A nature name hands a child something real to carry: a tree, a river, a season, a star. Sophie Kihm, editor in chief of Nameberry, says parents “may appreciate nature names for their connections to serenity or peacefulness, or see them as evoking a wild, untamed quality.” Both instincts are on this list.
Some of these names are far more common than parents expect. According to Social Security Administration records, 17 names from this list sat inside the U.S. top 100 last year, led by Ava at 11th and Aurora at 15th, with Juniper scraping in at exactly 100th. Others stay genuinely rare: per the same federal files, Varsha ranked 14,805th.
Every popularity figure below comes from Social Security Administration records and describes U.S. births only. Read on for 100 names that mean nature, each with its meaning, origin, pronunciation and where it actually stands today.
Popularity at a Glance
The most popular names on this list in the United States, 1965 to 2025: Ava, Aurora, Hazel, Luna and Wyatt.
100 Beautiful Names that Mean Nature for Boys and Girls
Unearth Mother Nature’s finest with these unique nature names ahead.
Adair
Adair began as a Scottish surname drawn from the place name Athdare, built on the Gaelic words for oak and river ford. Gaelic also reads it as wealthy spear and noble, since an early bearer held a title. The picture behind it is worth having: one oak standing over a shallow crossing. Across all births on record Adair is close to an even split between boys and girls, so it genuinely works either way. Ada and Addy come free with it.
- Origin: Scottish
- Meaning: Oak tree ford
- Pronunciation: Aa-DEHR
- Variations: Adaire, Adare, Addair
- Namesakes: Adair Ferguson, Australia’s first female world champion rower, in 1985. Adair Tishler, an American child actress, known for the TV series Charmed and House.
- Popularity: Adair sits at #2,145 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 67 births, and #5,412 for girls; its best showing was #1,562 in 2007.
Ainsley
Ainsley started life as the English surname Ainslie, from the Old English an, meaning one or only, joined to leah, a wood or clearing. So the name maps a single clearing in the trees, which is a quieter kind of nature than a flower or a river. It entered U.S. records in 1961 and has been a soft-spoken constant ever since. Chef Ainsley Harriott gave it a friendly public face on British television. It says itself as AYNZ lee, so nobody will ask twice.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: One meadow
- Pronunciation: AYNZ-Liy
- Variations: Ainslee, Ainslie
- Namesakes: Ainsley Harriott, an English chef and TV presenter for the BBC show Ready Steady Cook. Ainsley Gotto, the private secretary to John Gorton, the Prime Minister of Australia in the 1960s.
- Popularity: Ainsley ranked #483 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 621 births, and has barely moved over the last decade; its best rank came in 2013 at #332.
Amarantha
Amarantha comes from the Greek amarantos, meaning unfading, joined to anthos, meaning flower. Greek poets used the amaranth as the emblem of things that do not wither, which is a lot of symbolism to hand a newborn and a lovely thing to grow into. It is long on paper but breaks cleanly into Mara, Ama or Rana.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Flower
- Pronunciation: AEM-aa-RAENTH-ah
- Variations: Amaranta, Amaranthe
- Popularity: Amarantha is genuinely rare: 8 U.S. girls received it in 2025, ranking it #10,986, and only 13 have been recorded since it first appeared in the data in 2002.
Antonio
Antonio traces to the Roman family name Antonius, whose older sense is closer to priceless; the flower reading arrived later, through the Greek anthos. More than 262,000 U.S. births carry it on record since 1880, so it is thoroughly established rather than trending. It sits easily among Brazilian boy names as well as Italian and Spanish ones, reading as native in each without changing a letter. Composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote The Four Seasons, which earns the name a place on a nature list. Tony is the nickname nearly everyone reaches for, though Toni and Anton work too, and that steady history is what makes it read classic rather than current.
- Origin: Greek, Italian
- Meaning: Flower
- Pronunciation: Aen-TOW-niy-OW
- Variations: Anthonio, Antonyo
- Namesakes: Antonio Rivera, a Puerto Rican basketball player with the Puerto Rican National Basketball Team. Antonio Vivaldi, one of the greatest Italian Baroque composers.
- Popularity: Antonio ranked #176 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 2,058 births. Its best year was 1976 at #71, and the last ten years of births ran about a third below the ten before them.
Aster
The aster is the star-shaped daisy of late summer, and the Greeks named it for exactly that, since aster means star. One myth has the flower springing where Astraea, the star goddess, wept over the state of the world, which is where the softness in the name comes from. Astra shares the same Greek star root without being a spelling of it, so it makes a better sibling name than a variant.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Star, flower
- Pronunciation: AES-Ter
- Namesakes: Aster Janssens, a Belgian footballer for the Belgium national team. Aster Aweke, an Ethiopian singer, known for her 2006 album Fikir.
- Popularity: Aster is close to evenly split: #2,935 for U.S. girls in 2025 and #2,888 for boys, with 100 births between them. Births over the last ten years ran more than three times the ten before.
August
August comes from the Latin name Augustus and the verb augere, to increase, which is where the sense of esteemed comes from. The nature in it is seasonal rather than botanical: the tail of summer, when the light goes gold and the first harvest comes in. Playwright August Wilson, called the poet of Black America in the theater, is the bearer worth knowing, and Gus and Auggie handle the everyday.
- Origin: Latin, Germanic
- Meaning: Eighth month, esteemed
- Pronunciation: AW-Guhst
- Variations: Augustus, Augustine
- Namesakes: August Traksmaa, an Estonian ambassador to the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1937. August Wilson, an American playwright called “theater’s poet of Black America.”
- Popularity: August had its best year on record in 2025, reaching #81 for U.S. boys with 3,958 births, its highest count ever; 268 girls also received it, at #962.
Aurora
Aurora was the Roman goddess of dawn, who crossed the sky ahead of the sun each morning and whose tears the Romans read as the morning dew. The name does double duty as the aurora borealis, so it covers the first light and the strangest light in one word. It is no longer a hidden pick, since 2025 was its strongest year yet. It is written the same way in English, Spanish and Italian, so it travels without adjustment.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Dawn
- Pronunciation: Ah-ROWR-ah
- Variations: Arora, Aurorah
- Namesakes: Aurora Mena, one of the first women to graduate from the Santiago School of Painting in Chile. Aurora Quezon, the First Lady of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944.
- Popularity: Aurora reached its highest position ever in 2025 at #15 for U.S. girls, with 7,065 births, the most in any single year on record.
Autumn
The Latin autumnus meant the harvest season, and Autumn is the plainest season name English took from it, carrying the whole feel of one: cold mornings, low sun, leaves going over. Unlike most word names it has been in continuous use for over a century rather than arriving on a trend, which is why it never sounds dated. Photographer Autumn de Wilde and Pan American medalist Autumn Mills both wear it well.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Fall season
- Pronunciation: AAW-Tahm
- Variations: Autom, Autum
- Namesakes: Autumn de Wilde, an American photographer who directed the film Emma in 2020. Autumn Mills, a Canadian baseball player and silver medalist at the 2015 Pan American Games.
- Popularity: Autumn held #88 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 2,805 births. It ranked highest in 2013 at #64, and the last decade sits within a few percent of the one before it.
Ava
Ava is usually traced to the Latin avis, bird, with a second line running back through the Germanic Ava and the Hebrew Eve, meaning life. The water and island reading comes from a separate, non-Latin line, so the name collects nature meanings from three directions. Be clear-eyed about the popularity, though: at #11 it is the highest ranked name on this list, and your Ava will share a classroom with others. Short, easy to spell, and it travels well.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Water, island
- Pronunciation: AA-Vaa
- Variations: Avah
- Namesakes: Ava Gardner, an American actress known for John Huston’s The Night of the Iguana (1964). Ava Barber, an American country music singer who performed on The Lawrence Welk Show in the 1970s.
- Popularity: Ava is the highest ranked name on this list, at #11 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 7,732 births. Its peak was #3 in 2016, and births are down about 16% on the previous decade.
Ayla
Ayla is Turkish for the ring of light around the moon, which is about as specific as a nature name gets. As a Hebrew name it is a separate word altogether, meaning oak tree, and it doubles as deer or gazelle. It is a staple among Turkish girl names and has climbed steeply in American use over the last ten years. Two meanings, two alphabets, one very easy name to say out loud.
- Origin: Turkish, Hebrew
- Meaning: Circle of light around the sun or moon
- Pronunciation: EY-Laa
- Variations: Aylah, Aila
- Namesakes: Ayla Malik, a Pakistani Member of the National Assembly from 2002 to 2007. Ayla Huser, a Swiss badminton player for the Yverdon-les-Bains club.
- Popularity: Ayla ranked #77 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 3,149 births, just off its best year of 2024 at #69; the last ten years of births ran more than twice the ten before.
Basil
Sweet basil was steeped for royal perfumes long before it went anywhere near a tomato, which suits a name built on the Greek basileus, king, and the Latin basilius, the royal plant. The herb still smells like the best part of a summer garden. The name has two live pronunciations, BAZ il in Britain and BAY zil in America, which is worth settling before the birth announcement goes out. Actor Basil Rathbone kept it in circulation for a whole generation of filmgoers.
- Origin: Latin, Greek
- Meaning: Scented herb
- Pronunciation: BAEZ-ihl
- Variations: Basile, Basel
- Namesakes: Basil Rathbone, an English actor in films like David Copperfield (1935). Basil Arthur, Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 1984 to 1985.
- Popularity: Basil ranked #2,022 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 74 births, far below its 1915 high of #339, though the last decade runs about half again above the one before it.
Bear
Bear is the plain English animal word pressed into service as a name, and it also runs as a nickname for Bernard and Barrett. Adventurer Edward Grylls has gone by it his entire public life, and composer Bear McCreary uses it professionally. In practice it reads warm rather than fierce, the rare short name that suits a small child and still works on a grown one.
- Origin: Germanic
- Meaning: Strong brave bear
- Pronunciation: BEHR
- Namesakes: Edward “Bear” Grylls, a British host of the TV series Man vs. Wild. Bear McCreary, an American composer known for the updated Battlestar Galactica TV series.
- Popularity: Bear ranked #853 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 286 births. It only entered the data in 1975, and the last ten years run roughly four times the ten before them.
Birch
Birch names the pale, peeling tree that moves into open ground first after a fire, and the Old English root also carries the sense of bright or shining. It is a common surname and a very uncommon first name, which is the balance a lot of parents are hunting for. Say it once and nobody needs it spelled twice.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Birch tree
- Pronunciation: BERCH
- Variations: Berch, Birche
- Namesakes: L. Birch Wilson Jr., a member of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America in the 1920s.
- Popularity: Birch is one of the rarest entries here: 5 U.S. boys received it in 2025, at #12,294, and only 340 have been recorded since 1913.
Blaze
Blaze is the modern respelling of Blaise, the saint’s name it comes from. As an English word it means a bright fire, the white stripe on a horse’s face, and the painted mark that shows the way along a hiking trail. That last sense is the one that earns it a spot on a nature list. That trail-marking sense gives the name a quiet association with finding the way. Blaise is there if you want the saint without the flames.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Fire
- Pronunciation: BLAYZ
- Variations: Blaise
- Namesakes: Blaze Bayley (born Bayley Cooke), the English singer of the rock band Wolfsbane. Blaze Berdahl, an American actress, known for the film Pet Sematary.
- Popularity: Blaze ranked #781 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 326 births, and #4,896 for girls; its best rank so far was #707 in 2015.
Bronte
Bronte is the Greek bronte, thunder, and it reached English through the Bronte sisters. Charlotte, Emily and Anne wrote Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights between them, so the literary weight behind the name is real rather than decorative. There is also a Bronte in Sydney, a beach suburb, which is why it reads Australian to some ears. It takes either BRON tay or BRON tee, and the choice is yours.
- Origin: English, Greek
- Meaning: Thunder
- Pronunciation: BRAHN-Tey or BRAHN-tee
- Variations: Bronté, Brontë
- Namesakes: Bronte Dooley, an Australian member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly from 1911 until 1913. Bronte Law, an English golfer, and the 2019 Pure Silk Champion.
- Popularity: Bronte last appears in U.S. data in 2024, at #7,660 with 14 girls; its best year was 1992 at #1,295.
Bryn
Bryn is Welsh for hill, and it is still the ordinary word for one in everyday Welsh. In Wales it has traditionally gone to men, carried by singers and rugby players; in the U.S. it leans female, though both appear in current records. Bryn Mawr, the Pennsylvania town and college, means great hill and keeps the word in American view. One syllable, no ambiguity, no nickname needed.
- Origin: Welsh
- Meaning: Hill, mound
- Pronunciation: BRIHN
- Variations: Brin, Brinn, Bryne
- Namesakes: Bryn Williams, a Welsh chef, and winner of the TV series Great British Menu in 2006. Bryn Hoffman, a Canadian pair skater and junior silver medalist at the 2016 Canadian Nationals.
- Popularity: Bryn ranked #2,021 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 94 births and #6,867 for boys. Its best rank was #744 in 2011, and the last ten years of births ran about 45% below the ten before them.
Caledonia
Caledonia was the Roman name for the hard, rocky country north of their wall, the land that is now Scotland. It sounds like a place because it is one, and it arrives with Callie, Cal and Donia already attached. Expect to spell it, and expect her to be the only one in the room.
- Origin: Latin, Celtic
- Meaning: hard, rocky land
- Pronunciation: KAEL-eh-DOW-niy-Ah
- Variations: Caledoniah, Caledoniya, Caledonya
- Popularity: Caledonia last appears in U.S. data in 2023, at #15,623 with 5 girls; fewer than 100 have been recorded in total since 1900.
Camelia
The camellia is the glossy shrub that flowers in the dead of winter. Spelled with one L, Camelia is also read as a Latin name for an attendant at a ceremony, so it carries two unrelated stories at once. Romanian swimmer Camelia Potec, an Olympic gold medalist in 2004, is the best known bearer. Cami and Mia are both waiting inside it.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: The Camellia flower
- Pronunciation: Kaa-MIY-liy-Ah
- Variations: Camellia, Camilla
- Namesakes: Camelia Potec, a Romanian swimmer and gold medalist at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Camelia Malik, an Indonesian singer, known as Diva Dangdut Jaipong.
- Popularity: Camelia ranked #3,729 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 40 births; its best year was 1976 at #1,538.
Cassia
Most supermarket cinnamon is actually cassia bark, a close cousin of true Ceylon cinnamon and the stronger tasting of the two. The tree carries loose yellow flowers, and the word runs back through Greek to a Hebrew root for the spice trade. It also brushes against the Roman family name Cassius, which gives it an older, sterner register underneath the sweetness.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Cinnamon
- Pronunciation: KAE-see-ah
- Variations: Casia, Cassea, Cassiah
- Namesakes: Cassià Just i Riba, a Catalan abbot of Santa Maria de Montserrat from 1966 to 1989. Cássia Eller, a Brazilian musician whose album Acústico MTV sold over 1 million copies.
- Popularity: Cassia is at its highest point on record: #2,022 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 94 births, up about three quarters on the previous decade.
Celeste
Celeste comes from the Latin caelestis, of the sky. It is the one name here that points at the whole sky rather than a single feature of it, which is part of why it has outlasted most heavenly names. It settled early as one of the French names for girls that crossed into English intact and never needed anglicizing. Novelist Celeste Ng is the bearer most readers will know. Celia, Cece and Lettie all sit inside it.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: The heavens
- Pronunciation: Sah-LEHST
- Variations: Celestia, Celeeste
- Namesakes: Celeste Ng, an American writer whose first novel, Everything I Never Told You won the Amazon Book of the Year award. Celeste Troche, a Paraguayan golfer and co-medalist at the 2001 U.S. Women’s Amateur.
- Popularity: Celeste reached its best rank ever in 2025 at #188 for U.S. girls, with 1,662 births, its highest count on record.
Cerise
Cerise is simply the French word for cherry, and in English it has become the name of a color, the deep pink-red of the fruit at its ripest. The word runs back through Latin to Greek. It gives you a fruit, a tree and a shade of pink. The last ten years of births are about level with the ten before, so it is rare without being invented.
- Origin: French
- Meaning: Cherry
- Pronunciation: Sah-RIYZ
- Variations: Charisse, Ceris
- Namesakes: Cerise Fukuji, an American producer known for the updated TV series Unsolved Mysteries.
- Popularity: Cerise ranked #6,595 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 17 births; its best year was 1955 at #1,984, and it has held roughly that quiet level ever since.
Clay
Clay is usually a short form of Clayton, from the Old English claeg, the heavy soil that potters and brickmakers work. That makes it one of the most literal earthy names in use, a name about the ground itself rather than what grows out of it. Short, blunt, and impossible to mispronounce, it needs no nickname of its own.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Clay earth
- Pronunciation: KLAY
- Variations: Clae, Clai, Claye
- Namesakes: Clay Buchholz, an American baseball player in Major League Baseball for the Boston Red Sox. Clay Dreslough, the American creator of the Baseball Mogul and Football Mogul video games.
- Popularity: Clay ranked #573 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 515 births, up around two thirds on the previous decade; it ranked highest in 1961 at #259.
Colt
A colt is a young male horse, under four years old and not yet broken to work, which is a fairly literal thing to name a small boy. It also shortens Colton and Colter, both of which are still in wider use than Colt itself. The Wild West association is inescapable, and if that is the badass register you are after, few names get there faster.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Young horse
- Pronunciation: KOWLT
- Namesakes: Colt Brennan, an American football player with the Washington Redskins of the National Football League. Colt Knost, an American golfer who won the Price Cutter Charity Championship in 2008.
- Popularity: Colt ranked #285 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 1,188 births, roughly double the previous decade; its best rank was #210 in 2019.
Cyprus
Cyprus is the Mediterranean island, and its name is often linked to the cypress, from the Latin cupressus and the Greek kyparissos, though it is also traced to the copper the island was mined for. Cypresses are the dark, narrow columns that line Italian roads and Greek cemeteries, planted for their long life and their scent. The alternate spelling Cypress goes straight at the tree if you would rather skip the geography, and Cy works as a short form for either.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Cypress tree
- Pronunciation: SIY-Prihs
- Variations: Cypress
- Popularity: Cyprus reached its best rank ever in 2025 at #3,594 for U.S. boys, with 31 births, more than double the previous decade.
Dahlia
Dahlia is named for the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl. The bloom itself is the showiest thing in a late-summer garden, and it comes in nearly every color except true blue. In Hebrew, Dahlia is a separate word meaning a hanging branch, so the nature reading holds either way. Israeli poet Dahlia Ravikovitch is the bearer worth reading. Dolly and Lia both work.
- Origin: Scandinavian, Hebrew
- Meaning: Dahl’s flower
- Pronunciation: DAHL-Yaa
- Variations: Dalia, Daliah, Dahlea
- Namesakes: Dahlia Duhaney, a Jamaican sprinter who competed at the 1992 Summer Olympics. Dahlia Ravikovitch, an Israeli poet whose first book of poetry, The Love of an Orange, was published in 1959.
- Popularity: Dahlia is at its highest point on record: #215 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 1,420 births, up about 114% on the previous decade.
Daphne
In Greek mythology, Daphne was the river nymph who begged her father to change her into a laurel tree rather than be caught by Apollo, and he did. The word is still the Greek for laurel, the plant whose leaves crowned poets and victors and now flavor a stew. So the name carries a chase, an escape and a symbol of peace in six letters. It is said DAF nee, with the final e silent, and that is the whole of the instruction manual.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Laurel tree
- Pronunciation: DAEF-Niy
- Variations: Dafnee, Daphney
- Namesakes: Daphne Reynolds, an English painter whose work was hung in 10 Downing Street by then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Daphne Barak-Erez, an Israeli judge in the Supreme Court of Israel.
- Popularity: Daphne reached its best rank ever in 2025 at #178 for U.S. girls, with 1,740 births, its highest count on record.
Delphine
Delphine comes from Delphi, the mountain sanctuary the Greeks called the navel of the earth, and from delphis, the dolphin that gave the place its name. The delphinium, the tall blue spire at the back of a summer border, was named from the same root because its buds look like little dolphins. That gives the name a flower, a sea creature and a sacred mountain all at once. In French it stays entirely ordinary, which keeps it from feeling overloaded.
- Origin: French, Greek
- Meaning: Dolphin
- Pronunciation: Dehl-FIYN
- Variations: Delphina, Delfine
- Namesakes: Delphine de Vigan, a French novelist whose book No et moi (2007) won the Rotary International Prize in 2009. Delphine Atangana, a Cameroonian sprinter and bronze medalist at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
- Popularity: Delphine ranked #3,592 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 42 births, about 59% above the previous decade; its best year was 1930 at #427.
Demeter
Demeter was the Greek goddess of grain, the harvest and the cycle of the growing year, and her grief for her daughter Persephone is the myth the Greeks used to explain winter. Her name is usually read as earth mother, which puts the whole growing year behind it. It works for a boy or a girl, and it has the useful nickname Demi sitting inside it.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Earth mother
- Pronunciation: Dih-MIYT-ahr
- Variations: Demetre, Demetra
- Namesakes: Demeter Bitenc, a Slovenian film actor appearing in over 150 films and TV shows between 1953 and 2018.
- Popularity: Demeter is exceptionally rare in U.S. records: it last appears in 2020, when 5 girls received it, at #15,723.
Deniz
Deniz is the Turkish word for sea, used as a given name exactly as it stands, with no myth or saint behind it. Turkish has a run of these plain noun names, and in U.S. records Deniz goes to boys and girls at almost the same rate. It is short, it is spelled the way it sounds once you know the z is voiced, and it belongs to a language most American ears have never had to guess at. Journalist Deniz Yücel is the best known bearer.
- Origin: Turkish
- Meaning: Sea
- Pronunciation: Deh-NIYZ
- Variations: Dennys
- Namesakes: Deniz Yücel, a German-Turkish journalist contributing to the publications Die Tageszeitung and Die Welt. Deniz Baykal, the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister from 1995 to 1996.
- Popularity: Deniz ranked #2,611 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 50 births and #6,178 for girls with 19; across all births on record it is close to an even split, and the last decade runs about half again above the one before.
Drake
A drake is a male duck, and that is the oldest sense of the English surname the name comes from. There is a second line running through the Old English Draca and the Old Norse Draki, meaning dragon, which is why the name feels heavier than a duck should. Sir Francis Drake supplied the seafaring edge, and the Canadian rapper has supplied the modern one. It peaked in 2010 and has been sliding ever since. Give it a few more years and it will read as uncommon again rather than dated.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Male duck
- Pronunciation: DRAYK
- Variations: Draek, Draeke
- Namesakes: Aubrey Drake Graham (known as “Drake”), a Canadian rapper with over 170 million records sold. Drake Caggiula, a Canadian ice hockey player for the Buffalo Sabres.
- Popularity: Drake ranked #827 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 299 births, well down from its 2010 high of #196; the last ten years of births ran about 60% below the ten before.
Ebony
Ebony comes from the Greek ebenos, by way of Latin, with Egyptian origins behind that again. The wood itself is genuinely remarkable: dense enough to sink in water, black to the core, and still the material of choice for piano keys and clarinet bodies. The name peaked in the early 1980s and has fallen further since than anything else here. That puts it in the sweet spot where a familiar name is no longer a common one. Three syllables, spelled the way it sounds, and nowhere in the English-speaking world will it need explaining.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Dark black wooded tree
- Pronunciation: EH-beh-Niy
- Variations: Ebonee, Eboni, Ebonie
- Namesakes: Priscilla Opoku-Kwarteng (known as Ebony Reigns), a Ghanaian dancehall/Afrobeats artist known for her song “Poison.”
- Popularity: Ebony has fallen furthest of any name here, down 71% over the last ten years of births against the ten before them. It ranked #5,452 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 23 births, a long way from its 1982 peak of #132.
Eira
Snow names are thin on the ground in English, and Eira is the Welsh word for it, pronounced with the opening of the English word eye. A separate Norse thread gives it Eir, the goddess the sagas name as the best of physicians, so the name arrives with both weather and healing attached. Finnish uses it too, which is how it picked up the Nordic feel it now carries. That scarcity is part of why it has climbed sharply in the last few years. Nobody will have to ask twice how to say it.
- Origin: Welsh, Finnish
- Meaning: Snow
- Pronunciation: EYE-Raa
- Variations: Eyra
- Namesakes: Eira Stenberg, a Finnish playwright who won the Eino Leino Prize in 2007. Eira Lydiard, a Finnish gymnast who finished 13th in the Rome 1960 Summer Olympics.
- Popularity: Eira is at its highest point on record: #1,749 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 116 births, more than four times the previous decade.
Farley
Farley is Old English again, from fearn, fern, and leah, a clearing in woodland, so it names the exact place where bracken takes over an opening in the trees. It has been a surname far longer than a first name, and it kept a foothold in America through actor Farley Granger, who carried two Hitchcock films. Gentle and slightly old fashioned, which is exactly what makes it feel due a turn.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Fern clearing
- Pronunciation: FAAR-Liy
- Variations: Farleigh, Farlee, Farly
- Namesakes: Farley Granger, an American actor best known for Alfred Hitchcock’s films Rope and Strangers on a Train.
- Popularity: Farley last appears in U.S. data in 2024, at #7,944 with 10 boys; its best year was 1952 at #1,186.
Fiadh
Fiadh is Irish for wild, and the same word does duty for deer, the animal Irish once treated as the definition of wildness. It is pronounced roughly FEE uh, which is worth saying out loud a few times before committing, because the spelling gives an English speaker no help at all. In exchange you get a name that is short, soft and unmistakably Irish. It only entered U.S. records in 2018, so it arrives here with no American baggage at all. Expect to spell it every time, forever.
- Origin: Irish
- Meaning: Wilderness
- Pronunciation: FEE-ah
- Popularity: Fiadh only entered U.S. data in 2018 and reached its best rank in 2025 at #1,995, with 96 girls given the name.
Finch
A finch is a small seed-eating songbird, and the surname originally belonged to people who caught and sold them. Darwin’s finches are the textbook example of natural selection, which gives the name a scientific edge. It reads as literary too, thanks to Atticus Finch. Barely used, easy to say, and it works for a boy or a girl.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Songbird
- Pronunciation: FINCH
- Variations: Finche, Fynch, Fynche
- Namesakes: Nils Wehowsky (known as Finch), a German rapper and YouTube personality.
- Popularity: Finch first appears in U.S. data in 2011 and ranked #5,945 for boys in 2025, with 15 births; its best rank was #4,905 in 2022.
Fleur
Fleur is the French word for flower, unchanged, and it also carries the sense of bloom or the best part of something, as in the flour that is the flower of the wheat. It is far more familiar in French and Dutch use than in English, which is why it still sounds imported here; it sits comfortably among Dutch girl names in particular. One syllable, no nickname, nothing to explain except the vowel.
- Origin: French
- Meaning: Flower
- Pronunciation: FLAHR
- Variations: Fleure
- Namesakes: Fleur Jaeggy, a Swiss author whose book Proleterka was named Best Book of the Year. Fleur Pellerin, a French government minister from 2012 to 2016.
- Popularity: Fleur ranked #9,055 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 11 births, about half again above the previous decade; its best rank was #3,904 back in 1933.
Flora
Flora was the Roman goddess of flowers and spring, honored with a spring festival of games and flowers. Her name became the ordinary Latin word for a blossom, and later the scientific term for all the plant life of a place, which is why botanists still talk about the flora of a region. A genuine antique, popular before the First World War and rising fast again now, with Flo and Flory waiting as short forms.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Flower
- Pronunciation: FLOWR-ah
- Variations: Floria
- Namesakes: Flora Thompson, an English writer known for her book Lark Rise to Candleford. Flora Hayes, a Hawaiian-American politician in the Hawaii Territorial House of Representatives between 1938 and 1959.
- Popularity: Flora ranked #607 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 483 births, roughly three times the previous decade; its best year was 1914 at #131.
Forrest
Forrest arrived in England with the Normans, from the Old French forest and behind it the Latin foris, meaning outside, since a forest was originally land outside ordinary cultivation and under the king’s law. The double R is the surname spelling; the single R belongs to actor Forest Whitaker. It has stayed familiar without ever getting crowded. The two spellings sound identical, so the only real decision is how often you want to correct people.
- Origin: French
- Meaning: Woodsman
- Pronunciation: FAOR-ehst
- Variations: Forest, Forreste
- Namesakes: Forrest Petz, an American mixed martial artist who fought in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Forrest Gainer, a professional Canadian rugby player.
- Popularity: Forrest ranked #374 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 850 births, about three and a half times the previous decade; its best year was 1913 at #173.
Gaia
Gaia is the Greek earth itself, the first goddess in Hesiod’s account and the mother of everything that followed. The name was later borrowed for a scientific hypothesis about the planet regulating itself, which gave it a second life. It is one of the very few names that means the whole planet rather than a piece of it. Say it GUY uh and let the rest take care of itself.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Earth
- Pronunciation: GUY-ah
- Variations: Gaea
- Namesakes: Gaia Cauchi, a Maltese singer at the 2013 Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Gaia Vince, a British author who writes for The Guardian.
- Popularity: Gaia ranked #1,392 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 157 births, about three times the previous decade; its best rank was #1,122 in 2023.
Gelso
Gelso is the Italian word for mulberry, the tree whose leaves feed silkworms and whose fruit stains everything it touches a deep purple. Mulberries have been planted around Italian farmhouses for centuries for shade, fruit and silk, so the word carries a whole way of life with it. As a given name it is essentially unused, which is either the point or the problem depending on your taste.
- Origin: Italian
- Meaning: Mulberry tree
- Pronunciation: JHEHL-Soh
- Popularity: Gelso has no record at all in U.S. name data, which means fewer than five American babies a year have carried it.
Ginger
Ginger is the knobbly root that gives half of Asian cooking its heat, and the word reached English through Sanskrit, Greek and Latin before settling. It became a nickname for redheads, then a name in its own right, and it peaked in the early 1970s. Ginger Rogers is why most people know it, though tennis player Ginger Helgeson-Nielsen and Smashing Pumpkins bassist Ginger Pooley both carried it too. Fresh ginger and the dried spice taste almost nothing alike, which is a small piece of trivia worth having if you name a child after it. Retro rather than dated, and genuinely rare again now.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Ginger root
- Pronunciation: JHIHNJH-er
- Namesakes: Ginger Helgeson-Nielsen, an American tennis player known as the best player from Minnesota. Ginger Pooley, an American musician with the rock band The Smashing Pumpkins.
- Popularity: Ginger ranked #3,308 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 47 births, down 54% on the previous decade; its best year was 1971 at #187.
Hadley
Hadley is an Old English place name, from haeth, heather, and leah, clearing, so it names an open patch of heath in the woods. It came to most Americans through Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife and the one he wrote about at the end of his life. It has barely slipped from that peak. Had and Lee both work as short forms, and it reads equally well on a boy.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Heather field
- Pronunciation: HHAED-Liy
- Variations: Hadleah, Hadleigh, Hadlie
- Namesakes: Hadley Freeman, an American-British journalist who worked at Vogue magazine. Elizabeth Hadley Richardson, the first wife of American author Ernest Hemingway.
- Popularity: Hadley ranked #121 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 2,254 births and #6,938 for boys; its best rank was #100 in 2014.
Harmony
In myth Harmonia was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, war and love reconciled, which is a neat piece of Greek logic. Her name came into English through Latin, and the Greek harmonia meant a joint or a fitting together long before it meant a chord. As a nature name it works for the idea rather than the object: the way a system holds together. It is one of the boho names from the 1970s that has aged into something ordinary. Director Harmony Korine, who made Gummo in 1997, is the bearer most people have run into.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Concord, unity
- Pronunciation: HHAAR-mow-Niy
- Variations: Harmoney, Harmonee
- Namesakes: Harmony Korine, an American director known for the film Gummo (1997). Harmony Santana, an American actress, known for the 2011 film Gun Hill Road.
- Popularity: Harmony ranked #276 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 1,123 births, up 17% on the previous decade; its best rank was #169 in 2019.
Haven
A haefen in Old English was a harbor, the place a boat gets to before the weather arrives. English extended it to any shelter, which is where the phrase a haven for wildlife comes from, and that sense is what puts it on a nature list. Short, calm, genuinely unisex, with about one in six of all Havens on record going to boys.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Place of safety
- Pronunciation: HHEY-vahn
- Variations: Havan, Haevan
- Namesakes: Haven Barlow, an American member of the Utah State Senate from 1955 to 1994. Haven Denney, an American pair skater and two-time Skate America silver medalist.
- Popularity: Haven reached its best rank ever in 2025 at #190 for U.S. girls, with 1,642 births, and it went to 139 boys as well, at #1,354.
Hazel
Hazel comes from the Old English haesel, the small nut tree that hedgerows are built from, and the word later transferred to the greenish-brown of the nut and of eyes. Hazel wood was the traditional material for water divining rods, which is a good deal more interesting than most tree-name backstories. It was everywhere in the 1910s, vanished for fifty years, and is now firmly back in the top 25. That means she will not be the only Hazel, so weigh that against how good the name is.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Hazel tree
- Pronunciation: HHEY-Zehl
- Variations: Hayzel, Hazell
- Namesakes: Hazel Hutchins, a Canadian children’s author whose book Tess (1995) was nominated for a Governor General’s Award. Hazel Blears, a Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2015.
- Popularity: Hazel ranked #21 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 6,318 births, having reached its best rank of #18 in 2023. Births over the last ten years ran more than three times the ten before.
Heath
A heath is open, acid ground where heather and gorse grow and trees will not, the country the Brontes wrote about. The name began as a surname for someone who lived on that kind of land, and it also shortens Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff. Australian actor Heath Ledger is the reason a generation of Americans know it. It is one syllable of pure landscape, and the last ten years of births came in level with the ten before.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Land of heather and grass
- Pronunciation: HEETH
- Namesakes: Heath Ledger, an Australian actor known for the film Brokeback Mountain (2005). Heath Streak, a Zimbabwean cricketer who captained the Zimbabwe national cricket team.
- Popularity: Heath ranked #932 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 253 births, level with the previous decade; its best year was 1974 at #181.
Hollis
Hollis began as an English surname for someone who lived where the holly grew, from the Old English holegn. Holly was the tree the old calendars gave to midwinter, one of the few green things left in an English wood in January, and it was planted by doorways for luck. About a quarter of all Hollises on record are girls, which makes it a genuinely unisex option rather than a borrowed one.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: The holy tree
- Pronunciation: HHAAL-ihs
- Variations: Hollice, Holliss, Hollys
- Namesakes: Hollis Frampton, Jr., an American avant-garde filmmaker known for his non-linear structural films. Hollis French II, an American politician in the Alaska Senate from 2003 to 2015.
- Popularity: Hollis ranked #894 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 266 births and #1,132 for girls with 206, so close to half of that year’s babies were girls. Births are up 115% on the previous decade.
Holly
Only the female trees fruit, and they need a male nearby to do it, which is a nice piece of botany to have behind Holly, the Old English holegn for the spiny evergreen whose red berries feed thrushes through the winter. The Christmas association is what most people hear first, so a December baby carries it especially well. Romans hung holly at Saturnalia long before it was a Christmas plant, so the tradition is older than the holiday. It peaked in 1979 at #48 and has settled a long way below that, but the last ten years sit close to the ten before, so it reads familiar rather than dated.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Holly tree
- Pronunciation: HAHL-ee
- Variations: Holley, Holli, Hollie
- Namesakes: Holly Holyoake, a Welsh classical music singer who performed at Wales national rugby union team matches. Holly Krieger, an American mathematician, known for the YouTube video series Numberphile.
- Popularity: Holly ranked #416 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 751 births, holding close to its level of ten years ago; its best year was 1979 at #48.
Ilana
Ilana is the Hebrew word for tree, and it is traditionally given to girls born around Tu BiShvat, the new year of the trees, when Israeli schoolchildren plant saplings. That makes it one of the very few names here tied to an actual date in the calendar. Judge Ilana Rovner, the first woman appointed to the Seventh Circuit, has carried it prominently for decades, and Lana comes free with it.
- Origin: Hebrew
- Meaning: Tree
- Pronunciation: Ih-LAA-naa
- Variations: Illana
- Namesakes: Ilana Cohen, an Israeli member of the Knesset from 2003 until 2006. Ilana Rovner, the first woman appointed to the U.S. State Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
- Popularity: Ilana ranked #2,496 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 71 births, roughly level with the previous decade; its best rank was #1,184 in 1987.
Indira
Indira is a Sanskrit epithet of Lakshmi, the goddess of abundance, and it is the feminine of Indra, the god of storms and rain. Rain is the whole point of Indra in the Vedic hymns, so the natural beauty in the name is specifically the beauty that follows a downpour. Indira Gandhi made it internationally known, and actress Indira Varma keeps it current. Indie is the short form most American ears will land on.
- Origin: Sanskrit
- Meaning: Natural beauty
- Pronunciation: In-DIY-Raa
- Variations: Indeera, Indeira, Indirah
- Namesakes: Indira Varma, a British actress known for the HBO series Game of Thrones. Indira Silva, a Mexican politician and the second female Governor of Colima.
- Popularity: Indira ranked #3,797 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 39 births, roughly level with the previous decade; its best rank was #1,721 in 1966.
Iris
In Greek myth Iris was the rainbow itself, the messenger who ran between the gods and the world along the arc she left behind her. The flower took her name for its range of colors, and so did the colored ring of the human eye. Three meanings, one short word, and all of them are about color. Novelist Iris Murdoch is the bearer most readers meet first.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Flower
- Pronunciation: AY-Rihs
- Variations: Iriss, Irissa, Irys
- Namesakes: Iris Dexter, an Australian journalist and war correspondent during World War II. Iris Murdoch, an Irish-British writer with one of Modern Library’s 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
- Popularity: Iris reached its best rank ever in 2025 at #61 for U.S. girls, with 3,729 births, two and a half times the previous decade.
Ivy
The Victorians made Ivy one of their flower names, and it stands for fidelity in that language because the plant holds on and does not let go. Behind it is the Old English ifig, the evergreen climber that will cover a wall, a tree or an entire ruined abbey given twenty years. Three letters, one syllable, nothing to spell, and now firmly inside the top 40 rather than the quiet pick it used to be.
- Origin: English, Latin
- Meaning: Vine
- Pronunciation: IE-vee
- Variations: Ivee, Ivey, Ivie
- Namesakes: Ivy Fife, a New Zealand painter whose portraits depict life on the South Island of New Zealand. Ivy Meeropol, an American director, known for the documentary Heir to an Execution.
- Popularity: Ivy ranked #39 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 5,117 births, just off its best rank of #36 in 2024. Births over the last ten years ran nearly three times the ten before.
Jasmine
Jasmine comes from the Persian yasmin, and the flower is famous for opening after dark and scenting a whole street from one plant. It is the flower jasmine tea is made from, and the one Indian and Filipino garlands are strung with. The name arrived in English through French and boomed in the early 1990s, which makes it feel of a particular moment. Punjabi singer Jasmine Sandlas is the bearer who has kept it moving outside the English-speaking world.
- Origin: Persian
- Meaning: Fragrant flower
- Pronunciation: JHAEZ-Mihn
- Variations: Jasmin, Jasmyn, Jazmine
- Namesakes: Jasmine Harman, an English TV presenter known for A Place in the Sun: Home or Away? Jasmine Sandlas, an Indian-American singer of Punjabi songs featured on the TEDx Talks.
- Popularity: Jasmine ranked #206 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 1,481 births, well below its 1993 peak of #23; the last ten years of births ran about 53% under the ten before.
June
June is the month, named for Juno, the Roman goddess who guarded marriage and childbirth and whose sacred plants were the lily, the lotus, the pomegranate and the cypress. Roman brides married in June to borrow her favour, which is why the tradition survives. The name is at its warmest point of the year and has the softest possible sound. June Carter Cash is the bearer who defined it for American ears. It also makes a superb middle name.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Summer month of June
- Pronunciation: JHUWN
- Variations: Juin, Juine
- Namesakes: June Carter Cash, a member of the Carter Family and the second wife of singer Johnny Cash. June Sarpong, a British TV presenter on the Sky News program The Pledge.
- Popularity: June ranked #150 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 1,978 births, nearly three times the previous decade; its best year was 1925 at #39.
Juniper
Juniper comes from the Latin juniperus, the tough evergreen shrub that grows on chalk downs and mountainsides where almost nothing else will. Its berries are what make gin taste like gin, and they have been used to flavor food and smoke meat for thousands of years. The name has gone from obscure to top 100 inside the last ten years, so it is no longer the offbeat pick it was. Juno, June and Junie are all waiting inside it.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Evergreen shrub
- Pronunciation: JHUW-nay-Per
- Variations: Junyper
- Namesakes: Saint Juniper, aka Brother Juniper, one of the original followers of St. Francis of Assisi. Juniper Shuey, an American visual artist, known for his video installations and sculptural performance.
- Popularity: Juniper entered the U.S. top 100 for the first time in 2025, at exactly #100, with 2,618 girls given the name. Births over the last ten years ran more than six times the ten before.
Kai
Kai means sea in Hawaiian, and the same three letters carry unrelated meanings in other languages: willow in Navajo, and a family name among Chinese boy names. That is a lot of ground for three letters to cover. It is short enough to survive any accent and it has been in the U.S. top 100 for years now. Pulitzer winner Kai Bird is the bearer worth reading.
- Origin: Hawaiian
- Meaning: Sea, ocean
- Pronunciation: K-EYE
- Variations: Kae, Kaie
- Namesakes: Kai Bird, an American author who won a Pulitzer Prize for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Kai Niemi, a Finnish motorcycle rider, won the Finnish National Championship nine times.
- Popularity: Kai ranked #93 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 3,768 births and #1,054 for girls with 234, so about one in seventeen that year went to a girl. Its best rank was #59 in 2022.
Laurel
Laurel is the bay tree, the evergreen whose leaves were twisted into wreaths for Olympic victors and Roman generals, and the reason we still say someone rests on their laurels. It is also the plant Daphne became, so it sits directly beside her on this list. It works on a boy as easily as a girl, and it has never been common enough to feel used up. American folk artist Laurel Burch, whose bright cats ended up on half the tote bags of the 1990s, is the bearer worth knowing.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Laurel tree
- Pronunciation: LAOR-ehl
- Variations: Laurelle, Lorelle
- Namesakes: Laurel Martyn, the first Australian ballerina to win the Adeline Genée Gold Medal. Laurel Burch, an American folk artist, known for her colorful feline themes.
- Popularity: Laurel ranked #734 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 372 births, about 61% above the previous decade; its best year was 1956 at #241.
Leilani
Leilani comes from the Hawaiian lei, a garland of flowers, and lani, sky or heaven, so the whole word is heavenly flowers. A lei is a real object with real rules attached to it, not a decoration, and the name carries that weight in Hawaii. It has been rising steadily in U.S. records, with the last ten years of births running about two and a half times the ten before, and it now sits at #60. Lani and Leia are the short forms in use.
- Origin: Polynesian
- Meaning: Heavenly flower
- Pronunciation: Ley-LAA-niy
- Variations: Leilanee, Leilanie, Leilany
- Namesakes: Leilani Farha, a Canadian lawyer and the UN special appointee on adequate housing. Leilani Dowding, the UK representative at Miss Universe 1998.
- Popularity: Leilani ranked #60 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 3,792 births, its highest count on record; its best rank was #59 in 2022.
Lir
Lir is the Irish sea god, less a character than the sea itself given a name, and his children are the subject of one of the great Irish tragedies, turned into swans for centuries. The Welsh Llyr is the same figure, and Shakespeare’s King Lear takes his name from that line. Three letters, one syllable, and about as much myth as a name can carry.
- Origin: Irish
- Meaning: The sea
- Pronunciation: LEAR
- Variations: Ler, Lyre
- Popularity: Lir is one of the rarest names here. It first appears in U.S. data in 2017 and was last recorded in 2023, at #9,427 with 8 boys.
Lotus
The lotus is the water lily that roots in mud and comes up clean, which is exactly why Hinduism and Buddhism both use it as the image of the mind. The flower closes at night, sinks, and opens again the next morning, so it stands for renewal without anyone having to invent the symbolism. The Greek word covered several unrelated plants, including the fruit that made Homer’s lotus-eaters forget their homes. It goes mostly to girls in current U.S. records, running about one boy for every five girls in 2025, and it is rising quietly.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Lotus flower
- Pronunciation: LOW-Tahs
- Variations: Lotas, Lotuss
- Namesakes: Steven Ellison (known as Flying Lotus), an American rapper and founder of the record label Brainfeeder.
- Popularity: Lotus ranked #1,826 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 110 births and #4,631 for boys with 22; births are up 93% on the previous decade.
Luna
Luna is the Latin word for moon and the Roman goddess who drove it across the sky, and it is still the everyday word in Spanish and Italian. English kept the root in lunar, lunatic and lunation, which is a livelier set of descendants than most names manage. Almost unused in America until the 2000s, it has climbed steeply enough to sit in the top 30, which is worth knowing before you choose it. On the unisex list in principle, though in practice it goes to girls.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Moon
- Pronunciation: LUW-Naa
- Variations: Lunah, Louna
- Namesakes: Park Sun-young (known as Luna), a South Korean singer known for the Korean versions of musicals, including Legally Blonde. Luna Leopold, an American hydrologist, known for the book Fluvial Processes in Geomorphology.
- Popularity: Luna ranked #27 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 6,076 births, down from its best rank of #10 in 2022. Births over the last ten years ran more than five times the ten before.
Marina
Marina reads the same in English, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Greek, without changing a letter. It is the feminine of the Latin marinus, of the sea, and it belonged to an early saint before it belonged to a harbor full of boats. Ballerina Marina Semyonova made it famous in Russia; the word itself made it familiar everywhere else, and Rina shortens it neatly.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Sea
- Pronunciation: Maa-RIY-naa
- Variations: Marinah, Marinna
- Namesakes: Marina Semyonova, the first Soviet-trained prima ballerina. Marina Mniszech (known as Marinka the Witch), a Polish Tsaritsa of Russia during the Time of Troubles.
- Popularity: Marina ranked #602 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 488 births, holding close to the previous decade; its best year was 1994 at #218.
Mars
Mars was the Roman god of war, but he started out as a god of farmland and spring growth, which is why the month of March carries his name and why Roman farmers prayed to him over their fields. The planet took the name for its rust-red color, and the rust is real iron oxide. So the name covers a planet, a season and a war god, and the oldest layer of it is agricultural. It is short, hard and increasingly used for girls as well as boys.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: God of war
- Pronunciation: MARZ
- Variations: Marz
- Namesakes: Mario Delgado (known as Mars), an American rapper specializing in horrorcore music. Cheung Wing-fat (known as Mars), a Hong Kong stuntman and martial artist close to Jackie Chan.
- Popularity: Mars ranked #1,615 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 105 births and #4,947 for girls with 27. Births over the last ten years ran more than six times the ten before.
Meadow
A hay meadow left uncut can hold dozens of wildflower species. The word is the Old English maedwe, land that is mown rather than grazed, which is a sharper definition than most people expect. It has been climbing quietly for years, with no obvious nickname to blunt it.
- Origin: American, English
- Meaning: Field of grass
- Pronunciation: MEHD-ow
- Variations: Meadowe, Medowe
- Namesakes: Meadow Sisto, an American actress known for the film Captain Ron. Meadow Williams, an American actress, known for producing the films The Harvest and Den of Thieves.
- Popularity: Meadow reached its best rank ever in 2025 at #286 for U.S. girls, with 1,078 births, more than twice the previous decade.
Micah
Micah is the Hebrew prophet whose name asks who is like God. The nature reading comes from mica, the mineral that splits into sheets so thin you can see through them, and which puts the glitter in granite and in beach sand. The two words are unrelated in origin but they have been sitting beside each other in English for centuries. Sheets of mica were used as window glass and furnace panes long before plate glass was cheap. It stood at #90 in 2025, and across all births on record it goes to girls about one time in ten.
- Origin: Hebrew
- Meaning: Rock-forming minerals
- Pronunciation: MY-Kah
- Variations: Mika, Mykah, Micha
- Namesakes: Micah Richards, an English footballer and sports pundit for Sky Sports and BBC Sport. Micah Ohlman, an American journalist and anchor at KTLA News in Los Angeles, CA.
- Popularity: Micah ranked #90 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 3,817 births and #909 for girls with 291, so about one in fourteen that year went to a girl. Its best rank was #86 in 2024.
Nova
Nova is the Latin for new, and astronomers borrowed it for a star that suddenly brightens by thousands of times and then fades back over weeks. The word entered the language as stella nova, a new star, because that is exactly what one looks like from the ground. Nova Peris, the first Aboriginal Australian to win Olympic gold, is the bearer worth knowing. Its rise is recent and steep, which is how a name the federal files have carried since 1885 sits at #46 today.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Bright stars
- Pronunciation: NOW-Vaa
- Variations: Novah, Novva
- Namesakes: Nova Peris, the first Aboriginal Australian to win an Olympic gold medal (in field hockey). Nova Pilbeam, an English actress, known for two Alfred Hitchcock films of the 1930s.
- Popularity: Nova is the fastest riser on this list: births over the last ten years ran 911% above the ten before them (1). It ranked #46 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 4,657 births, off its best rank of #32 in 2021.
Olive
The olive tree is long lived, with ancient groves in Greece and Israel still fruiting, and its name reached English through French and Latin from oliva. The olive branch has meant peace since the flood story and the Athenian myths both, and it still does. The name spent most of the twentieth century out of use before turning around completely. The trailing e keeps it distinct from the fruit on a menu, which is the only practical thing anyone needs to weigh.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Olive tree
- Pronunciation: AO-Lihv
- Variations: Olivia
- Namesakes: Olive Dehn, an English children’s writer who wrote stories for the BBC Radio program Children’s Hour. Olive Thomas, an American silent-film actress and Ziegfeld Follies performer.
- Popularity: Olive is the great comeback on this list. It was common in the early 1900s, nearly vanished by the late 1980s, and has come roaring back since. It ranked #197 in 2025 with 1,597 births.
Oriel
Oriel connects to the oriole, the yellow-and-black bird whose name traces to the Latin aureolus, golden. It is also an architectural word for a bay window jutting out from an upper storey, and the name of an Oxford college. American orioles are not related to the European ones at all; early colonists simply named the bird they saw after the bird they remembered. Three quite different things, all of them pleasant, sharing one uncommon name. 24 U.S. boys received it in 2025.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Bird
- Pronunciation: Awr-iy-EHL
- Variations: Oriole, Oriell
- Namesakes: Oriel Bennett (known as Oriel Gray), an Australian dramatist in the 1940’s to 1990s with themes of gender equality. Oriel Malet, a Welsh author, known for a biography of the Scottish poet Marjory Fleming.
- Popularity: Oriel ranked #4,349 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 24 births; its best rank was #3,535 in 2023, and births have climbed 150% on the previous decade.
Orion
Orion was the giant hunter of Greek myth, placed in the sky after his death, and the constellation is the easiest one in the northern winter to find: three stars in a row, a red supergiant at one shoulder and a blue supergiant at one foot. The name is also read as rising in the sky, which matches what the constellation does every autumn evening. Orion Howe won the Medal of Honor as a teenage Union drummer boy, and Ry and Rio both shorten it.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Dawning
- Pronunciation: Ow-RAY-ahn
- Variations: Orian, Oryan
- Namesakes: Orion Howe, one of the youngest recipients of the Medal of Honor for his service in the American Civil War as a Union drummer boy. Orion Clemens, the younger brother of American writer Mark Twain.
- Popularity: Orion ranked #334 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 1,012 births, up 82% on the previous decade; its best rank was #300 in 2018.
Poppy
Poppy comes from the Latin papaver, and the field poppy germinates only when soil is disturbed, which is why it flooded the churned ground of Flanders and became the flower of remembrance. Left alone, its seeds can wait in the earth for decades. That is a lot of quiet resilience behind a name this cheerful. It is climbing fast in America, part of the same wave lifting flower names generally.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: The milk of happiness
- Pronunciation: PAHP-ee
- Variations: Popi, Popie, Poppey
- Namesakes: Poppy Montgomery, an Australian-American actress known for the CBS TV series Without a Trace. Poppy Harlow, an American reporter at CNN.
- Popularity: Poppy ranked #292 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 1,054 births, close to its best rank of #289 in 2023. Births over the last ten years ran nearly six times the ten before.
Raine
Raine began as a French nickname from the Latin rana, frog, which is a good deal less romantic than it looks on paper. In practice almost everyone reads it as the weather, and the spelling with the silent e is what keeps it from being plain Rain. That gap between the two readings, frog and weather, is most of the name’s appeal. It splits between boys and girls and shortens to Rae without effort.
- Origin: French, Latin
- Meaning: Frog queen
- Pronunciation: REYN
- Variations: Rain, Reign, Reine
- Namesakes: Raine Peltokoski, a Finnish sports shooter who won the IPSC European Rifle Championship. Raine Spencer, the British stepmother of Diana, Princess of Wales.
- Popularity: Raine ranked #1,556 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 136 births and #3,922 for boys with 28; births are up 66% on the previous decade.
Raven
Ravens are the largest of the crows and unusually intelligent, capable of using tools, mimicking speech and apparently holding grudges. They run through Norse myth as Odin’s two informants, through Celtic myth as the Morrigan, and through American literature as Poe’s one-word visitor. A pair will stay together for life and hold the same territory for decades. The name is dark without being grim, and it carries more brainpower than most animal names. Raven-Symoné has kept it visible for three decades.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Blackbird
- Pronunciation: REY-Vahn
- Variations: Ravenne, Rayvenne
- Namesakes: Raven-Symoné, an American actress and winner of five NAACP Image Awards. Raven Klaasen, a South African tennis player, ranked 7th worldwide in 2019.
- Popularity: Raven ranked #404 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 771 births and #2,973 for boys with 42; its best year was 1993 at #139.
River
River comes through Old French from the Latin riparia, the bank rather than the water, which is a nice reminder that people named the edge before they named the flow. It became a given name in America in the 1970s and belonged first to River Phoenix, who is still the reason many parents know it. About a third of the Rivers in U.S. records are girls, which is a genuinely unisex split. Two syllables, no spelling problem, and it means what it says.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: A flowing body of water
- Pronunciation: RIV-er
- Variations: Rivor, Ryver
- Namesakes: River Jones, an American producer, and owner of River Jones Music / Atomic Milk Records. River Phoenix, an American actor, known for the 1986 film Stand by Me.
- Popularity: River ranked #111 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 3,139 births and #220 for girls with 1,401, so a third of them are girls. Births over the last ten years ran nearly four times the ten before.
Rocio
Rocio is the Spanish word for dew, and as a name it is short for Maria del Rocio, the Virgin of the Dew, honored every year at a shrine in the marshes of Andalusia. The pilgrimage there is one of the largest in Europe, so the name carries a place and a crowd behind it. It belongs to the Spanish naming tradition and stays familiar among Mexican baby names even as U.S. births have fallen off sharply, and it shortens to Chio or Ro.
- Origin: Spanish
- Meaning: Dewdrops
- Pronunciation: Row-SIY-ow
- Variations: Rosio
- Namesakes: Rocío Navas, the First Lady of Ecuador from 2017 until 2021. María Rocío Pérez, a Spanish long-distance runner who competed in the 1996 Summer Olympics.
- Popularity: Rocio ranked #3,377 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 46 births, down 54% on the previous decade; its best year was 1991 at #524.
Roisin
Roisin is the Irish for little rose, a diminutive of rós, and it is properly spelled Róisín with two accents that tell you where the stress falls. The sixteenth-century song Róisín Dubh, dark little rose, used it as a coded name for Ireland itself at a time when saying so plainly was dangerous. That makes it one of the few flower names with a political history. It is a staple among Irish girl names and sounds roughly ro SHEEN, which you will be explaining for the rest of your life.
- Origin: Irish, Gaelic
- Meaning: Little Rose
- Pronunciation: Roh-SHEEN
- Variations: Rosaleen, Rosheen
- Namesakes: Róisín Ingle, a journalist for the Sunday Tribune and the Irish Times. Roisin McGettigan, an Irish runner who competed in the 2008 Olympic Games.
- Popularity: Roisin reached its best rank ever in 2025 at #2,716 for U.S. girls, with 64 births, up 81% on the previous decade.
Rosemary
Rosemary has nothing to do with roses. It comes from the Latin ros marinus, dew of the sea, for the shrub that grows on Mediterranean cliffs within reach of the spray. It has stood for remembrance since long before Ophelia said so, and the herb was carried at both weddings and funerals for exactly that reason. It also reads as Rose plus Mary, which gives it a second, entirely different set of associations. British chef Rosemary Shrager is the bearer most people will have met, fittingly enough for a herb name.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Dew of the sea
- Pronunciation: Rowz-MAER-iy
- Variations: Rosemari, Rosemarie
- Namesakes: Rosemary Dempsey, the Vice President for Action of The National Organization of Women. Rosemary Shrager, a British chef and TV presenter for the series Ladette to Lady.
- Popularity: Rosemary ranked #251 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 1,222 births, roughly double the previous decade; its best year was 1946 at #74.
Rowan
Rowan is the mountain ash, the small tree that carries clusters of orange-red berries into the winter and was planted at Scottish and Irish doorways to keep bad luck out. The Gaelic ruadhan means little red one, which covers both the berries and a redheaded child. In Arabic, Rawan is a separate name entirely, read as a river of paradise. U.S. records show girls make up close to a third of all Rowans, with boys the majority.
- Origin: Scottish
- Meaning: Rowan tree
- Pronunciation: ROW-ahn
- Variations: Roan, Rowanne
- Namesakes: Rowan Atkinson, an English actor known for the TV series Mr. Bean (1990 to 1995). Rowan Barrett, a Canadian basketball player and the top scorer in the 2002 Israel Basketball Premier League.
- Popularity: Rowan reached its best rank ever in 2025 at #59 for U.S. boys, with 5,212 births, and #249 for girls with 1,240. Across all births on record, about three in ten Rowans are girls.
Samir
Samir carries two languages at once. In Sanskrit it is the moving air, a breeze; in Arabic it is the companion who keeps you talking late into the night, from samar, evening conversation. Both readings are gentle, and the second is one of the warmest ideas any name on this list is built on. It is a strong, straightforward choice that travels across the Middle East, South Asia and the Balkans. Sam does the work if a short form is wanted.
- Origin: Sanskrit, Arabic
- Meaning: gentle breeze
- Pronunciation: SAA-Mihr
- Variations: Samer
- Namesakes: Samir Fazlagić, a Bosnian-Norweigan footballer who played for Norway’s national under-21 football team. Samir Khader, an Iraqi journalist and the Head of Programs and Current Affairs at Sky News Arabia.
- Popularity: Samir ranked #643 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 434 births, about half again above the previous decade; its best rank was #586 in 2023.
Soleil
Soleil is the French word for sun, from the Latin sol, and it keeps the whole warmth of the word without any of the mythology other sun names drag along. It has been familiar in America since Soleil Moon Frye played Punky Brewster in the 1980s. Say it roughly so LAY, expect to repeat that a few times, and enjoy the fact that Sunny writes its own nickname.
- Origin: French
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: Sow-LEY
- Variations: Solae, Solay
- Namesakes: Soleil Moon Frye, an American actress known for the NBC sitcom Punky Brewster.
- Popularity: Soleil reached its best rank ever in 2025 at #758 for U.S. girls, with 358 births, up 46% on the previous decade.
Summer
Summer is one of the plainest word names in English and one of the oldest, from a root English shares with the Sanskrit word for season and half-year. It came into use as a first name with the hippie names of the late 1960s and has stayed put ever since, which very few of that batch managed. It is warm without being sweet, and in current U.S. records it goes to girls almost without exception. If the season matters to you, it is hard to beat for directness.
- Origin: Old English
- Meaning: Summer season
- Pronunciation: SAHM-Mehr
- Variations: Sumer, Summar
- Namesakes: Summer Meng, a Taiwanese actress known for the TV series Sweet Sweet Bodyguard (2012). Summer Mortimer, a Canadian-Dutch para swimmer who competed with the Netherlands national paralympic team.
- Popularity: Summer ranked #152 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 1,973 births, level with the previous decade; its best year was 1977 at #119.
Suvi
Suvi is the Finnish word for summer, and Finnish nature names are ordinary vocabulary rather than borrowings, so it lands the same way Summer does in English. There is a separate Sanskrit thread giving it a similar sense, which is coincidence rather than connection. Two syllables, phonetic spelling, and almost nobody in America has it.
- Origin: Finnish
- Meaning: Summer
- Pronunciation: SUU-Viy
- Variations: Suuvi
- Namesakes: Suvi Riggs, a Finnish fashion model who won the 2005 Mallikoulu competition. Suvi Suresh (born Swetha Suresh), an Indian singer and member of the band S5.
- Popularity: Suvi ranked #10,821 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 9 births; it first appears in the data in 2007 and its best rank so far was #6,956 in 2022.
Talia
Talia is built from the Hebrew tal, dew, and yah, the divine name, so it reads as dew from heaven, one of the more precise weather names available. Hebrew has a whole family of these dew names, which tells you something about how much rain matters in that part of the world. There is a separate Italian Talia from the Greek muse Thalia, which is why the name feels at home in two very different places. Actress Talia Shire is the bearer most people know. It shortens easily to Tal and pairs comfortably with a one-syllable sibling name.
- Origin: Hebrew
- Meaning: Dew from God
- Pronunciation: TAAL-Yaa
- Variations: Talya
- Namesakes: Talia Shire, an American actress known for The Godfather films. Talia Castellano, an American internet personality and the first honorary CoverGirl in 2012.
- Popularity: Talia ranked #265 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 1,180 births, close to its best rank of #264 in 2023; births are up about a third on the previous decade.
Terra
Gaia’s Roman counterpart is Terra, the Latin earth, both the soil and the planet, and a minor goddess before it was anything else. English kept the word in terrain, territory, terrace and terra firma, the dry land a sailor gets back to. The two names sit on this list as translations of each other. Nobody has to be told how to say it, which is not true of Gaia. A solid, grounded pick that peaked around 1980 and has been quietly available ever since.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Earth
- Pronunciation: TEYR-aa
- Variations: Tera
- Namesakes: Terra Deva, an American singer and former member of The Disney Channel’s Mickey Mouse Club. Terra Odmark, a reality TV personality known for the Little Women: LA series.
- Popularity: Terra ranked #2,434 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 74 births, level with the previous decade; its best year was 1980 at #379.
Thora
Old Norse Thor kept the weather and the giants in order, and Thora is his name in the feminine. Thunder names are rare in English and this is the most usable one, since it is short, spells itself and has no awkward consonants. Actress Thora Birch has carried it in American film since the 1990s. It is an antique name in the U.S. rather than a new one, which is a good sign for wearability.
- Origin: Nordic
- Meaning: Thunder goddess
- Pronunciation: THAOER-aa
- Variations: Tora
- Namesakes: Thora Birch, an American actress best known for the film American Beauty (1999). Thora Helga, an Icelandic actress, appearing in Ragnar Bragason’s film Metalhead.
- Popularity: Thora ranked #6,093 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 20 births, more than twice the previous decade; its best year was 1913 at #693.
Trevor
Trevor is Welsh, from tref, a homestead or settlement, and mawr, big, so it names a large farm rather than a wild place. That puts it at the settled end of the nature list, closer to Hadley and Ainsley than to Wolf or River. It was everywhere in the 1990s and has dropped steeply since, which means it is heading back toward distinctive. Comedian Trevor Noah keeps it in front of a new audience.
- Origin: Welsh
- Meaning: Large settlement
- Pronunciation: TREH-Vahr
- Variations: Trevour, Trevar
- Namesakes: Trevor Noah, a South African comedian and host of The Daily Show. Trevor Berbick, a Jamaican boxer who won the WBC heavyweight title in 1986.
- Popularity: Trevor ranked #680 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 400 births, a long way from its 1994 high of #58; the last ten years of births ran about 65% below the ten before.
Valerian
Valerian is the tall, pale-flowered plant whose root has been used as a sleep remedy since the Greeks, and which cats respond to much as they do to catnip. The Latin root valere means to be strong or well, so the name and the herb both point at health. A third-century Roman emperor carried it, and so did Ukrainian novelist Valerian Pidmohylny. Births are more than three times the previous decade, though at 23 a year it is still all but unheard of.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Sedating plant
- Pronunciation: Vah-LEH-riy-Ahn
- Variations: Valerien
- Namesakes: Valerian Netedu, a Romanian ice hockey player with the Romania men’s national ice hockey team at the 1976 Winter Olympics. Valerian Pidmohylny, a Ukrainian modernist writer most known for the novel Misto (The City).
- Popularity: Valerian ranked #4,526 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 23 births, more than three times the previous decade; its best year was 1918 at #1,821.
Vana
Vana turns up in Finnish folklore as a figure in the natural world, and in Sanskrit vana is the ordinary word for forest, which is the reading that earns it a place here. It is also used as a short form of Greek Vasiliki, as Miss Greece 1984 Vana Barba shows. Four letters, two syllables, and no version of it is hard to say.
- Origin: Finnish
- Meaning: Forest (Sanskrit)
- Pronunciation: VAE-NNaa
- Variations: Vanna
- Namesakes: Vana Barba (born Vasiliki Barba), a Greek model and winner of Miss Greece in 1984.
- Popularity: Vana ranked #8,325 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 13 births; its best year was 1948 at #2,122.
Varsha
Varsha is the Sanskrit word for rain, and it also names the monsoon season in the Hindu calendar, the six weeks that decide the year for most of the subcontinent. Calling a daughter Varsha is closer to naming her Harvest than naming her Rain, given what the rains mean there. Two syllables, and the sh does exactly what it looks like.
- Origin: Hindi
- Meaning: Rain
- Pronunciation: VAHR-Shaa
- Variations: Varshah
- Namesakes: Varsha Bhosle, an Indian journalist who wrote columns for The Sunday Observer from 1994 to 1998. Varsha Gautham, an Indian sailor and bronze medalist at the 2014 Asian Games.
- Popularity: Varsha is the rarest of the names on this list that the federal data still ranks, at #14,805 for U.S. girls in 2025, roughly one girl in every 250,000 births. Births are down 61% on the previous decade.
Venus
Venus was the Roman goddess of love, beauty and gardens in bloom, and her name became the brightest object in our sky after the sun and moon. Botanists borrowed it for the Venus flytrap and marine biologists for the Venus flower basket, a glass sponge built of woven silica that sits on the deep sea floor. A pair of shrimp usually lives sealed inside that sponge for life, which is a strange thing to find sitting behind a name. Venus Williams has made it a name people associate with hard work rather than only with beauty. Bold, and it will always get a reaction.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Heavenly plant
- Pronunciation: VIY-Nahs
- Variations: Venis, Venys
- Namesakes: Venus Williams, an American tennis player who’s won seven Grand Slam singles titles. Venus Terzo, a Canadian actress known for the TV series Da Vinci’s Inquest.
- Popularity: Venus ranked #2,001 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 96 births, about 79% above the previous decade; its best year was 1959 at #570.
Vernon
Vernon comes from a Gaulish root, vern, the alder tree, and it arrived in England as a Norman place name. Alders grow with their feet in water and fix nitrogen in poor soil, so they are the tree that repairs a riverbank. That is a lot of quiet usefulness behind an old-fashioned name. Vern is the short form, and Elvis Presley’s father was the best known bearer.
- Origin: Germanic
- Meaning: Place of alder trees
- Pronunciation: VERN-ahn
- Variations: Vernen, Vernin
- Namesakes: Vernon Coaker, a British Member of Parliament (MP) from 1997 to 2019. Vernon Presley, the father of American rock legend Elvis Presley.
- Popularity: Vernon ranked #1,387 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 133 births, level with the previous decade; its best year was 1919 at #65.
Vesna
Vesna is the ordinary word for spring across the Slavic languages and the name of the goddess who was said to bring it. As a given name it is a long-standing traditional choice in Slavic-speaking countries, and almost unknown in America, which is the whole appeal. Two syllables, spelled the way it sounds, and it means the best season of the year.
- Origin: Slavic
- Meaning: Spring
- Pronunciation: VEZ-Naa
- Variations: Vesnah, Vezna
- Namesakes: Vesna Krmpotic, a Croatian writer most famous for the novel Brdo iznad oblaka (A Hill Above the Clouds, 1987). Vesna Rožič, a Slovenian chess player and a FIDE Woman International Master.
- Popularity: Vesna last appears in U.S. data in 2024, at #17,536 with 5 girls; its best year was 1968 at #4,217.
Willow
Willow comes from the Old English welig, and the tree is the one that bends in a flood instead of breaking, which is why it stands for resilience rather than strength. Willow bark gave us salicin, the compound aspirin was developed from, so the tree has a genuine claim on modern medicine. A cut willow stake pushed into wet ground will simply grow, which is about as good a symbol for a new baby as a tree can offer. It is now firmly top 50, so expect company.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Willow tree
- Pronunciation: WIHL-ow
- Variations: Willough, Wyllow
- Namesakes: Willow Bay (born Kristine Bay), an American journalist and senior editor for the Huffington Post. Willow Johnson, a Canadian voice actress, known for the Ranma ½ series
- Popularity: Willow ranked #44 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 4,763 births, just off its best rank of #37 in 2022. Births over the last ten years ran more than three times the ten before.
Winter
Winter comes from the Germanic root usually traced to the sense of wet, for the season of rain and snow rather than of cold as such. Old English counted a person’s age in winters rather than years, which is why the word carries more weight than the other three seasons. It reads crisp rather than bleak and works on a boy or a girl. December and January babies wear it most literally, though it works for any birth month.
- Origin: Germanic
- Meaning: Winter season
- Pronunciation: WIHNT-er
- Variations: Wintar, Wintr
- Namesakes: Winter Zoli, an American actress known for the FX TV series Sons of Anarchy. Winter Ramos, an American author known for her hip hop exposé Game Over: My Love for Hip-Hop.
- Popularity: Winter ranked #426 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 732 births and #1,990 for boys with 77; births are up 186% on the previous decade.
Wolf
Wolf is the plain German and English word, and it also shortens a whole family of German names built on it, Wolfgang, Wolfram and Wolfhard among them. Wolves were hunted out of most of Europe and much of America and have been returning for thirty years, which has made the animal a symbol of recovery as much as of wildness. A wolf pack is usually just a family: two parents and their young of the last two or three years. Journalist Wolf Blitzer has been on American television with it since 1990. One syllable, entirely unambiguous, and about as strong as a nature name gets.
- Origin: Germanic
- Meaning: Wolf animal
- Pronunciation: WUHLF
- Variations: Wolfe, Wolff
- Namesakes: Wolf Blitzer, an American TV news anchor with CNN since 1990. Wolf Waldemar Karni, a Finnish football referee who officiated at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.
- Popularity: Wolf ranked #1,902 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 83 births, nearly three times the previous decade; its best rank was #1,605 in 2021.
Wren
Old English called the bird wrenna, and Wren is that word carried straight over to a bird that is tiny, brown and startlingly loud, with a song that carries further than birds ten times its size. It cocks its tail straight up, nests in walls and hedges, and is a common European bird and one of its smallest. Short, soft, and used for both, it needs no nickname to soften it further.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Small bird
- Pronunciation: REHN
- Variations: Wrene, Wrenn
- Namesakes: Wren Blackberry, an American children’s writer known for the Métrico Mesh book series. Wren Blair, a Canadian ice hockey coach, scout, and executive in the National Hockey League.
- Popularity: Wren ranked #231 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 1,331 births and #1,090 for boys with 198. Births over the last ten years ran more than five times the ten before.
Wyatt
Wyatt comes from the Norman personal name Guyot, and behind that the Germanic widu, wood, joined to a root meaning brave or hardy. So it is a woodland name and a warrior name at the same time, which is an unusual pairing. Wyatt Earp supplied the Western association that most Americans hear first. It has been in the top 50 for years, so it is a familiar choice rather than a discovery.
- Origin: English
- Meaning: From wood
- Pronunciation: WEY-aet
- Variations: Wyatte, Wyett, Wytt
- Namesakes: Wyatt Earp, an American cowboy in the Wild West who took part in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Wyatt Miller, an American football player for the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League.
- Popularity: Wyatt ranked #38 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 6,480 births, just off its best rank of #25 in 2017, and has held roughly steady over the last decade.
Yael
Yael is the Hebrew for ibex, the wild goat that lives on the cliffs above the Dead Sea and can cross a rock face that would stop anything else. In the Book of Judges, Yael is the woman who ends Sisera’s campaign with a tent peg, so the name is not remotely delicate. It has a second reading as strength of God. Israeli ibex still come down to drink at the oasis of Ein Gedi. Two seconds to teach anyone, and girls make up close to half of the Yaels on record.
- Origin: Hebrew
- Meaning: Mountain goat
- Pronunciation: Yaa-EHL
- Variations: Jael
- Namesakes: Yael Rom (born Yael Finkelstein), one of the first female pilots in the Israeli Air Force. Yael German, an Israeli politician and mayor of Herzliya between 1998 and 2013.
- Popularity: Yael ranked #818 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 304 births and #1,642 for girls with 127, and across all births on record it is close to an even split. Its best rank was #776 in 2023.
Zephyr
Zephyrus was the Greek god of the west wind, the mild one that arrives with spring, and English kept the word as zephyr for any gentle breeze. Homer gives Achilles horses sired by Zephyrus, which is a good detail to have behind such a soft-sounding name. Zephyr Wright cooked for Lyndon Johnson for nearly thirty years. Unisex, uncommon, and impossible to confuse with anything else.
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: West wind
- Pronunciation: ZEHF-ihr
- Variations: Zefir
- Namesakes: Zephyr Wright, an African American personal chef for President Lyndon Johnson from 1942 until 1969. Zephyr (born Andrew Witten), an American graffiti artist in New York since 1975.
- Popularity: Zephyr ranked #1,203 for U.S. boys in 2025 with 169 births and #4,755 for girls with 29. Births over the last ten years ran more than twice the ten before.
Zinnia
The zinnia is the daisy relative that flowers in blocks of flat, saturated color all through the heat of late summer, and butterflies work it harder than almost any other bedding plant. It was named for the German botanist Johann Gottfried Zinn. Zinnias were the first flowering crop grown and bloomed aboard the International Space Station (2), which is a fair claim to fame for a garden annual and a good story to hand a child called Zin.
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Zinn’s flower
- Pronunciation: ZIHN-iy-Ah
- Variations: Ziniah, Zinnya
- Namesakes: Zinnia Jones, an American trans researcher, and creator of the Gender Analysis web series on HuffPost.
- Popularity: Zinnia reached its best rank ever in 2025 at #1,290 for U.S. girls, with 174 births, nearly three times the previous decade.
Zira
Zira is read as moonlight, and it is one of the shorter African girl names now turning up in U.S. records. Four letters, two syllables, and a meaning that sits comfortably beside Luna and Eira on this list without repeating either of them. It is rare enough that she will almost certainly be the only one.
- Origin: Swahili
- Meaning: Moonlight
- Pronunciation: Ziy-Raa
- Variations: Zirah, Zirra
- Popularity: Zira ranked #6,835 for U.S. girls in 2025 with 17 births, more than twice the previous decade; its best rank was #5,749 in 2023.
