100 Dark Baby Names From Myth, Scripture and Horror

Evil and demon baby names carry a story the moment you say them, and that is the appeal. The 100 names below come from scripture, mythology, folklore and horror fiction, and every entry lists its origin, meaning, pronunciation and style up front so you can compare them quickly.

Some are as heavy as they sound. Others hide in plain sight: Lilith, Damien, Seth, Selene and Elizabeth all sit inside the current US popularity charts, and nobody blinks.

You will find 50 for boys and 50 for girls, with the real history behind each one and an honest note on how it wears day to day.

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Popularity at a Glance

The most popular names on this list in the United States, 1965 to 2025: Elizabeth, Peter, Lilith, Samara and Damien.

50 Evil Boy Names

Boys get the bigger share of the demonic tradition, so this half of the list runs deep: fallen angels, underworld gods, grimoire princes and a couple of genuine vampires. Here are 50, each with its origin, meaning and pronunciation.

1. Abaddon

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Ruin, destruction
• Pronunciation: uh-BAD-un

Abaddon is a Hebrew name meaning ruin, destruction, and it began as a word for a place rather than a person.

By the time it reaches the Christian New Testament it has a face: Abaddon is the angel of the abyss, ruling an army of locusts the size of horses, winged, with lions’ teeth, human faces, and scorpion stingers for tails. Say it out loud and the menace softens. Three syllables, a low hum at the end, closer to Aaron than to anything infernal. Parents who want the story without the stare tend to use it as a middle name.

2. Abchanchu

• Origin: Bolivian folklore
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: ahb-CHAHN-choo

No reliable source gives a meaning for Abchanchu, which is honest to say and better than a guess.

In Bolivian legend he is a shape-shifting vampire who travels as a frail old man. Someone stops to help him, and that kindness is the trap. The name is nowhere near American usage, so a boy carrying it would be the only one in the room, which is either the appeal or the problem.

3. Acheron

• Origin: Greek, Latinized
• Meaning: Traditionally read as river of sorrow
• Pronunciation: AK-uh-ron

The Acheron was one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld, the crossing the newly dead had to make, and Roman writers described the Styx as rising from it.

As a name it works better than most underworld borrowings because the sound is clean and the stress falls on the front. Ash and Ace both come off it without effort. It also sits close to Acheron the antihero of modern fantasy fiction, so the association is not purely funereal.

4. Adbeel

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Grieved by God
• Pronunciation: ad-BEEL

Adbeel is a Hebrew name usually read as grieved by God, built on the verb adab, which appears just once in scripture, describing Eli’s soul grieving over the loss of his family.

He was one of the twelve sons of Ishmael, so this is a genuinely biblical name rather than a demonological one. The sorrow is in the meaning, not in the story. It reads as a serious, weighty choice, and Abe is waiting as the everyday short form.

5. Ahriman

• Origin: Persian, from Avestan
• Meaning: Evil spirit
• Pronunciation: AH-ri-mun
• Variations: Angra Mainyu, Ahreman

Ahriman is the modern Persian form of the Avestan Angra Mainyu, which means evil spirit.

In early Iranian religion he is the lord of darkness and chaos, the source of human strife, confusion and disappointment. He stands in permanent opposition to the creator Ahura Mazda, and that opposition is the whole point. Ahriman is not a trickster or a tempter. He is one half of a moral universe, which is a heavier idea than most names on this list carry. Persian and Iranian families will place the reference at once, and everyone else will hear a name and nothing more.

6. Amon

• Origin: Greek, from Egyptian
• Meaning: The hidden one
• Pronunciation: AY-mun
• Variations: Amun, Aamon

Amon comes from the Greek Ammon, itself from the Egyptian god Amun, and is usually read as the hidden one.

The demonic career came later. The Lesser Key of Solomon, an anonymous 17th-century grimoire, lists 72 demons, and Amon appears as a Marquis of Hell commanding forty legions. For a parent, this is one of the softest landings on the list: it passes for a spelling of Aaron or Ammon in daily use, and only someone who knows the grimoire will hear anything else.

7. Andras

• Origin: Welsh, from Greek
• Meaning: Manly
• Pronunciation: AN-drus
• Variations: Andreas, András (Hungarian)

Andras is the Welsh form of Andreas, the Greek name meaning manly, so its everyday meaning is entirely ordinary.

Demonology gave it a second life. The Dictionary of Demons records Andras as the Author of Discord, an angel’s body under a raven’s head, riding a black wolf. Hungarian speakers use Andras as a standard given name to this day, which makes it the rare pick here that a grandparent would recognize and approve of.

8. Anubis

• Origin: Egyptian, Latinized
• Meaning: Possibly royal child or prince; also linked to a root meaning to decay
• Pronunciation: uh-NOO-bis

Anubis is the Latinized form of the Greek Anoubis, from Egyptian jnpw, an Egyptian name read as royal child or prince, though some scholars link it instead to a root meaning to decay.

He is the jackal-headed god who led the dead to the underworld and held the scales at the weighing of the heart, deciding who passed. That is a judge, not a villain, which is worth knowing before ruling the name out. The Greeks matched him with Hermes. As a first name it is bold and unmissable; as a middle name it is a quiet nod to a lifelong Egypt obsession.

9. Anwir

• Origin: Welsh
• Meaning: Liar
• Pronunciation: AN-weer

Anwir is a Welsh name that means liar. That is about as direct a dark meaning as a name can carry.

Gamers know it from the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons and Dragons, where Anwir Dupretiskava is an ancient blue dragon and a head of state. Outside Wales and that fandom, almost nobody will place it. The meaning stays private, which is the point of picking it. It also sits well beside a plainer Welsh middle name like Rhys, Owain or Gwilym if you want the whole thing to lean one way.

10. Arioch

• Origin: Hebrew, biblical
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: AIR-ee-ok

The meaning of Arioch is not established, and the sources that claim one disagree with each other.

In demonology he is a fallen angel driven by revenge, and the warning attached to him is that anyone who listens to him spends a lifetime lashing out at people they believe wronged them. Michael Moorcock later borrowed the name for a chaos lord in the Elric novels, which is where most readers meet it now and where a boy carrying it would eventually find himself.

11. Armaros

• Origin: Greek, from Hebrew
• Meaning: Traditionally read as palatial
• Pronunciation: ar-MAR-os

Armaros is generally treated as a Greek form of the Hebrew Armoni, read as palatial.

He belongs to the Watchers, the angels sent to observe humanity who defected instead, took mortal wives and handed over knowledge they were not meant to share. Armaros taught the undoing of enchantments. The Book of Enoch is the source for all of it, and that apocryphal setting is what keeps names like this off the usual lists.

12. Azazel

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Scapegoat
• Pronunciation: uh-ZAY-zul

Azazel means scapegoat in Hebrew, and in the Old Testament it names the recipient of a goat sent into the wilderness bearing the year’s sin.

Whether Azazel was the desolate place, the goat’s destination, or a desert demon is still argued; onomastic references list all three readings. Islamic tradition takes a different route, describing an angel given physical desire and sent to earth to prove how hard restraint is for humans. Zel and Azzy are the practical short forms, and both are a lot lighter than the full name.

13. Balam

• Origin: Semitic
• Meaning: Possessor, from the root bal
• Pronunciation: BAH-lahm

Balam traces to the Semitic root bal, meaning possessor.

In the grimoire tradition he is a prince of hell with three heads, one bull, one man, one ram. He can see past, present and future at once. He is also credited with stirring rebellion. That is an unusual mix, a seer and an agitator in the same figure. Almost nobody outside demonology has heard of him, so the name arrives with no reputation attached to it at all.

14. Belial

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Worthless
• Pronunciation: BEE-lee-ul

Belial means worthless in Hebrew and started out as an adjective, not a name. Scripture calls people sons of belial the way we might say good for nothing.

Only later did the word harden into a title for the devil himself. In one Christian legend, when Michael showed hell to the followers of Jesus, Belial appeared with 666 fallen angels behind him. The three-syllable flow is closer to Elijah than to anything sinister, so it is one of the few picks here that could pass unremarked at a preschool gate.

15. Birsha

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Son of wickedness
• Pronunciation: BEER-shuh

Birsha is a Hebrew name read as son of wickedness.

In Genesis he is the king of Gomorrah, the city destroyed alongside Sodom, and he gets a single mention and no dialogue. That leaves the name carrying a reputation it never really earned on the page, which is a fair trade if you want the biblical connection without a villain attached to it.

16. Bǫlverkr

• Origin: Old Norse
• Meaning: Evil-doer, malefactor
• Pronunciation: BUL-verk-ur
• Variations: Bolverk, Bolverkr

Bǫlverkr is an Old Norse name meaning evil-doer or malefactor.

It was an alias, not an identity: Odin used it while working a summer for the giant Baugi, doing the labor of nine men to get near the mead of poetry. So the name marks a disguise for a theft, which is a very Odin thing to be. The hooked o will not survive an American birth certificate, so most families write it Bolverk and keep the sound.

17. Boruta

• Origin: Slavic, Polish
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: bo-ROO-tah

No settled meaning exists for Boruta.

In Polish folklore he is a forest spirit, a protector of the trees and animals in his patch. Christianity arrived and recast him as a devil. Even the frightening version is oddly gentle: the Boruta was said to kill people lost in the woods by tickling them to death. He was never quite as bad as advertised. In Poland he is still a local character rather than a distant myth, so a Polish grandparent will know exactly which story you picked.

18. Buer

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Temporary dwelling
• Pronunciation: BOO-er

Buer is a Germanic name meaning temporary dwelling.

In 16th-century demonology he is a Great President of Hell with 50 legions under him, appearing when the sun is in Sagittarius, though his specialties are unusually benign for the company he keeps: he heals every ailment, teaches philosophy and the properties of herbs, and hands out familiars to magicians. Of everyone in this half of the list, he is the one you would actually want to meet.

19. Cerberus

• Origin: Greek, Latinized
• Meaning: Possibly spotted
• Pronunciation: SUR-ber-us
• Variations: Kerberos

Cerberus is the Latin form of the Greek Kerberos, and onomastic references say it possibly meant spotted, which is a mild name for a large problem.

He is the multi-headed hound at the gates of the underworld, there to keep the dead from leaving rather than to keep the living out. Heracles hauled him into daylight as the last of his twelve labors and then put him back. Families who love the myth but not the roll call usually land on Kerberos or shorten it to Cer.

20. Charon

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Possibly fierce brightness
• Pronunciation: KAIR-on

Charon possibly means fierce brightness in Greek, which is not what most people expect from the ferryman of the dead.

He rows souls across the river to the underworld, and the Greeks buried their dead with a coin in the mouth so the fare could be paid. Anyone who arrived without one waited on the bank. Pluto’s largest moon carries the name today, so the reference reads as astronomy as easily as mythology.

21. Dagon

• Origin: Semitic
• Meaning: Uncertain, possibly fish
• Pronunciation: DAY-gon

The meaning of Dagon is disputed, with fish the most commonly repeated reading.

He was a god of the Philistines and their neighbors, and later writers described him as part man and part fish, essentially a merman with a temple. H.P. Lovecraft borrowed the name for an early story and cemented the modern sea-horror association. The sound is closer to Logan or Dagan than to anything unsettling, which is why it turns up on far more birth certificates than its history would suggest.

22. Dáinn

• Origin: Old Norse
• Meaning: Deceased, the dead one
• Pronunciation: DIE-in
• Variations: Dain

Dáinn is an Old Norse name meaning deceased.

It belongs to a dwarf in the Norse poems and to one of the four stags that browse the branches of the world tree. It is also attached to a cursed sword called Dainsleif, the legacy of Dainn, which cannot be drawn without killing a man before it is sheathed again. Written Dain it looks like a modern surname-name and nobody will ask questions.

23. Damien

• Origin: French, from Greek
• Meaning: To tame, to subdue
• Pronunciation: DAY-mee-un
• Variations: Damian, Damon, Damiano
• Popularity: #352 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (935 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 29% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Damien is the French form of Damian, from the Greek damazo, to tame or subdue.

Anyone raised in the 1970s hears it differently. Damien is the child Antichrist of The Omen, a franchise big enough to earn a 2006 remake, and the name took the reputation with it. Half a century later the association has thinned: Damien ranked 352nd for American boys in 2025 ⁽¹⁾, so it is genuinely common without being everywhere. It also has a saint on the other side of the ledger, Damien of Molokai, which is a useful thing to have in your back pocket at a family dinner.

24. Doyle

• Origin: Irish surname
• Meaning: Dark stranger, dark foreigner
• Pronunciation: DOYL

Doyle comes from an Irish surname and means dark stranger, a description the Irish originally applied to Viking raiders.

Nothing about it is evil on its face, which is the appeal. The shadow is in the etymology, not in the story. It reads vintage rather than trendy, the kind of surname name that sounds familiar without ever being fashionable. Of everything in this half of the list it asks the least of a child. The association most people reach for first is Arthur Conan Doyle, and a detective novelist is a soft landing for a name that means dark foreigner.

25. Eligor

• Origin: Hebrew, variant of Abigor
• Meaning: Traditionally read as unwilling
• Pronunciation: EL-i-gor
• Variations: Abigor, Eligos

Eligor is a variant of Abigor, a Hebrew name usually read as unwilling.

In the grimoires he is a Great Duke of Hell who rides a skeletal horse and sells commanders the secret of winning battles, with the usual price attached. The military angle makes him one of the more legible figures in demonology: he deals in strategy, not chaos. The name shares its opening with Eli and Elias, so the shortcut to something ordinary is already there.

26. Forneus

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: From fornus, oven
• Pronunciation: FOR-nee-us

Forneus comes from the Latin fornus, meaning oven.

He usually appears as a sea monster, though he can take the shape of a man, and what he teaches is language: rhetoric, foreign tongues, and the trick of making enemies think well of you. That makes him the diplomat of the grimoires, which is a strange and rather flattering thing to name a child after.

27. Gadreel

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Wall of God
• Pronunciation: GAD-ree-el
• Variations: Gadriel

Gadreel is a Hebrew name meaning wall of God.

The Book of Enoch names him one of the five leaders of the Watchers, the angel who led Eve astray and taught humans to make weapons and use them. The el ending puts him in company with Gabriel, Uriel and Ariel, so the sound is familiar even when the story is not. Fans of the show Supernatural will recognize it immediately, which cuts both ways.

28. Gresill

• Origin: French
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: GREH-sil
• Variations: Gressil, Gresil

Gresill is a French name with no recorded meaning.

The spelling wobbles between Gresil, Gressil and Gresill depending on the source, so that is worth settling before it goes on a form. It comes from one of the strangest documents in demonology. The French inquisitor Sebastien Michaelis wrote that during an exorcism the demon Berith explained the entire hierarchy of hell to him. Gresill was named among the tempters. That one account is the only reason anybody knows the name, and it is why a search for it turns up demonology and nothing else.

29. Helel

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Bright, shining one
• Pronunciation: HAY-lel

Helel is the Hebrew word for bright or shining, and it is the original behind a far more famous name.

Isaiah calls a fallen king helel ben shachar, shining one, son of the morning, and when Latin translators reached for an equivalent they wrote Lucifer. So Helel is Lucifer before the reputation attached. That gives parents a rare option: the same passage, the same imagery, none of the baggage, and a soft two-syllable name most people will simply hear as a variant of Hillel.

30. Iblis

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: Disputed, possibly to remain in grief
• Pronunciation: IB-lees

The etymology of Iblis is argued over. Some derive it from an Arabic root meaning to remain in grief or to despair, others from the Greek diabolos.

In the Quran, God orders the angels to bow to his new creation, Adam. Iblis refuses, arguing that he was made of fire and Adam only of clay, and the refusal costs him everything. It is a story about pride rather than malice. This is a name with real religious weight in Muslim communities, so it is worth understanding how it will land before using it.

31. Lestat

• Origin: Literary invention, French-styled
• Meaning: None recorded
• Pronunciation: luh-STAHT

Lestat was invented for fiction and carries no dictionary meaning.

Anne Rice gave the name to Lestat de Lioncourt in The Vampire Chronicles, the rock-star vampire whose elders call him the Brat Prince because he behaves like one for roughly two centuries. Tom Cruise played him on screen and an AMC series revived him for a new audience. The French shape and the hard landing on the second syllable make it sound expensive, and it shortens neatly to Les or Stat.

32. Leviathan

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: From liwya, garland or wreath; traditionally read as coiled or twisted
• Pronunciation: luh-VY-uh-thun

Leviathan comes from the Hebrew Liwyathan, built on liwya, garland or wreath, which is where the traditional reading of coiled or twisted in folds comes from.

In scripture he is a vast sea monster; early Christian art turned him into an image of Satan and drew him as the gaping Hellmouth that swallows the damned. He is also counted among the seven princes of hell, assigned to envy. Four syllables is a lot for a birth certificate, but Levi is right there, popular, and does all the daily work.

33. Lucifer

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Bringing light
• Pronunciation: LOO-si-fer

Lucifer means bringing light, from the Latin lux, light, and fero, to bring. In Rome it was simply the name of the morning star, the planet Venus at dawn.

The shift happened in translation. A passage in Isaiah comparing a fallen king to the morning star was read as describing Satan’s fall, the word was capitalized, and a poetic image became a proper name. Dante and Milton finished the job. Today a Netflix series has softened it enough that people hear the character before the devil, but this is still the most loaded name on the list, and the one most likely to prompt a conversation at every new school.

34. Malacoda

• Origin: Italian
• Meaning: Evil tail
• Pronunciation: mal-uh-KOH-duh

Malacoda is Italian for evil tail, and Dante built the name himself.

In the Inferno he commands the Malebranche, the demons guarding the eighth circle, whose job is to keep corrupt officials submerged in boiling pitch. Malacoda lies to Dante and Virgil about the road ahead and signals his troops with a rude trumpet blast, which is the closest the poem comes to slapstick. The name is long, but Mal and Coda both work as everyday shortenings.

35. Morfran

• Origin: Welsh
• Meaning: Sea crow, cormorant
• Pronunciation: MOR-vran

Morfran is a Welsh name meaning sea crow, the ordinary word for a cormorant.

Welsh Arthurian tradition makes him a warrior so hideous that enemies refused to strike him at Camlann, convinced he must be a devil. His nickname was Afagddu, utter darkness. Welsh f sounds like an English v, so that is the one thing worth teaching people early. There is a kinder version of the story too, in which he is simply a knight nobody would fight. Either way he walks off the field, which almost nobody at Camlann does. He is one of the very few figures in this article with a happy ending.

36. Naberius

• Origin: Uncertain, possibly from Cerberus
• Meaning: Possibly spotted
• Pronunciation: nuh-BEER-ee-us
• Variations: Naberus, Cerbere

Naberius may be a worn-down form of Cerberus, which would give it the same possible meaning of spotted.

He appears in 16th-century demonology as a three-headed dog or a black crane, commanding 19 legions, and what he grants is eloquence: he teaches rhetoric and restores lost dignities and honors. A demon whose gift is knowing what to say is an unusually modern idea. The name has the cadence of a Roman senator, which softens the kennel imagery considerably.

37. Náli

• Origin: Old Norse
• Meaning: Uncertain, linked to nár, corpse
• Pronunciation: NAH-lee
• Variations: Nali, Nain

Náli is an Old Norse name whose meaning is uncertain; the na element is usually connected to nár, corpse.

He is one of the dwarves listed in the Vǫluspá, the poem that recounts the making and unmaking of the world. Some readings treat those dwarves as spirits of the dead. Stripped of its accent it becomes Nali. That version sits comfortably beside Kai and Nico on a modern class list. It also works as a quiet match for a sibling called Freya, Odin or Loki, which is the usual reason a family reaches for the Norse shelf in the first place.

38. Narfi

• Origin: Old Norse, Icelandic
• Meaning: Narrow
• Pronunciation: NAR-fee
• Variations: Nari, Narvi

Narfi is an Icelandic name meaning narrow, and it is still in quiet use there.

In Norse legend he is a son of Loki and Sigyn, and his story is the grimmest footnote in the mythology: his brother is turned into a wolf and kills him, and Narfi’s entrails become the binding that holds Loki to the rock. Some scholars connect the na element to nár, corpse, and read him as a spirit of the dead, which is a lot of weight for a name Icelandic families still hand out without a second thought.

39. Orobas

• Origin: Uncertain, possibly Latin
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: OR-uh-bas

No source gives a settled meaning for Orobas.

In demonology he is a prince of hell who appears as a horse before taking human form, and he has the strangest reputation in the whole catalogue: he answers truthfully about the past, present and future, and he protects the person who summons him from other spirits. A demon known for honesty is a rare thing. The 2012 horror film Lovely Molly implies he is the presence pushing the main character, which is the only place most people will have met the name.

40. Peter

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Stone
• Pronunciation: PEE-ter
• Popularity: #187 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (1,954 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, unchanged over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Peter is a Greek name meaning stone, and it is on this list for one very specific reason.

When the Serbian villager Peter Plogojowitz died in 1725, his neighbors said he came back at night. They dug him up, found what looked like fresh hair and nails and colour in his skin, declared him a vampire and staked the body. The report was written up by an Austrian official and became one of the documents that carried the word vampire into western Europe. So this is a genuine vampire name that ranked 187th for American boys in 2025 ⁽²⁾, which no other entry here can say.

41. Radna

• Origin: Uncertain
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: RAHD-nuh

The meaning of Radna is not recorded.

Medieval demonology casts him as a king of demons who works through envy and greed, growing stronger as the person he has hold of grows more corrupt. The mechanism is the interesting part: he does not overpower anyone, he compounds. The name reads as Slavic and would pass without comment in much of eastern Europe.

42. Ravana

• Origin: Sanskrit
• Meaning: Roaring, one who makes others scream
• Pronunciation: RAH-vuh-nuh

Ravana means roaring or one who causes others to scream in Sanskrit.

He is the ten-headed king of Lanka in the Ramayana, the abductor of Sita and the villain whose defeat is celebrated every year at Dussehra. He is also a scholar, a master of the veena and a devotee of Shiva, which is why Sri Lankan tradition remembers him as a great ruler rather than a monster. Few names on this list carry that much argument inside them, and in Hindu families the association is strong enough that it is rarely used.

43. Ruthven

• Origin: Scottish surname
• Meaning: None recorded as a given name
• Pronunciation: RUTH-ven

Ruthven is a Scottish surname pressed into service as a first name.

Lord Ruthven, the predatory aristocrat of John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819), is the first vampire in English literature and the direct ancestor of every suave, well-dressed bloodsucker since, Dracula included. Polidori modelled him on Lord Byron, which was not a compliment. For a name with that much history, it stays remarkably quiet on a class register.

44. Samael

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Venom of God
• Pronunciation: SAM-ay-el
• Variations: Sammael, Samil

Samael means venom of God in Hebrew.

Jewish tradition names him a destructive angel of death, and the Talmud places him at the head of the accusers. Some texts go further and make him the serpent in the garden, the engineer of the fall. He is a prosecutor as much as a villain, which is a more interesting job description than most. Sam does the everyday work, and almost nobody will ask what it is short for.

45. Sedit

• Origin: Wintun, Northern California
• Meaning: Not recorded
• Pronunciation: SEH-dit

Sedit comes from the mythology of the Wintun peoples of Northern California.

In their telling the creator Olelbis intends humans to live without birth or death, and Sedit talks him out of it, arguing that a life without either would be empty. Then he tries to escape the consequence he has just invented, builds himself a pair of wings, falls, and becomes the first being to die. It is a trickster story with a real sting in it, and the name is short, clean and almost unknown outside the region.

46. Seth

• Origin: Hebrew and Egyptian
• Meaning: Appointed, in Hebrew
• Pronunciation: SETH
• Popularity: #581 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (505 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 67% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Seth carries two histories at once. The Hebrew Seth, third son of Adam and Eve, means appointed. The Greek Seth is the Egyptian god Set.

Set ruled storms, the desert and disorder, and the earliest Egyptians did not treat him as evil so much as necessary; he defended the sun boat every night. Later dynasties and then Christian writers recast him as the enemy. The name has been steadily common in America ever since, ranking 581st for boys in 2025 ⁽³⁾, which makes it the easiest way on this list to give a child a dark namesake nobody will flinch at.

47. Teivel

• Origin: Yiddish
• Meaning: Devil
• Pronunciation: TAY-vel
• Variations: Teufel, Taivel

Teivel is the Yiddish word for devil, related to the German Teufel.

It shows up far more often as a surname than as a given name, which is exactly what makes it usable: it looks like family history rather than a statement. If you want a name that means devil without announcing it in English, this is the most discreet option here.

48. Typhon

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Possibly smoke, whirlwind or fever
• Pronunciation: TIE-fon

Typhon possibly comes from the Greek typho, to smoke, or from words for whirlwind and fever.

He is the monstrous giant who challenged Zeus for control of the cosmos and lost, and with Echidna he fathered most of the famous monsters, Cerberus and the Hydra among them. Later occult lists treat him as the Greek face of the devil, and Greek writers equated him with the Egyptian Set. The English word typhoon is often connected to the same root, which gives the name a weather-front energy that suits it.

49. Ubel

• Origin: German
• Meaning: Evil
• Pronunciation: OO-bul
• Variations: Übel

Ubel is a German word meaning evil, and there is no legend attached to it at all.

That is the whole appeal. If you want the meaning without a demon, a myth or a horror franchise riding along with it, a plain adjective does the job. In German it is spelled übel, but the umlaut drops away in American use and what is left looks like a short, modern boy’s name in the neighborhood of Abel and Uriel.

50. Zagan

• Origin: Uncertain
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: ZAY-gan

The origin of Zagan is unclear and no source gives a reliable meaning.

In the grimoires he is a fallen angel serving Lucifer, a king and president of hell who appears as a winged bull and turns water into wine, blood into oil, and fools into wise men. Whatever else that is, it is a good story. The name sits far outside the American top 1,000, so a boy called Zagan is very unlikely to meet another, and Zag is a ready-made nickname.

50 Evil Girl Names

Genuinely wicked girls’ names are rarer, so this half reaches further: night demons, storm spirits, gorgons and gothic novel heroines. Here are 50, with the same origin, meaning and pronunciation notes.

51. Abyzou

• Origin: Near Eastern and Greek folklore
• Meaning: Linked to the same root as abyss
• Pronunciation: ah-BYE-zoo

Abyzou is generally traced to the same root as the word abyss.

In the folklore that spread across the eastern Mediterranean and into Europe she is a demon made cruel by her own infertility, blamed for miscarriages and the deaths of newborns. Amulets naming her were worn to keep her away, which tells you how seriously she was taken. This is the darkest backstory on the list for a name that sounds delicate, and if you want the sound without the weight, Abby is waiting as a short form.

52. Achlys

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Mist, darkness
• Pronunciation: AK-lis

Achlys means mist or darkness in Greek.

She is the death-mist that clouds the eyes of the dying, and in Hesiod’s description of the shield of Heracles she stands among the battlefield spirits, pale, hollow, weeping. Later writers made her a personification of misery itself, older than the gods. The name has a clipped, modern sound that pairs well with a soft middle name, and it is the rare Greek pick nobody else at the playground will have.

53. Agash

• Origin: Ancient Iranian
• Meaning: Evil eye
• Pronunciation: AH-gash

Agash is an ancient Iranian word meaning evil eye.

In Persian mythology she is the demon of that curse, harm delivered purely by looking, and Zoroastrian texts describe her gaze as withering whatever it lands on. The evil eye is still a live idea across much of the world, so this is one of the few names here whose meaning a stranger might actually react to.

54. Akeldama

• Origin: Aramaic
• Meaning: Field of blood
• Pronunciation: uh-KEL-duh-muh

Akeldama is an Aramaic name that means field of blood.

It is a real place outside Jerusalem, the plot bought with the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas Iscariot, used afterwards as a burial ground for strangers. The name is long and its meaning is grim, but the sound is soft and rolling, and Keldi or Adama both work if the full version is too much for daily use.

55. Akuji

• Origin: Uncertain
• Meaning: Widely listed as dead and awake, though no reliable source confirms it
• Pronunciation: ah-KOO-jee

Akuji circulates on name lists as meaning dead and awake, and we could not find a credible source behind that claim, so treat it as folklore about a name rather than an etymology.

What is true is that it sounds good: three light syllables, an easy spelling, and a rhythm that fits comfortably beside Anaya and Amari. If the zombie-adjacent story is the draw, take it as a story. Kuji makes a decent nickname.

56. Alabasandria

• Origin: Coptic Egyptian
• Meaning: Like the goddess Bast
• Pronunciation: al-uh-buh-SAN-dree-uh

Alabasandria is read as like the goddess Bast, the cat-headed protector of Egyptian households.

Coptic legend turns her into a child-killing demon who feeds on the flesh and blood of women and infants, which is a hard swerve from a protective cat goddess. The name is five syllables of pure ornament and lives one letter away from Alexandria, so it can hide in plain sight. Sandy, Alba and Andria are all sitting inside it.

57. Allatou

• Origin: Uncertain, likely Mesopotamian
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: AL-uh-too

No source establishes a meaning for Allatou.

Medieval demonology describes her as a whisperer, the voice at your ear talking you out of your own principles. Anyone who listens, the texts warn, is beyond saving. It is a quieter kind of villain than most of this list offers. Among the ancient Mesopotamian names here she is the one with the least imagery attached to her, which leaves the name almost free of pictures. Parents who want a dark reference nobody can picture will find that useful.

58. Ammit

• Origin: Ancient Egyptian
• Meaning: Devourer of the dead
• Pronunciation: AM-it
• Variations: Ammut, Ahemait

Ammit comes from Ancient Egyptian and means devourer of the dead.

She waits at the weighing of the heart with the head of a crocodile, the mane and forelegs of a lion and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus, the three animals Egyptians feared most, and she eats any heart heavier than the feather of truth. Being eaten by her meant a second death with no afterlife at all. Marvel’s Moon Knight put her on television in 2022, so a name that spent 3,000 years in tomb paintings suddenly has a fanbase.

59. Antaura

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Traditionally read as a light breeze
• Pronunciation: an-TOR-uh

Antaura has Greek roots and is usually read as a light breeze, which sounds harmless until you meet her.

She is the migraine demon of Greek folk medicine, rising out of the sea and riding the wind into a person’s head. Amulets against her survive on ancient hematite gemstones, which makes her one of the few demons here with archaeological receipts. The name is genuinely beautiful, close to Aurora and Tara, and the headache connection is a private joke you can keep to yourself.

60. Aynat

• Origin: Coptic
• Meaning: Evil eye
• Pronunciation: AY-nat

Aynat is a Coptic word for the evil eye.

Ethiopian tradition personifies her as a demon who walks among people spreading illness and ill will, and protective scrolls were written specifically to turn her away. The sound is light and current, in the same family as Anat and Amaya, which makes the meaning easy to carry.

61. Batibat

• Origin: Ilocano, Philippines
• Meaning: Nightmare
• Pronunciation: BAH-tee-baht

In the Ilocano language of the northern Philippines, batibat means nightmare.

The batibat is a heavy tree-dwelling spirit, and the trouble starts when her tree is cut down and milled into a house: she moves in with the timber and sits on the chests of the people sleeping there. It is a sleep-paralysis story, told the way most cultures tell it. The doubled syllables make it bouncy to say, and Bati works as a nickname.

62. Bushyasta

• Origin: Avestan
• Meaning: The long-handed
• Pronunciation: boosh-YAS-tuh

Bushyasta is an Avestan name meaning the long-handed.

She is the Zoroastrian demon of sloth, and her method is gentle: she lulls people back to sleep at dawn so the day’s work never starts. The texts describe her as yellow, drowsy, reaching out long hands to pull sleepers back down. Of all the demons here she is the one most parents will recognize from personal experience.

63. Carman

• Origin: Irish mythology
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: KAR-mun

Not to be confused with Carmen, the name Carman has no established meaning.

Irish myth makes her a witch out of Athens who arrived with three sons, Dub, Dother and Dian, whose names translate as black, evil and violence. They blighted the crops and the mother was held hostage until she died; a fair was held at her burial place for centuries afterwards. It is one of the oldest evil-woman stories in Irish tradition, and the name itself sounds entirely unremarkable, which is part of the fun.

64. Carmilla

• Origin: Literary, from Camilla
• Meaning: No settled meaning; treated as a reshuffling of Mircalla
• Pronunciation: kar-MIL-uh
• Variations: Camilla, Mircalla

Carmilla was built for a novel, and its shape borrows from Camilla.

Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla came out in 1872, a quarter of a century before Dracula, and its predatory, seductive countess set the template Bram Stoker later worked from. Modern adaptations have made her a queer icon as much as a monster. The name is close enough to Camilla and Carmela to pass anywhere, which makes it the most wearable vampire pick on this list.

65. Claudia

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Lame, from the Roman name Claudius
• Pronunciation: KLAW-dee-uh
• Popularity: #1,096 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (219 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 51% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Claudia is Latin, the feminine form of the Roman family name Claudius, from claudus, lame.

It earns a place here through Interview with the Vampire, in which Claudia is turned as a child and spends decades trapped in a little girl’s body while her mind ages into fury. Kirsten Dunst played her in 1994 and the AMC series recast her for a new audience. The name has drifted out of the American top 1,000 since 2018, so it now reads as vintage rather than dated, and nobody outside the fandom will hear anything sinister in it.

66. Cozbi

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Liar, deceiver
• Pronunciation: KOZ-bye

Cozbi is a Hebrew name meaning liar or deceiver.

In the Book of Numbers she is a Midianite princess whose relationship with an Israelite man is presented as leading the people into idolatry, and the story ends violently for both of them. It is a name given by the writers of her enemies, which is worth remembering before reading much into the meaning. The spelling looks modern enough to pass as a contemporary invention.

67. Druj

• Origin: Avestan
• Meaning: Falsehood, deceit
• Pronunciation: DROOJ
• Variations: Drug, Druh

Druj is an Avestan name meaning falsehood or deceit.

In Zoroastrian belief the entire moral universe splits into asha, truth and order, and druj, the lie, so this is not one demon among many but the whole opposing principle. She is the lie itself given a face, which makes her the most abstract entry here and the only one whose name doubles as a philosophical category.

68. Elizabeth

• Origin: Hebrew, via Greek
• Meaning: My God is an oath
• Pronunciation: ih-LIZ-uh-buth
• Variations: Elisabeth, Elspeth, Eliza, Liesl
• Popularity: #17 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (6,760 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 22% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Elizabeth is the English form of the Greek Elisabet, from a Hebrew name meaning my God is an oath.

The dark association is Elizabeth Bathory, the Hungarian countess who died in 1614 and is remembered as a real-life vampire who bathed in the blood of girls. Historians now treat the bloodiest details as later invention and the trial itself as at least partly political, so this is a reputation built on rumour. Meanwhile the name ranked 17th for American girls in 2025. If you want the darkest possible namesake attached to the safest possible name, this is it, and Eliza, Beth, Libby and Elsie are all built in.

69. Empusa

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Traditionally read as one-footed
• Pronunciation: em-POO-suh

Empusa is usually read as one-footed, a reference to her mismatched legs, one bronze and one of a donkey.

She is a shape-shifter in the service of Hecate. She appears as a beautiful woman to lure young men and feeds on them while they sleep. Aristophanes used her as a punchline in The Frogs. That suggests Athenians found her ridiculous as often as frightening, which is not something you can say about many demons. If you want a Greek monster name that arrives with a comedy credit attached, this is the one.

70. Enyo

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: EN-yo

The meaning of Enyo has not been established.

She is the Greek goddess of war in its ugliest form, the sacker of cities, working alongside Ares and closely tied to Eris, who deals in strife. She is not evil exactly, just entirely uninterested in mercy, and the name pairs neatly with a long, soft middle name if you want to balance her out.

71. Euryale

• Origin: Ancient Greek
• Meaning: Far roaming
• Pronunciation: yoo-RYE-uh-lee

Euryale is an ancient Greek name meaning far roaming.

She is one of the three Gorgons, daughters of the primordial sea gods Phorcys and Ceto. Unlike her sister Medusa she was born immortal. What she is known for is sound: the bellowing cry she let out when Medusa was killed, loud enough in some tellings to grind stone into sand. The spelling will need explaining, though Eury and Ellie both come out of it easily. That grief note makes her the most sympathetic monster in the story. Her other sister Stheno appears further down this list, so the matched set is there if you ever need two.

72. Gello

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Uncertain
• Pronunciation: GEL-oh
• Variations: Gyllou, Gillo

The etymology of Gello is unsettled, with several competing derivations and no consensus.

She appears first in a fragment of Sappho as a girl who died young and came back for other people’s children, and she survived in Greek folk belief for two thousand years afterwards, blamed for miscarriage and infant death. Charms against her were still being copied in the Byzantine period, which makes her one of the longest-running fears in European history and an odd thing to find sitting behind such a light name.

73. Gorgo

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: From gorgos, grim or terrible; sometimes linked to a Sanskrit root for a growl
• Pronunciation: GOR-go

Gorgo comes from the Greek gorgos, grim or terrible, and some etymologists connect it further back to a Sanskrit word for a guttural growl.

It is the older, shorter name behind Medusa and her sisters, the snake-haired Gorgons whose gaze turned onlookers to stone. Confusingly, Gorgo was also a real queen of Sparta, the daughter of Cleomenes, remembered by Herodotus for being sharper than the men around her. That gives the name two very different namesakes and a hard, memorable sound.

74. Hala

• Origin: Proto-Slavic
• Meaning: The fury of the elements
• Pronunciation: HAH-lah

Hala has Proto-Slavic roots and is read as the fury of the elements.

In Serbian folklore she is a weather demon who drives hail and wind across the fields and eats the crops, and when her appetite gets away from her she swallows the sun or the moon, which is how eclipses were explained. Dragons were said to fight her off. The name is also independently Arabic, where it refers to the halo around the moon, so it travels well and needs no explanation at all.

75. Hecate

• Origin: Greek, Latinized
• Meaning: Possibly far off, from hekas
• Pronunciation: HEK-uh-tee
• Variations: Hekate

Hecate is the Latinized form of Hekate, possibly from hekas, far off.

She is the goddess of witchcraft, crossroads, tombs and the dead, and she is also the one who searched for Persephone with torches and stayed with her afterwards. Early Greeks honored her at doorways as a protector; Christian writers kept only the witchcraft and made her a villain. Shakespeare puts her in charge of the witches in Macbeth, which is where most people meet her. Modern witchcraft has reclaimed her almost entirely, so the name now reads as strength more than menace.

76. Hel

• Origin: Old Norse
• Meaning: From a root meaning to conceal, to cover
• Pronunciation: HEL
• Variations: Hela

Hel took her name from the underworld she ruled, which was also called Hel, from an Old Norse root meaning to conceal or to cover.

She is the daughter of Loki and the giantess Angrboda, described as half living woman and half corpse, and she receives everyone who dies of sickness or old age rather than in battle. Marvel renamed her Hela and handed her to Cate Blanchett, which is how most of the current generation knows her. Three letters is about as spare as a name gets, and it works well in the middle position for parents who want the reference without the spotlight.

77. Jahi

• Origin: Avestan
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: JAH-hee

Jahi is an Avestan name with no recorded meaning.

Zoroastrian texts describe her as a demon of debauchery, called the courtesan and the hussy by translators who plainly disapproved, and in one account she is the one who rouses Ahriman when he has given up. The name itself is light and pretty and reads as contemporary in English, sitting comfortably near Jaya and Kali. It is also an established Swahili boy’s name meaning dignity, so context does a lot of work here.

78. Keres

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Death, doom
• Pronunciation: KEER-eez

Keres is Greek and refers to violent death.

The Keres were female death spirits who gathered on battlefields, dark-robed, waiting for men to fall so they could feed. They did not cause the deaths, which is an important distinction in the myth: they arrive after. Homer describes them dragging bodies away by the ankles. It is a plural name used as a singular, which gives it an odd, echoing quality that suits the story.

79. Kikimora

• Origin: Udmurt and Slavic
• Meaning: Traditionally read as scarecrow
• Pronunciation: kik-ee-MOR-uh

Kikimora is usually traced to an Udmurt word for scarecrow.

In Russian folklore she is a house spirit who lives behind the stove and spins at night. Her mood depends entirely on how the household is run. A tidy home gets help with the chickens. A messy one gets tangled yarn, broken crockery and children woken by her whistling. She is less a demon than a very demanding inspector, and of everyone in this article she is the only one you could satisfy by doing the dishes.

80. Krasue

• Origin: Thai, with a Sanskrit derivation
• Meaning: Traditionally read as to cause another to suffer
• Pronunciation: krah-SOO-eh

Krasue is Thai, with the meaning usually traced to Sanskrit and given as to cause another to suffer.

By day she is an ordinary woman. At night her head detaches and floats away with her heart, stomach and intestines trailing beneath it, glowing, hunting, and it must be reattached before dawn or she dies. Versions of her appear across mainland Southeast Asia under different names, and Thai horror films return to her constantly. The name is pretty and the image is not, which is the whole appeal of this list in one entry.

81. Lamashtu

• Origin: Akkadian
• Meaning: Traditionally read as she who erases
• Pronunciation: luh-MAHSH-too

Lamashtu is an Akkadian name usually read as she who erases.

She is one of the oldest named demons anywhere, a Mesopotamian figure who kills infants in their sleep, sickens nursing mothers and poisons water. Households hung bronze plaques of the demon Pazuzu to drive her off, which makes her the monster that the monster from The Exorcist was hired to fight.

82. Lilin

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Night spirits
• Pronunciation: LIL-in

Lilin is Hebrew for night spirits, a plural rather than an individual.

In Mesopotamian and later Jewish belief the lilin visit sleepers, bringing bad dreams, sleep paralysis and sometimes death, and they are counted as Lilith’s children. Using the plural as a given name is a modern move, and it works: Lilin sounds like a gentler cousin of Lilian and Lily, which is a lot of camouflage for a name that means night demons.

83. Lilith

• Origin: Akkadian, via Hebrew
• Meaning: Of the night
• Pronunciation: LIL-ith
• Popularity: #277 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (1,111 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 268% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Lilith comes from the Akkadian lilitu, of the night, the word for a class of demon in ancient Assyrian myth.

She does not appear in the Bible. The story everyone knows, that she was Adam’s first wife and was expelled from Eden for refusing to lie beneath him, comes from the medieval Alphabet of Sirach, and it is the reason feminist writers reclaimed her in the 1970s. Among the outright demon names here it is the one American parents actually use: it ranked 277th for American girls in 2025 ⁽⁴⁾, a third straight year inside the top 300. Lily and Lila hide it completely if you ever need them to.

84. Mare

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Disputed; readings include to crush and to press
• Pronunciation: MAIR
• Variations: Mara, Mahr

The etymology of Mare is disputed, with most readings circling the idea of crushing or pressing down.

She is the spirit who sits on a sleeper’s chest, tangles their hair into knots and fills their head with terrible dreams, and her name is still inside the English word nightmare. Nearly every European language has a version of her. That makes Mare the rare pick whose meaning is hiding in a word you use every week, and it doubles as a short form of Mary, Maren or Marie.

85. Mircalla

• Origin: Literary invention
• Meaning: None; it is an anagram of Carmilla
• Pronunciation: meer-KAL-uh

Mircalla was created for fiction and has no meaning.

In Le Fanu’s Carmilla it is the vampire’s true name, Countess Mircalla Karnstein, and the alias she travels under is simply an anagram of it, a habit she keeps across centuries and never gets caught by. As a baby name it is the subtler of the two: almost nobody will place it, and it sounds like a rare European heirloom name rather than a monster.

86. Morana

• Origin: Slavic
• Meaning: From Old Slavic moru, death or plague
• Pronunciation: mo-RAH-nuh
• Variations: Marzanna, Morena, Mara

Morana derives from the Old Slavic moru, meaning death or plague.

She is the goddess of winter and death, and her festival is one of the most cheerful things in this article. At the end of winter, Polish, Czech and Slovak villages still build a straw effigy of her, set it alight, drown it in a river and welcome the spring. So she is death you are allowed to celebrate the end of. Marzanna is the Polish form and Mara the shortest, and both are still recognized across central Europe. A girl called Morana in Prague or Krakow is carrying a spring holiday, not a curse.

87. Naamah

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Pleasant
• Pronunciation: NAH-uh-muh
• Variations: Naama

Naamah is a Hebrew name meaning pleasant.

Genesis gives the name to a descendant of Cain; later Jewish mysticism, particularly the Zohar, turns her into a demon who visits men in their sleep and bears their children. Rabbinic tradition also names Naamah as the wife of Noah, so the same name belongs to one of the saved and one of the damned depending on which text you open. It is a current, well-used name in Israel today, and the sound is genuinely lovely.

88. Nimue

• Origin: Arthurian legend
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: NIM-oo-ay
• Variations: Niniane, Viviane, Nyneve

The meaning of Nimue is not known, and the spelling shifts between manuscripts.

She is the Lady of the Lake, and whether she counts as evil depends entirely on which version you read: in some she gives Arthur his sword and raises Lancelot, and in others she coaxes Merlin’s magic out of him and seals him in a tree or a cave for good. Netflix’s Cursed made her the hero outright. That ambiguity is the appeal, and the name itself is pure water and mist.

89. Nocnitsa

• Origin: Slavic
• Meaning: Of the night, from the Slavic noc
• Pronunciation: nots-NEET-suh
• Variations: Nocnica, Kriksy

Nocnitsa is built on the Slavic word noc, night, so the name means roughly night one. Some lists trace the root to Greek, which is a mix-up: noc is Slavic, cognate with the Latin nox.

She comes for children after dark, sitting on their chests and drawing off their energy while they sleep. The old defense was iron, a knife under the cradle, or a stone with a hole in it. Yet another sleep-paralysis demon, and one of the reasons this article keeps circling back to bedrooms.

90. Onoskelis

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Donkey-legged, she who has the legs of an ass
• Pronunciation: on-oh-SKEL-is

Onoskelis translates literally as she who has the legs of a donkey.

She appears in a late antique text in which King Solomon interrogates a series of demons about their habits, and she tells him she lives in caves, turns men from their own natures and, when the mood takes her, strangles them. Solomon puts her to work spinning hemp for the temple ropes, which is the most Solomon solution imaginable. The full name is heavy, but Skelis and Ono are inside it.

91. Pandora

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: All gifts
• Pronunciation: pan-DOR-uh
• Variations: Pandore, Dora

Pandora means all gifts, from the Greek pan, all, and doron, gift.

She was the first mortal woman, and the gods each contributed something to her before Zeus handed her a sealed jar containing every trouble humankind would come to know and told her not to open it. She did, and only hope stayed inside. Note the word: jar, not box, a mistranslation from the 16th century that has never been corrected in popular use. The name is warm, familiar and only faintly cursed, and Dora and Andy both work as short forms.

92. Persephone

• Origin: Greek, probably pre-Greek
• Meaning: Unknown; one theory reads it as to destroy and murder, another as thresher of corn
• Pronunciation: puhr-SEF-uh-nee
• Variations: Persefone, Proserpina
• Popularity: #734 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (372 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 189% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

93. Puck

• Origin: Old English, possibly Germanic or Celtic
• Meaning: Unknown, from puca
• Pronunciation: PUK

Puck is of unknown meaning, from the Old English puca, and it may be Germanic or Celtic at root. The word once covered any mischievous or malicious spirit.

Shakespeare made him a character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the servant also called Robin Goodfellow who cheerfully ruins everyone’s night and apologizes in the epilogue. What most English speakers do not realize is that Puck is a genuinely used girl’s name in the Netherlands, where Dutch families give it to girls as well as boys. That makes it a real, wearable choice with Dutch heritage behind it rather than a novelty.

94. Rán

• Origin: Old Norse
• Meaning: Robbery, theft
• Pronunciation: RAHN
• Variations: Ran

Rán means robbery or theft in Old Norse, which is a very direct description of what she does.

She is the sea goddess who waits with a net for sailors, drags them under and keeps them in her hall beneath the water, and Viking-age crews are said to have carried gold so they would arrive with something to offer her. Her nine daughters are the waves. Written without the accent it is a short, clean name that no American teacher will stumble over.

95. Rangda

• Origin: Old Javanese
• Meaning: Widow
• Pronunciation: RANG-duh

Rangda means widow in Old Javanese.

In Balinese belief she is the demon queen of the leyak, a host of witches, and her endless fight with the lion-like Barong is performed as dance-drama across the island, complete with a mask so sacred it is kept in the temple and treated as inhabited. The performance never ends with a winner, because the point is balance rather than victory. That makes her one of the few figures here who is still actively worshipped rather than merely retold.

96. Rusalka

• Origin: Slavic, from Latin Rosalia
• Meaning: Traced to the Rosalia, the Roman festival of roses
• Pronunciation: roo-SAHL-kuh

Rusalka is generally traced back to the Latin Rosalia, a Roman festival of roses that the Slavs adopted as a commemoration of the dead.

In folklore she is a water spirit, in older tellings a benign one who left the water in early summer to bless the fields, and in later, gloomier versions a drowned girl who lures young men in and wraps her hair around their legs until they stop struggling. Dvorak’s opera made her a tragic heroine and gave her the Song to the Moon. The name has a folk-tale music to it, and Rusa or Sasha will carry it day to day.

97. Samara

• Origin: Hebrew, Latinized form of Shomron
• Meaning: Watchtower, guardian
• Pronunciation: suh-MAR-uh
• Popularity: #320 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (957 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 87% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Samara is a Latinized form of Shomron, meaning watchtower. It is also the botanical word for a winged seed, the kind that spins down off a maple.

The horror connection is The Ring, where Samara Morgan is the drowned girl who climbs out of the well and the television. The film did not sink the name, it launched it, and the name has held inside the American top 350 for the last three years, ranking 320th in 2025. Almost no one now hears anything but a pretty three-syllable name, which makes it the most successful rehabilitation on this list.

98. Selene

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Moon
• Pronunciation: suh-LEE-nee
• Variations: Selena, Celine, Selina
• Popularity: #621 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (469 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 88% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

99. Stheno

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Strength, force, vigor, from sthenos
• Pronunciation: STHEE-no

Stheno comes from the Greek sthenos, meaning strength or force.

She is the eldest of the three Gorgons, and unlike Medusa she was born immortal, so no hero in the myths ever kills her. Later retellings credit her with killing more men than both her sisters together, though the classical sources do not say so. Artists often gave her red snakes for hair, which is a fun detail if there is red hair in the family. The initial cluster is hard for English speakers, so expect to say it twice. Her sister Euryale is on this list too, and of the two, Stheno is the one that sounds like a name rather than a spell.

100. Usha

• Origin: Sanskrit
• Meaning: Dawn
• Pronunciation: OO-shuh

Usha is a Sanskrit name meaning dawn.

In the Vedas, Ushas is the dawn goddess, daughter of the sky and sister of night, so she is literally the space between the two. The demon connection comes from a different story: the Puranic Usha is the daughter of the asura king Banasura, whose dream of a stranger sets off a war between her father and Krishna. So the name is a princess on the wrong side of a divine conflict rather than a monster. It is warmly used across India today and easy for English speakers to say.

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Names For Your Little Devil

A dark name is easier to live with than it looks, as long as you pick the level you actually want. Amon, Doyle, Selene, Teivel and Mircalla keep their history private; Lucifer, Lilith and Damien announce it every time.

Two practical checks before you commit. Say the name out loud in a full sentence, since Bǫlverkr and Onoskelis will be spelled out loud for a lifetime, and decide whether the story belongs in the first name or is better carried quietly in the middle.