the name a moral force few others can claim, and the spying schoolgirl Harriet M. Welsch adds mischief.", "themes": [ "royal", "strength" ], "popularity": "A top-100 name in England and Wales; an emerging vintage revival in the US." }, { "slug": "reginald", "name": "Reginald", "gender": "m", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "ruling with counsel", "pronunciation": "REJ-ih-nald", "description": "Reginald is the Latinized form of a Germanic name joining ragin, counsel or decree, with wald, rule, brought to England by the Normans. Once a byword for the British upper crust, it found a distinct second life as a distinguished name in Black American communities.", "themes": [ "royal", "wisdom" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 name in the 1960s; less common but dignified today." }, { "slug": "frederick", "name": "Frederick", "gender": "m", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "peaceful ruler", "pronunciation": "FRED-rik", "description": "Frederick joins the Germanic frid, peace, with ric, ruler or power, a combination that suited Holy Roman Emperors and Prussian kings alike. In America its greatest bearer is Frederick Douglass, who chose the name himself after escaping slavery.", "themes": [ "royal", "peace" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 fixture for a century until the 1950s; climbing again in England." }, { "slug": "henry", "name": "Henry", "gender": "m", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "home ruler", "pronunciation": "HEN-ree", "description": "Henry descends from the Germanic Heimirich, ruler of the home, and has named eight kings of England along with explorers, poets, and industrialists. After a quiet midcentury, American parents restored it to the top tier in the 2010s.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "A US top-10 boys' name in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "rex", "name": "Rex", "gender": "m", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "king", "pronunciation": "REKS", "description": "Rex is the Latin word for king, adopted as an English given name in the nineteenth century. Its blunt single syllable reads as both regal and slightly rakish, an image actor Rex Harrison polished in My Fair Lady; its dinosaur and dog associations only add to its swagger.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "A modest but durable US choice, back in the top 600 in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "basil", "name": "Basil", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "royal, kingly", "pronunciation": "BAZ-il", "description": "Basil comes from the Greek basileios, royal, the root of basilica and the name of a towering fourth-century saint and two Byzantine emperors. English speakers also hear the herb, itself named the royal plant, while Greeks still give the original form Vasilis freely.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "Common in Greek and Arab Christian communities; a quirky rarity in the US." }, { "slug": "eric", "name": "Eric", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "ever ruler", "pronunciation": "AIR-ik", "description": "Eric descends from the Old Norse Eiríkr, usually read as ever-ruler or eternal king, the name of Viking adventurers like Erik the Red and a long line of Swedish kings. It settled permanently into English after the Victorian story Eric, or Little by Little.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "A US top-30 name through the 1970s and 1980s; still widely given." }, { "slug": "ryan", "name": "Ryan", "gender": "m", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "little king (probable)", "pronunciation": "RY-an", "description": "Ryan comes from the Irish surname Ó Riain, generally traced to rí, king, with a diminutive ending, so the everyday American favorite quietly means little king. Actors Ryan O'Neal, Ryan Gosling, and Ryan Reynolds have kept it on screen for half a century.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "A US top-20 boys' name from the 1970s through the 2000s." }, { "slug": "malik", "name": "Malik", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "king", "pronunciation": "mah-LIK", "description": "Malik is the Arabic word for king and, as al-Malik, one of the ninety-nine names of God in Islam. It became prominent among Black American families after Malcolm X took the name el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, joining faith and self-determination in two syllables.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "In the US top 1000 since the 1970s, peaking in the 1990s." }, { "slug": "kingsley", "name": "Kingsley", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old English", "meaning": "king's wood", "pronunciation": "KINGZ-lee", "description": "Kingsley is an Old English place name meaning the king's wood or clearing, carried as a surname by novelists Kingsley Amis and Charles Kingsley and actor Ben Kingsley. The on-trend -ley ending and the built-in nickname King have powered its recent American rise.", "themes": [ "royal" ], "popularity": "Entered the US boys' top 1000 in the 2010s and continues to climb." }, { "slug": "marcella", "name": "Marcella", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "dedicated to Mars, warlike", "pronunciation": "mar-SEL-ah", "description": "Marcella is the feminine of Marcellus, a diminutive family of names honoring Mars, the Roman god of war. Saint Marcella hosted Rome's first community of ascetic women in her palace, giving this warlike name a scholarly, charitable legacy.", "themes": [ "warrior" ], "popularity": "Peaked in the US in the 1920s and 1930s; a vintage rarity now." }, { "slug": "hilda", "name": "Hilda", "gender": "f", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "battle", "pronunciation": "HIL-dah", "description": "Hilda is the Old Germanic word for battle, the element hiding inside Matilda, Brunhilde, and dozens of other names, and in Norse myth the valkyries themselves were called by it. Saint Hilda of Whitby, who hosted England's pivotal church synod in 664, softened the sword with statesmanship.", "themes": [ "warrior" ], "popularity": "A top-100 name in early twentieth-century America and Britain; rare today." }, { "slug": "louisa", "name": "Louisa", "gender": "f", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "famous warrior", "pronunciation": "loo-EE-zah", "description": "Louisa is the Latinate feminine of Louis, from the Germanic Hludwig, famous in battle. Louisa May Alcott, who served as a Civil War nurse before writing Little Women, embodied the name's blend of grit and warmth.", "themes": [ "warrior" ], "popularity": "More common than Louise in 19th-century America; both are reviving in Britain." }, { "slug": "edith", "name": "Edith", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old English", "meaning": "prosperous in war", "pronunciation": "EE-dith", "description": "Edith joins the Old English ead, wealth and blessedness, with gyth, war, a favorite among Anglo-Saxon royal women that survived the Norman Conquest when most native names did not. Singer Édith Piaf and nurse Edith Cavell gave it twentieth-century courage.", "themes": [ "warrior" ], "popularity": "A US top-30 name around 1900, now returning with the vintage revival." }, { "slug": "maud", "name": "Maud", "gender": "f", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "mighty in battle", "pronunciation": "MAWD", "description": "Maud is the medieval French contraction of Matilda, strength in battle, and was the everyday name of the twelfth-century Empress Matilda who fought a civil war for the English crown. Tennyson's poem Maud made it a Victorian darling.", "themes": [ "warrior", "strength" ], "popularity": "Hugely popular in the 1880s; today a daring vintage pick, mostly in Europe." }, { "slug": "alexandra", "name": "Alexandra", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "defender of men", "pronunciation": "al-ek-ZAN-drah", "description": "Alexandra is the feminine of Alexander, from the Greek alexein, to defend, and aner, man, a title given to the goddess Hera as a protectress in battle. Borne by a Danish-born queen of England and the last Russian empress, it has never lost its imperial polish.", "themes": [ "warrior", "strength" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 girls' name from the 1980s through the 2010s." }, { "slug": "marcus", "name": "Marcus", "gender": "m", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "dedicated to Mars", "pronunciation": "MAR-kus", "description": "Marcus is one of Rome's oldest given names, generally derived from Mars, the god of war, and borne by Marcus Aurelius and the orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. Activist Marcus Garvey helped root the name deeply in Black communities across the Americas.", "themes": [ "warrior" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 name from the 1970s to the 1990s; steady worldwide." }, { "slug": "harvey", "name": "Harvey", "gender": "m", "origin": "Breton", "meaning": "battle worthy", "pronunciation": "HAR-vee", "description": "Harvey comes from the Breton Haerviu, combining words for battle and worthy, carried to England by Bretons who arrived with William the Conqueror. A blind sixth-century Breton bard, Saint Hervé, is its patron, walking with a tamed wolf at his side.", "themes": [ "warrior" ], "popularity": "A top-50 name in England and Wales in the 2010s; modest in the US." }, { "slug": "gunnar", "name": "Gunnar", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "warrior", "pronunciation": "GUN-ar", "description": "Gunnar doubles down on war, joining the Old Norse gunnr, battle, with arr, warrior, and names the doomed hero of the Saga of Burnt Njal, the finest archer of medieval Iceland. American parents discovered it as a rugged alternative to Gunner in the 2000s.", "themes": [ "warrior", "strength" ], "popularity": "A staple in Iceland and Norway; in the US top 1000 since 2004." }, { "slug": "louis", "name": "Louis", "gender": "m", "origin": "Germanic", "meaning": "famous warrior", "pronunciation": "LOO-ee", "description": "Louis descends from the Germanic Hludwig, famous in battle, the name of eighteen French kings and the saint-king who led two crusades. Louis Armstrong, who pronounced it Lewis, gave the old royal name its American jazz soul.", "themes": [ "warrior" ], "popularity": "A top-20 name in France and England; rising again in the US after Prince Louis." }, { "slug": "cathal", "name": "Cathal", "gender": "m", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "battle rule", "pronunciation": "KA-hal", "description": "Cathal combines the Old Irish cath, battle, with val, rule, and was a favorite of medieval Irish kings, including Cathal Crobhdearg, the Red-Handed, king of Connacht. It is sometimes anglicized as Charles, though the two names are unrelated.", "themes": [ "warrior" ], "popularity": "A steady traditional choice in Ireland; little known elsewhere." }, { "slug": "wyatt", "name": "Wyatt", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old English", "meaning": "brave in war", "pronunciation": "WY-at", "description": "Wyatt comes from the medieval Wyot, a form of the Old English Wigheard, joining war and brave or hardy. Frontier lawman Wyatt Earp fixed the name to the American West, and modern parents have ridden that image to the top of the charts.", "themes": [ "warrior" ], "popularity": "A US top-30 boys' name through the 2010s and 2020s." }, { "slug": "koa", "name": "Koa", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hawaiian", "meaning": "warrior, brave", "pronunciation": "KOH-ah", "description": "Koa is the Hawaiian word for warrior and bravery, and also the name of the prized native hardwood once reserved for royal canoes and surfboards. Two letters longer than Kai, it has followed its cousin onto mainland American birth certificates.", "themes": [ "warrior", "strength" ], "popularity": "A top name in Hawaii; entered the US top 1000 in 2017 and climbing." }, { "slug": "veer", "name": "Veer", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "hero, brave warrior", "pronunciation": "VEER", "description": "Veer is the modern Hindi form of the Sanskrit vira, hero or brave man, the word behind honorifics for India's freedom fighters and the military decoration Param Vir Chakra. Bollywood has kept it current with heroes named Veer in several blockbuster films.", "themes": [ "warrior", "strength" ], "popularity": "Popular in India and the Indian diaspora in the 2010s and 2020s." }, { "slug": "murphy", "name": "Murphy", "gender": "u", "origin": "Irish", "meaning": "sea warrior", "pronunciation": "MUR-fee", "description": "Murphy, Ireland's most common surname, descends from the personal name Murchadh, combining muir, sea, with cath, battle: a sea warrior. As a first name it skews cheerfully unisex in America, helped by the sitcom journalist Murphy Brown.", "themes": [ "warrior", "ocean" ], "popularity": "In the US top 1000 for both girls and boys in the 2020s." }, { "slug": "irene", "name": "Irene", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "peace", "pronunciation": "eye-REEN", "description": "Irene is the Greek eirene, peace, personified as a goddess holding the infant Wealth in her arms and borne by an iconoclast-era Byzantine empress who ruled in her own right. English speakers flattened its original three syllables to two over the last century.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "A US top-20 name in the 1910s and 1920s; quietly steady ever since." }, { "slug": "frieda", "name": "Frieda", "gender": "f", "origin": "German", "meaning": "peace", "pronunciation": "FREE-dah", "description": "Frieda comes directly from the German Friede, peace, originally a short form of names like Friederike. The spelling Frida belongs to painter Frida Kahlo, whose parents indeed connected her name to the German word for peace.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "Common in early twentieth-century Germany and America; the Frida spelling now leads in Scandinavia." }, { "slug": "salome", "name": "Salome", "gender": "f", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "peace", "pronunciation": "sah-LOH-may", "description": "Salome derives from shalom, the Hebrew word for peace, and in the Gospels Salome is one of the faithful women at the crucifixion; a different Salome danced for Herod, a scene Oscar Wilde and Strauss made infamous. In Georgia it remains a beloved national name.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "A top-10 girls' name in the country of Georgia; rare in English." }, { "slug": "shanti", "name": "Shanti", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "peace, tranquility", "pronunciation": "SHAHN-tee", "description": "Shanti is the Sanskrit word for inner peace, chanted three times at the close of Hindu prayers and Vedic hymns, a tradition T. S. Eliot borrowed to end The Waste Land. As a girls' name it carries the calm of the mantra into daily life.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "Widely used in India and Nepal; familiar worldwide through yoga culture." }, { "slug": "paz", "name": "Paz", "gender": "f", "origin": "Spanish", "meaning": "peace", "pronunciation": "PAHS", "description": "Paz is the Spanish word for peace, given for the Marian title Nuestra Señora de la Paz, Our Lady of Peace, patroness of El Salvador. Spanish actress Paz Vega carries the name internationally, and in Hebrew the same syllable happens to mean fine gold.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "A traditional name in Spain and Latin America; rare in English." }, { "slug": "mira", "name": "Mira", "gender": "f", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "peace", "pronunciation": "MEER-ah", "description": "Mira is the Slavic word for peace, a standalone name and the root of countless compounds like Miroslava. The same four letters mean ocean in Sanskrit and wonderful in Latin, and astronomers know Mira as a famous pulsing red star in the constellation Cetus.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "Used across the Slavic world and India; entered the US top 1000 in 2013." }, { "slug": "winifred", "name": "Winifred", "gender": "f", "origin": "Welsh", "meaning": "blessed peacemaking", "pronunciation": "WIN-ih-fred", "description": "Winifred is the English form of the Welsh Gwenfrewi, usually parsed as gwen, blessed and fair, with a second element linked to reconciliation and peace. Saint Winifred's holy well in north Wales has drawn pilgrims for thirteen centuries, and the nickname Winnie keeps the name warm.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "A top-100 name in 1910s America; now a rising vintage favorite." }, { "slug": "yasuko", "name": "Yasuko", "gender": "f", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "peaceful child", "pronunciation": "YAH-soo-koh", "description": "Yasuko is a Japanese girls' name typically written with characters meaning peace or tranquility joined to ko, child. It flourished in the twentieth century, when the era name Shōwa itself promised enlightened peace, and now reads as gracefully retro in Japan.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "Common among Japanese women born midcentury; rare for babies today." }, { "slug": "salem", "name": "Salem", "gender": "u", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "peace, complete", "pronunciation": "SAY-lem", "description": "Salem comes from the Semitic root for peace and wholeness, the shalem in Jerusalem's own name, and appears in Genesis as the city of the priest-king Melchizedek. Massachusetts history gives the name a witchy shadow that modern parents seem to enjoy.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "In the US top 1000 for girls since 2019 and increasingly given to boys." }, { "slug": "amani", "name": "Amani", "gender": "u", "origin": "Swahili", "meaning": "peace", "pronunciation": "ah-MAH-nee", "description": "Amani is the Swahili word for peace, borrowed long ago from Arabic, where the related aman means safety and shelter. East African parents give it to both sons and daughters, and its melodic three syllables have carried it comfortably into American use.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "Common in Kenya and Tanzania; in the US top 1000 for girls since the 1990s." }, { "slug": "aman", "name": "Aman", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "peace, safety", "pronunciation": "ah-MAHN", "description": "Aman means safety, shelter, and peace in Arabic, and the same word passed into Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu, making it a name shared easily across South Asian communities of every faith. Its two open syllables keep it simple in any language.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "Very common in India and Pakistan; a familiar name in diaspora communities." }, { "slug": "miroslav", "name": "Miroslav", "gender": "m", "origin": "Slavic", "meaning": "peace and glory", "pronunciation": "MEER-oh-slahv", "description": "Miroslav joins the Slavic mir, peace and the world, with slava, glory, a name borne by a tenth-century king of Croatia and by footballer Miroslav Klose, the World Cup's all-time leading scorer. The friendly short form Miro travels especially well.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "A classic across the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, and Croatia." }, { "slug": "axel", "name": "Axel", "gender": "m", "origin": "Scandinavian", "meaning": "father of peace", "pronunciation": "AK-sel", "description": "Axel is the medieval Danish form of the Hebrew Absalom, my father is peace, the name of King David's rebellious son. Scandinavia made it thoroughly its own, Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose gave it rock-and-roll edge, and the figure-skating axel jump honors skater Axel Paulsen.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "A top-100 boys' name in the US in the 2020s and a staple across Scandinavia." }, { "slug": "noah", "name": "Noah", "gender": "m", "origin": "Hebrew", "meaning": "rest, comfort", "pronunciation": "NOH-ah", "description": "Noah comes from a Hebrew root meaning rest, and Genesis links it to comfort when his father names him; the flood story then makes him the man who shepherds life itself to safety. Its gentle sound carried it to number one in America and much of Europe.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "The number-one US boys' name for several years in the 2010s; still top five." }, { "slug": "wilfred", "name": "Wilfred", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old English", "meaning": "desiring peace", "pronunciation": "WIL-fred", "description": "Wilfred unites the Old English will, desire, with frith, peace: one who wills peace. Its most haunting bearer is Wilfred Owen, the soldier-poet killed a week before the Armistice of 1918, whose name now reads like the meaning it carries.", "themes": [ "peace" ], "popularity": "A top-50 name in early twentieth-century Britain; rare but warmly vintage now." }, { "slug": "nike", "name": "Nike", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "victory", "pronunciation": "NEE-keh", "description": "Nike is the Greek word for victory and the winged goddess who crowned triumphant athletes and generals, immortalized in the Louvre's Winged Victory of Samothrace. The sportswear giant borrowed her name in 1971, which is why few parents dare to use it, though in Greece Niki remains common.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "Common in Greece as Niki; the brand keeps the original form rare elsewhere." }, { "slug": "victoria", "name": "Victoria", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "victory", "pronunciation": "vik-TOR-ee-ah", "description": "Victoria is the Latin word for victory and the Roman goddess who personified it, but the name belongs above all to the queen who gave the nineteenth century its name. Lakes, states, waterfalls, and a secret all carry it; the nickname Tori keeps it casual.", "themes": [ "victory", "royal" ], "popularity": "A US top-100 girls' name continuously since the 1980s." }, { "slug": "sigrid", "name": "Sigrid", "gender": "f", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "victory and beauty", "pronunciation": "SIG-rid", "description": "Sigrid joins the Old Norse sigr, victory, with fríðr, beautiful and beloved, and saga tradition remembers Sigrid the Haughty, who burned her unwanted suitors in a hall. Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset and the Norwegian pop singer Sigrid keep the name luminously current.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "A classic in Norway and Sweden; a distinctive Scandinavian import elsewhere." }, { "slug": "jaya", "name": "Jaya", "gender": "f", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "victory", "pronunciation": "JUH-yah", "description": "Jaya is the Sanskrit word for victory, shouted in the cheer Jai Ho and woven through Hindu tradition as a name of the goddess Durga; the Mahabharata itself was originally titled simply Jaya. Veteran actress Jaya Bachchan is its most familiar modern bearer.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "Widely used in India; occasional but growing in the US." }, { "slug": "nicole", "name": "Nicole", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "victory of the people", "pronunciation": "nih-KOHL", "description": "Nicole is the French feminine of Nicholas, from the Greek nike, victory, and laos, people. It conquered America in the 1970s and 1980s, when it sat in the top ten for years, and actress Nicole Kidman has kept it globally visible ever since.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "A US top-10 girls' name in the early 1980s; now a familiar modern classic." }, { "slug": "berenice", "name": "Berenice", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "bringing victory", "pronunciation": "behr-eh-NEES", "description": "Berenice is the Macedonian Greek Pherenike, bringer of victory, a dynastic name of Ptolemaic queens; one queen's sacrificed hair became the constellation Coma Berenices. Through its Latin form it also gave the world the name Veronica.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "Most common today in Mexico and France; rare in English-speaking countries." }, { "slug": "eunice", "name": "Eunice", "gender": "f", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "good victory", "pronunciation": "YOO-nis", "description": "Eunice combines the Greek eu, good, with nike, victory, and appears in the New Testament as the mother who taught Timothy the faith. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics, gave the name a modern victory all its own.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "A US top-200 name in the 1920s; now most common in Africa and the Philippines." }, { "slug": "laura", "name": "Laura", "gender": "f", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "laurel", "pronunciation": "LOR-ah", "description": "Laura comes from the Latin laurus, the laurel whose leaves crowned victorious generals and poets, which is why we still speak of resting on one's laurels. Petrarch's sonnets to his muse Laura carried the name across Renaissance Europe, and it has never left.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "A top-20 US name in the 1960s; still a standard across Europe and Latin America." }, { "slug": "victor", "name": "Victor", "gender": "m", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "victor, conqueror", "pronunciation": "VIK-ter", "description": "Victor is the Latin word for winner, a favorite of early Christians celebrating victory over death and the name of several popes. Victor Hugo gave it literary immortality, and it remains a quiet classic in English, Spanish, French, and Scandinavian use alike.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "In the US top 200 for over a century without interruption." }, { "slug": "vincent", "name": "Vincent", "gender": "m", "origin": "Latin", "meaning": "conquering", "pronunciation": "VIN-sent", "description": "Vincent comes from the Latin vincere, to conquer, the verb in Caesar's veni, vidi, vici. Saint Vincent de Paul attached it to charity, Vincent van Gogh to art, and the nickname Vince keeps the conquering casual.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "A steady US top-150 name for decades; top 30 in France and the Netherlands." }, { "slug": "sigurd", "name": "Sigurd", "gender": "m", "origin": "Old Norse", "meaning": "victory guardian", "pronunciation": "SIG-erd", "description": "Sigurd joins the Old Norse sigr, victory, with a second element meaning guardian, and names the greatest hero of Norse legend, the dragon-slayer Sigurd whom German tradition calls Siegfried. Norwegian kings carried the name on crusade as far as Jerusalem.", "themes": [ "victory", "strength" ], "popularity": "Traditional in Norway and Iceland; a saga-lover's rarity elsewhere." }, { "slug": "vijay", "name": "Vijay", "gender": "m", "origin": "Sanskrit", "meaning": "victory", "pronunciation": "vih-JAY", "description": "Vijay is the Sanskrit vijaya, complete victory, the name Arjuna uses in disguise in the Mahabharata and the cry behind the festival of Vijayadashami, when good defeats evil. Amitabh Bachchan played heroes named Vijay so often that the name became Bollywood shorthand for the angry young man.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "One of the most familiar male names in India across generations." }, { "slug": "mansur", "name": "Mansur", "gender": "m", "origin": "Arabic", "meaning": "victorious, divinely aided", "pronunciation": "man-SOOR", "description": "Mansur means rendered victorious in Arabic, victory granted by God's aid rather than seized. Al-Mansur, the eighth-century Abbasid caliph who founded Baghdad, made it a ruler's name from Spain to Central Asia, where forms like Mansour and Mansoor still thrive.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "Common across the Muslim world in several spellings." }, { "slug": "nicholas", "name": "Nicholas", "gender": "m", "origin": "Greek", "meaning": "victory of the people", "pronunciation": "NIK-oh-las", "description": "Nicholas joins the Greek nike, victory, with laos, the people, and owes its reach to the gift-giving fourth-century bishop of Myra who evolved into Santa Claus. Five popes, two Russian emperors, and centuries of English Nicks and Colins descend from the same victorious root.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "A US top-10 boys' name in the 1990s and 2000s; a permanent classic." }, { "slug": "masaru", "name": "Masaru", "gender": "m", "origin": "Japanese", "meaning": "victory", "pronunciation": "mah-SAH-roo", "description": "Masaru is a Japanese boys' name most often written with the character for victory or excel, a hopeful single-word wish for a son. Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka, who built the company from a bombed-out Tokyo department store, lived up to it.", "themes": [ "victory" ], "popularity": "Common among twentieth-century generations in Japan; less so for babies today." } ] }