Hope is a one-syllable English virtue name meaning the expectation of a good outcome, and it has appeared in every year of the US federal birth records since 1880. It asks nothing of anyone: no spelling explanation, no nickname required, no decade stamped across it.
Puritan families put it to work as a moral marker alongside Faith and Charity, and four centuries later it still sits in that useful middle ground between vintage and plain modern. It fits a bright-eyed toddler and a woman running a hospital equally well, which is harder to pull off than it sounds.
Verdict: Hope is a strong choice for a baby born in 2026. You get the simplicity parents are reaching for in Rose and Grace, plus a meaning a child can explain herself by kindergarten, and the Social Security Administration data shows the name holding steady while its closest stylistic neighbors slide down the list.
Hope Overview
- Meaning: Expectation of a good outcome, confident trust
- Gender: Female
- Origin: English
- Pronunciation: hohp
- Popularity: 352nd for US girls in 2025; half of everyone ever recorded with the name was born after 1994
- Nicknames: Hopey, Hops, Po, Happy, Gem
- Variations: Esperanza, Espoir, Nadezhda, Nozomi
- Namesakes: Hope Solo, Hope Davis, Hope Sandoval, Hope Emerson
What Does Hope Mean?
Hope means the expectation of a good outcome, a desire held with the belief that it can actually happen (1). Calling it a wish undersells it. A wish is idle, while hope carries the sense of leaning toward something you expect to arrive.
That distinction is why the word became a name at all. In Christian tradition Hope is one of the three theological virtues, listed with Faith and Charity, and it is the forward-looking one: Faith is belief without seeing, Charity is action, and Hope is the steady expectation that the future will be worth reaching.
For a parent, the practical version of the meaning is simpler. Hope is one of the few common girls’ names that states an emotional position outright, and it does it in four letters.
Where Does the Name Hope Come From?
Hope comes from the Old English noun hopa, meaning confidence in the future, and its matching verb hopian (2). Cognates in Middle Dutch hope and Middle Low German hopen trace the word back to shared Germanic roots.
The word became a personal name with the Puritans, who treated a name as a standing moral instruction to the child wearing it. Hope, Faith and Charity were the mild end of that practice. The same families also produced phrase names built on the word, including Hope-for, Hopeful and Hope-still, which shows how literally they meant it.
Most of that vocabulary is gone. Temperance and Prudence read as costume drama now, while Hope survived because the word never left everyday English, so the name never had to be explained. Analysis of US birth records shows the wider virtue-name group returning in recent decades rather than fading with the Puritans who started it.
How Popular Is the Name Hope?
Hope ranked 352nd among US girls in 2025, with 868 babies given the name that year (3). That works out to roughly one girl in every 1,852 born, which is the practical definition of familiar but not crowded.
The curve has one real mountain in it. Hope reached its best rank of 143rd in 1999 and its highest birth count the following year, when 2,321 girls were named Hope in 2000, per Social Security Administration records. Everything after that is a long, gentle slope down rather than a collapse: the count has eased about 11 percent over the recent measured window, which the data classes as steady rather than falling.
The deeper number is the length of the record. Hope has been listed in all 146 years of the federal data, going back to 1880, for a total of 97,225 girls. Half of everyone ever recorded with the name was born after 1994.
For a parent choosing today, that combination is the whole appeal. A name at 352nd is recognized on sight by every teacher and every grandparent, but a girl named Hope is unlikely to share it with anyone in her grade.
How Do I Pronounce Hope?
Hope is pronounced HOHP, one syllable, rhyming with soap and rope. The silent e does nothing but stretch the o.
It is a crisp one syllable name, which matters more than it sounds: nobody will mishear it over a phone, misspell it on a form, or shorten it against your wishes. That is a short list of names, and Hope is on it.
Is Hope a Boy or Girl Name?
Hope is a girls’ name in practice, though the boys’ records are not empty. In 2025, 868 girls and 5 boys were named Hope, which placed it 12,722nd on the boys’ list, per Social Security Administration data.
Across the full record, 568 boys have been given the name, about 0.58 percent of everyone who carries it. That is enough to say the name is not exclusively female and nowhere near enough to call it unisex. Parents who like the meaning for a son usually place it second, where a virtue word does its work without the playground argument.
What Are the International Variations of Hope?
Esperanza, Espoir, Nadezhda and Nozomi are the standard equivalents, the same meaning carried into other languages. Hope translates into a name almost everywhere, because the idea is universal and parents across the globe name their daughters after the idea of a bright future.
- Esperanza: The Spanish form, and the longest and most lyrical of the set.
- Espoir: The French word for hope, used sparingly as a name.
- Nadezhda: The Russian form, usually shortened to Nadia.
- Tikvah: Hebrew for hope.
- Amal: An Arabic name meaning hope or aspiration.
- Nozomi: The Japanese form.
- Speranza: The Italian form.
- Von: A Tiv name from Nigeria meaning hope.
What Are the Best Nicknames for Hope?
Hopey, Hops, Po, Happy and Gem are the nicknames that actually get used, which is a surprising number for a name with one syllable and no obvious place to cut it.
- Hopey: The intuitive one, and the only nickname most families ever need.
- Hops: Bouncy and a little sporty.
- Po: Rare, taken from the middle of the name rather than the front.
- Happy: A sound-alike that matches the meaning.
- Gem: A nod to the Hope Diamond, which took its name from the British banker and gem collector Henry Philip Hope, whose 1839 collection catalogue is the first record of the blue stone in his hands (4).
What Names Are Similar to Hope?
Faith, Grace, Joy, June and Pearl are the names parents usually weigh beside Hope, chosen for its shortness, its virtue meaning, or its unforced optimism.
- Faith: The direct sister virtue, and the closest match in both sound length and origin story.
- Faye: Shares the soft, breathy single syllable with a fairy-tale meaning instead of a moral one.
- Grace: The other one-syllable virtue name, softer in sound.
- Holly: Shares the opening H and the cheerful, uncomplicated feel.
- Joy: Three letters, the same plainspoken directness as Hope.
- Iris: Names a rainbow, which is the same idea told through weather.
- River: A nature name with the same forward motion.
- June: Vintage, one syllable, sunny without trying.
- Pearl: Soft, old-fashioned in the good way, and equally hard to mispronounce.
Names That Moved With Hope
These are the girls’ names whose popularity curve rose and fell alongside Hope’s in the federal birth data. This is our own reading of the public Social Security Administration records, comparing Hope against the other girls’ names of the last 45 years, not a government recommendation. The three closest are plotted below; the rest are listed underneath.
- Mackenzie: Peaked in 2001 at 40th, its best rank, and has fallen since, sitting 228th in 2025.
- Madison: Hit 2nd in 2001, the highest peak in this group, and is still 40th in 2025 despite falling for two decades.
- Savannah: Reached its best rank of 30th in 2006 and now sits 135th, falling.
- Madeline: Best rank 50th in 1998, 81st in 2025, on the same downward path.
- Sydney: Best rank 23rd in 1999, 348th in 2025, which lands it almost exactly where Hope sits today.
- Bailey: Best rank 60th in 1998, 209th in 2025, falling.
What the group has in common is timing: most of them crested around the turn of the millennium, Savannah a few years later, the same stretch that produced Hope’s own best rank in 1999. The difference is what happened next. All six are classed as falling, while Hope is classed as steady, so a parent picking Hope today is picking the one member of that cohort that did not date itself.
What Are Good Middle Names for Hope?
Hope Charlotte, Hope Elizabeth and Hope Willow show the pattern. Because Hope is a single syllable, it pairs best with longer, multi-syllable middle names that give the full name somewhere to go.
Classic & Elegant Pairings
These lean into the traditional, slightly formal side of the name.
Nature & Boho Pairings
Softening the virtue meaning with something from the outdoors.
Modern & Punchy Pairings
Giving the Puritan first name a contemporary second half.
What Are Good Sibling Names for Hope?
Caleb, Miles and Ruby are the kind of names that fit well. A sib-set around Hope wants names that are established and easy to say out loud, since Hope sets a plain, unfussy standard the others have to match.
For a Brother
- Caleb: Biblical, soft in sound, still clearly a boys’ name.
- Miles: Gentle and classic, with the same lack of fuss.
- Grant: One syllable, and its meaning of giving sits close to Hope’s.
- Jude: Short, stylish, and historically weighty.
- Luke: A New Testament name that pairs with Hope’s Christian virtue association, not its origin.
For a Sister
- Ruby: Vintage and spunky, adding color to the pair.
- Claire: Another sophisticated one-syllable classic.
- Daisy: Lighter and more playful than Hope, which balances the set.
- Alice: Traditional, literary, sweet.
- Vera: Means faith or truth, so the two names read as a matched pair.
Who Are Famous People Named Hope?
Hope Solo, Hope Davis and Hope Sandoval are the best known, spanning sport, film and music. Women named Hope have turned up across those fields and in politics too, giving the name a broader set of references than most virtue names get.
- Hope Solo: The American goalkeeper who won the FIFA Women’s World Cup Golden Glove in 2011 and 2015 and was named the world’s best women’s goalkeeper four years running from 2012 to 2015.
- Hope Davis: An acclaimed American actress known for her work in film and on Broadway, including American Splendor.
- Hope Sandoval: Born in East Los Angeles in 1966, the lead singer of Mazzy Star, whose single Fade Into You came from the 1993 album So Tonight That I Might See.
- Hope Hicks: An American public relations executive and political advisor.
- Hope Cooke: An American socialite who became the Queen Consort of the 12th Chogyal of Sikkim.
- Hope Emerson: A character actress from the Golden Age of Hollywood, known for her height and commanding presence.
Where Does Hope Appear in Pop Culture?
Hope Mikaelson, Hope van Dyne and Hope Logan are the best known fictional Hopes, spanning TV and film. Writers reach for the name whenever a character is meant to represent a light in the dark, which is either a gift or a heavy hint, depending on the script.
- Hope Mikaelson: The tribrid protagonist of the TV series Legacies and a key character in The Originals.
- Hope van Dyne: The Wasp, one of the central heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Ant-Man films.
- Hope Logan: A central, long-running character on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.
- Hope Pym: A version of the Marvel character who appears in alternate comic timelines.
- Hope Hapschatt: A character in the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
