100 Old-Fashioned Girl Names, From Adah to Zula

An old-fashioned girl name used to be a guarantee that nobody else in the class would have it. That is changing fast. Elsie, Eliza and Mabel are all back inside the U.S. top 250, while Zillah has not charted since 1893.

Below are 100 vintage names for girls, every one of them in real use when your great-grandmother was born. Each entry gives the origin, meaning, pronunciation and style, plus where the name stands in the U.S. rankings today when the record shows one.

Some are ready to use tomorrow. Others have been quietly out of print for a century, which may be exactly what you are after.

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Popularity at a Glance

The most popular names on this list in the United States, 1965 to 2025: Lillian, Eliza, Elsie, Mabel and Vera.

100 Old-Fashioned Names for Girls

All 100 old-fashioned girl names below run from ready for revival to comfortably retired, with the origin, meaning and pronunciation for each, plus its current U.S. ranking where one exists. Agnes shows the full arc: it was the 37th most popular U.S. girl name in 1899 and made its final top-1,000 appearance at #988 in 1972 ⁽¹⁾.

1. Adah

• Origin: Biblical, from Hebrew
• Meaning: Adornment, ornament
• Pronunciation: AY-duh
• Popularity: #1,818 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (110 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 49% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Adah comes from the Hebrew root ada and means adornment or ornament. It belongs to two women in Genesis, the wife of Lamech and one of the wives of Esau, which makes it one of the older girl names still in circulation. Ada is the same name with a softer landing, and it is the version most American parents recognize.

The most quotable Adah is Adah Isaacs Menken, the American actress who made 1860s audiences gasp in the melodrama Mazeppa by riding onstage strapped to a horse in a flesh-colored bodystocking. Adah has not appeared in the U.S. top 1,000 since 1917, so a girl named Adah today would almost certainly be the only one in her grade.

2. Agatha

• Origin: English, from Ancient Greek
• Meaning: Good
• Pronunciation: AG-uh-thuh
• Namesakes: Saint Agatha of Sicily, Agatha Christie
• Popularity: #1,703 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (120 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 117% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Agatha is the Latinized form of a Greek name built on agathos, meaning good. A 3rd century Sicilian martyr carried it first, and the name traveled through the church into medieval England.

Then came the other Agatha. Agatha Christie sold more novels than almost anyone in publishing history, and in December 1926 she staged the strangest chapter of her own life by vanishing for eleven days. Her car turned up abandoned near a chalk pit, the search made front pages across Britain, and she was eventually found checked into a Harrogate hotel under another woman’s surname. She never explained.

The name has been off the U.S. top 1,000 since 1945. Aggie is the ready-made short form.

3. Agnes

• Origin: English, from Ancient Greek
• Meaning: Chaste, pure
• Pronunciation: AG-nis
• Namesakes: Saint Agnes of Rome, Agnes Moorehead
• Popularity: #1,016 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (246 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 121% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Latin scribes reshaped the Greek Hagne, from hagnos, meaning chaste, into Agnes. Early Christians heard an echo of the Latin agnus, or lamb, which is why Saint Agnes of Rome is nearly always painted holding one.

The trajectory is dramatic. Agnes ranked 37th among American girl names in 1899, then slid for eight decades and dropped off the top 1,000 entirely after 1972. Its return is already underway in Britain and Scandinavia, and the sound sits close to Alice and Iris, so American parents may not have heard the last of it.

4. Alma

• Origin: English, Spanish, Latin
• Meaning: Nourishing; soul
• Pronunciation: AL-muh
• Popularity: #449 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (689 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 64% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The English name Alma was rare until the Battle of the Alma in 1854, an early Crimean War victory that sent parents across Britain naming daughters after the river. The word itself most likely traces to Latin almus, meaning nourishing.

Alma also means soul in Spanish, which gives it a second life across Latin America and the American Southwest, and Hebrew has its own separate almah, a young woman. Three languages, three meanings, one very easy spelling.

It is the rare name on this list that never really left: Alma ranked #449 in the U.S. in 2025.

5. Arabella

• Origin: Medieval Scottish
• Meaning: Yielding to prayer
• Pronunciation: ar-uh-BEL-uh
• Popularity: #213 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (1,423 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 61% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Arabella is a medieval Scottish name, most likely a reshaping of Annabel that later got attached to the Latin orabilis, meaning yielding to prayer. The often-repeated Catalan reading of ara bella, now beautiful, is folk etymology rather than the documented line.

The family tree is unusually crowded. Amabel, Annabella, Mabel and even the cosmetics name Maybelline all sit on branches near it, and the Late Roman boy’s name Amabilis, meaning lovable, feeds the same root.

Arabella is one of the strongest revivals on this list, ranking #213 in the U.S. in 2025. Bella, Belle and Ara all fall out of it naturally.

6. Arie

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Lion
• Pronunciation: AR-ee

Arie is a Hebrew name meaning lion, sharing its root with Ari and Ariel. It reads as gender-neutral in the U.S. and is used for girls and boys in roughly equal measure.

Lion names show up in almost every naming tradition, which gives Arie plenty of cousins. Ariel, Leona and Leontine cover the feminine side, while Leon, Leonard and Singh handle the masculine. Two syllables, no nickname required.

7. Augusta

• Origin: Ancient Roman
• Meaning: Great, venerable
• Pronunciation: aw-GUS-tuh
• Popularity: #3,215 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (49 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 26% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The title the Roman senate handed the first emperor to mark him as venerable was Augustus, and Augusta is its feminine form. King George III revived it in Britain when he gave the name to his second daughter in 1768, which is how a Roman honorific turned into a Georgian nursery staple.

American maps are covered in it. Augusta is the capital of Maine, the golf capital of Georgia, and a town name in more than twenty states. The name itself has been off the U.S. top 1,000 since 1944, though Gussie and Gus are waiting if the full version feels heavy.

8. Aurelia

• Origin: Ancient Roman
• Meaning: Golden
• Pronunciation: aw-REEL-yuh
• Popularity: #290 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (1,056 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 197% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

An Ancient Roman name, Aurelia is the feminine form of Aurelius and comes from aureus, gold. Julius Caesar’s mother was an Aurelia, and the name stayed in steady use across the Roman world for centuries.

Parents who love Aurora but want something a shade less common should look here first. Aurelia ranked #290 in the U.S. in 2025, several hundred places behind Aurora, with the same golden-hour sound and a shorter path to Ria, Lia or Rilla.

9. Bertha

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Bright, famous
• Pronunciation: BUR-thuh
• Popularity: #4,569 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (30 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 25% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Bertha began as a short form of longer Germanic names built on a root meaning bright, and it carried real weight in early Europe: a Frankish princess who married the king of Kent, and Bertrada, the mother of Charlemagne. Southern Germanic legend also has a Perchta or Berchta, a goddess associated with animals and spinning.

Bertha was one of the most common girl names in America in the 1880s, then it fell steadily and left the top 1,000 after 1985. Birdie, its listed English diminutive, has had a much easier time of it lately and offers a way in for parents who like the history but not the full name.

10. Beryl

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Pale green gemstone
• Pronunciation: BER-il
• Popularity: #11,101 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (8 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, unchanged over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Beryl joined the Victorian rush of gemstone names in the 19th century, alongside Ruby, Opal and Pearl. The word itself reached English from Greek beryllos and, further back, Sanskrit.

Here is the part most people miss: emerald is beryl. So is aquamarine, and so is morganite. Pure beryl is colorless, and trace elements do all the work, which means Beryl quietly contains Esmeralda, Emerald and Marine as thematic cousins. It last ranked in the U.S. in 1957, so it is wide open.

11. Beulah

• Origin: Biblical, from Hebrew
• Meaning: Married
• Pronunciation: BYOO-luh
• Popularity: #5,949 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (20 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 104% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Beulah means married in Hebrew, and Isaiah 62:4 applies it to the land of Israel itself. Pilgrim’s Progress turned it into a place, the Land of Beulah, which is where the hymn-book version of the name comes from.

The best real-life bearer is Beulah Louise Henry, an inventor the Patent Office Society named America’s leading woman inventor in 1937. She held dozens of patents, including a bobbinless sewing machine, a typewriter attachment that made multiple copies without carbon paper, and a vacuum ice cream freezer. The name left the U.S. top 1,000 after 1959.

12. Cecelia

• Origin: English, from Latin
• Meaning: Blind
• Pronunciation: suh-SEEL-yuh
• Namesakes: Saint Cecilia, patron saint of music
• Popularity: #529 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (569 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 36% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Cecelia is a variant spelling of Cecilia, which grew out of the Roman family name Caecilius and the Latin caecus, blind. That grim literal meaning has never held the name back, because the association everyone actually carries is music.

Saint Cecilia was a Roman noblewoman who, according to her legend, sang to God in her heart during her own wedding, refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods and was executed along with her husband. She became the patron saint of music and musicians, and her feast day still fills concert programs every November.

Cecilia ranked #108 in the U.S. in 2025. The Cecelia spelling is the quieter of the two, and Cece, Celia and Sissy come free with either.

13. Clyde

• Origin: Scottish, from a river name
• Meaning: Uncertain
• Pronunciation: KLIED
• Popularity: #743 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (350 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 115% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Clyde comes from the River Clyde in Scotland, from a Cumbric name of uncertain meaning. It became a common American given name in the mid 19th century, possibly in honor of Colin Campbell, made Baron Clyde in 1858.

Before the 20th century the line between girls’ and boys’ names was thinner than we now assume, and daughters were regularly given a father’s name outright. Clyde is one of the results: it charted for American girls into the early 1930s, peaking at #998 in 1932, and still ranks for boys at #742 in 2025. Parents drawn to Frankie, Charlie and Sonny will recognize the sound.

14. Constance

• Origin: English, from Latin
• Meaning: Steadfast, constant
• Pronunciation: KAHN-stuhns
• Popularity: #1,501 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (142 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 12% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Constance is the medieval English form of the Latin Constantia, and the Normans brought it to England with a daughter of William the Conqueror. It reads as a virtue name now, which is why it kept turning up in Puritan households centuries later.

Constance Hopkins was 14 when she boarded the Mayflower in 1620 with her father Stephen, her brother, her stepmother and her newborn half-brother, born at sea and named Oceanus. She survived the first winter, married Nicholas Snow, and left behind a family tree so large that a remarkable number of Americans can trace a line back to her.

The name slipped off the U.S. top 1,000 after 1999, though Connie has never fully disappeared.

15. Cornelia

• Origin: Ancient Roman
• Meaning: Horn
• Pronunciation: kor-NEEL-yuh
• Popularity: #3,138 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (51 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 85% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Roman families carried the name Cornelius, usually traced to cornu, horn, and Cornelia is its feminine form. Its reputation rests almost entirely on one woman: Cornelia Scipionis Africana, daughter of the general who beat Hannibal and mother of the reforming Gracchi brothers. Widowed young, she turned down a marriage proposal from an Egyptian king to raise her children herself, and Romans afterward treated her as the model of what a Roman mother should be.

The 18th century revived the name on both sides of the Atlantic. It last ranked in the U.S. top 1,000 in 1966, and Cora, Nell and Corrie all live inside it.

16. Dahlia

• Origin: English, from a flower name
• Meaning: Dahl’s flower
• Pronunciation: DAL-yuh
• Popularity: #215 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (1,420 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 114% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Dahlia takes its name from the flower, which botanists named for the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl. His surname means valley in the North Germanic languages, so the name quietly carries two nature meanings at once.

Dahlia has aged better than most names on this list. It ranked #215 in the U.S. in 2025 and sits comfortably beside Lila, Delilah and Amelia without sounding like any of them. Dolly and Dahl are both available if you want something shorter for the playground.

17. Delia

• Origin: Greek Mythology
• Meaning: Of Delos
• Pronunciation: DEEL-yuh
• Popularity: #1,561 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (135 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 26% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Delia means of Delos in Greek and served as an epithet for Artemis, who was born on that island alongside her twin Apollo. English poets of the 16th and 17th centuries adopted it as a pastoral name for an idealized woman, which is how it entered ordinary use.

There is a second route in. Delia also works as a short form of Adelia, meaning noble, and of Bedelia, a diminutive of the Irish girl’s name Bridget. It fell off the U.S. top 1,000 after 2007, which is recent enough that it still sounds usable rather than antique.

18. Docia

• Origin: English, from Greek
• Meaning: Giving to God
• Pronunciation: DOH-shuh

Docia is a worn-down short form of Theodosia, which joins the Greek elements for god and giving. American record keepers in the 1800s treated it as a name in its own right rather than a nickname.

It is genuinely rare now, well outside the current U.S. rankings, which makes it about as uncommon as an old-fashioned girl name gets.

19. Dolly

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Gift of God
• Pronunciation: DAHL-ee
• Popularity: #1,781 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (113 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 330% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Dolly started as a diminutive of Dorothy, and the everyday English word doll, meaning the toy, actually derives from the nickname rather than the other way round. It has also picked up duty as a short form of Dolores.

Two Dollys anchor it now. Dolly Parton has kept the name in warm circulation for six decades, and Dolly the sheep, born in July 1996 at the Roslin Institute, was the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell, grown from a cell taken from a ewe’s mammary gland. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1971.

20. Dorcas

• Origin: Biblical, from Greek
• Meaning: Gazelle
• Pronunciation: DOR-kus
• Popularity: #4,002 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (36 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 32% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Dorcas comes from the Greek dorkas, gazelle, and is the New Testament’s Greek rendering of the Aramaic name Tabitha. In Acts 9, Dorcas is the seamstress of Joppa known for making clothes for widows.

It also served as a clerical substitute for Dorothy in early American records, which is how four-year-old Dorothy Good ended up named Dorcas Good on her 1692 Salem arrest warrant, the youngest person jailed in the witch trials. The name is now most widely used in English-speaking Africa, and it last ranked in the U.S. in 1955.

21. Doris

• Origin: Ancient Greek
• Meaning: Dorian woman
• Pronunciation: DOR-is
• Namesakes: Doris Day, Doris Lessing
• Popularity: #2,909 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (58 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 9% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Doris means Dorian woman, after the Greek tribe that settled the Peloponnese from around the 12th century BC. In mythology, Doris is a sea nymph, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, and mother of the fifty Nereids. She is associated with the rich fishing grounds where a river’s fresh water meets the sea.

English speakers only took the name up in the 19th century, and the 20th made it a star: Doris Day at the box office and Doris Lessing at the Nobel podium. It left the U.S. top 1,000 after 1992, which places it right in the dead zone that names usually pass through about twenty years before a comeback.

22. Drusilla

• Origin: Ancient Roman
• Meaning: From the Roman family name Drusus
• Pronunciation: droo-SIL-uh
• Popularity: #11,192 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (8 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 35% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Roman family name Drusus gave rise to the feminine diminutive Drusilla. The traditional link to Greek drosos, dew, is a guess rather than a documented derivation, so treat any source that states it flatly with caution.

The best-known Drusilla is the one in Acts 24, the young Jewish wife of the governor Felix who sits in on Paul’s hearing. Later centuries gave the name a gothic tint, helped along by Victorian novels and, more recently, by television vampires. It has not ranked in the U.S. since 1914. Dru is the obvious short form.

23. Edith

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Fortune in battle
• Pronunciation: EE-dith
• Popularity: #499 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (595 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 68% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Edith comes from the Old English Eadgyth, joining ead, wealth or fortune, with guth, battle. Anglo-Saxon royalty used it heavily, including a queen consort and an abbess saint, and then it faded after the 15th century.

The Victorians dug it back out along with the rest of the medieval revival, which is exactly why it reads as an old-fashioned girl name today. It is also one of the genuine successes on this list: Edith ranked #499 in the U.S. in 2025 and is climbing, with Edie doing most of the heavy lifting.

24. Edna

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Pleasure, delight
• Pronunciation: ED-nuh
• Popularity: #2,463 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (72 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 4% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Edna means pleasure in Hebrew, from the root adan, to delight, and it shares that root with Eden. It appears in the Book of Tobit as the wife of Raguel.

A separate Irish thread runs alongside it: Edna also served as an Anglicization of Eithne, an Irish name meaning kernel. Two unrelated names, one spelling, which is common enough in the 19th century record. Edna left the U.S. top 1,000 after 1991.

25. Effie

• Origin: English, Scottish
• Meaning: Well spoken
• Pronunciation: EF-ee
• Popularity: #2,245 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (82 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 122% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Euphemia, from Greek roots meaning to speak well or to use words of good omen, shortens down to Effie. In Scotland it did double duty as the Anglicized form of the Gaelic Scottish girl’s name Oighrig, which has nothing to do with Greek at all.

Nickname-names are having a long moment, and Effie fits the pattern that has already lifted Sadie, Millie and Nellie. It last ranked in the U.S. in 1959, so it is currently free.

26. Eliza

• Origin: English
• Meaning: My God is an oath
• Pronunciation: ee-LIE-zuh
• Namesakes: Eliza Doolittle, Eliza Schuyler Hamilton
• Popularity: #115 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (2,370 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 88% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Eliza is the short form of Elizabeth that broke free and became a name in its own right. George Bernard Shaw put it on every stage in the English-speaking world with Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion in 1913, and My Fair Lady did it again in 1956.

Broadway repeated the trick in 2015. Hamilton gave Eliza Schuyler Hamilton the last word of the show, and American parents responded: Eliza ranked #115 in the U.S. in 2025, its strongest showing in well over a century.

27. Elnora

• Origin: English
• Meaning: From the name Eleanor
• Pronunciation: el-NOR-uh

Elnora is a 19th century American variant of Eleanor, spelled the way people actually said it. Behind the Name lists it among Eleanor’s English variants, alongside Elenora and Elinor.

Elnora Babcock put it in the historical record. From 1889 she organized for women’s suffrage in western New York, founded the Dunkirk Political Equality Club, and went on to run press work for the National American Woman Suffrage Association, essentially inventing the movement’s media operation. Eleanor itself ranked #12 in the U.S. in 2025, so Elnora is a way to honor the same name without joining the crowd.

28. Elsie

• Origin: English, Scottish
• Meaning: My God is an oath
• Pronunciation: EL-see
• Popularity: #123 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (2,236 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 164% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Elsie began as a Scottish diminutive of Elspeth, itself a form of Elizabeth, which traces back through the Greek Elisabet to the Hebrew girl’s name Elisheva.

It is one of the highest-ranking names on this entire list: #123 in the U.S. in 2025, and still climbing. That is the pattern for short vintage nicknames right now, and Elsie got there ahead of Effie, Nellie and Hattie.

29. Emmeline

• Origin: Old French, from Germanic
• Meaning: Unceasing, vigorous
• Pronunciation: EM-uh-line or EM-uh-leen
• Namesakes: Emmeline Pankhurst
• Popularity: #922 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (284 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 93% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Emmeline arrived in England with the Normans, from the Old French Emeline, a diminutive of Germanic names built on amal, meaning unceasing or vigorous. The same root sits under Amelia and Amalia.

Emmeline Pankhurst led the militant wing of the British suffrage movement and was jailed repeatedly for it, which gives the name a spine that its lace-trimmed sound does not advertise.

One warning: it is pronounced both EM-uh-line and EM-uh-leen, and you will spend your daughter’s life correcting whichever one you did not choose. It re-entered the U.S. top 1,000 at #922 in 2025.

30. Erma

• Origin: English, from Germanic
• Meaning: Whole, universal
• Pronunciation: UR-muh
• Namesakes: Erma Bombeck
• Popularity: #5,292 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (24 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 4% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Erma is a 19th century English variant of Irma, which goes back to the Germanic element irmin, meaning whole or universal. Irma came first; Erma most likely arose from clerks writing down what they heard.

Erma Bombeck is the reason anyone under 60 knows the name. Her syndicated column ran in hundreds of American papers for three decades and made suburban motherhood funny in print before anyone had a word for that. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1968.

31. Ernestine

• Origin: French, German, English
• Meaning: Serious, resolute
• Pronunciation: UR-nuh-steen
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 2021 at #14,018 (6 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since. Steady in the United States, down 11% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Ernest, from a Germanic word meaning seriousness or firmness of purpose, takes the feminine form Ernestine. It came into English through 18th century German royal families and stayed formal.

Ernestine Eckstein, born Ernestine Eppenger, was a rare figure who worked across two movements at once, picketing the White House with the Daughters of Bilitis in the mid 1960s and later organizing with Black Women Organized for Action. She used a chosen surname because being publicly out was dangerous where she lived. The name has been off the U.S. top 1,000 since 1972, though Ernie and Tina both come out of it easily.

32. Ethel

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Noble
• Pronunciation: ETH-ul
• Popularity: #4,211 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (34 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 98% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Ethel is a short form of the many Old English names built on aethele, noble, which makes it a relative of Adela, Adelaide, Alice and Heidi. It stood alone as a name from the 19th century revival onward.

It was a genuine giant, one of the most common American girl names of the 1890s and 1900s, and it has been off the top 1,000 since 1975. Of all the names here, this is the one most people picture when they hear old lady name, which is precisely the stage every revived name passes through.

33. Etta

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Home ruler
• Pronunciation: ET-uh
• Namesakes: Etta James
• Popularity: #930 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (281 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 150% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Etta is a short form of Henrietta and of anything else ending in -etta, which carries the meaning of Henry down into it: home ruler.

The famous Etta got there sideways. Etta James was born Jamesetta Hawkins and simply split her first name in two for the stage. At Last has kept the name in circulation ever since, and it is back in the U.S. top 1,000 at #928 in 2025.

34. Eugenia

• Origin: Ancient Greek
• Meaning: Well born
• Pronunciation: yoo-JEEN-yuh
• Popularity: #2,787 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (61 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 38% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Eugenia is the feminine form of Eugenius, from Greek eu, good, and genes, born. A semi-legendary 3rd century saint of this name is said to have escaped persecution by living as a man in a monastery.

The 20th century supplied a stranger bearer. Eugenia Smetisko, born in Austria-Hungary and naturalized in the United States in 1929, spent decades claiming to be Grand Duchess Anastasia, one of several women who did. The name left the U.S. top 1,000 after 1984, and Gena, Genie and Gigi all live inside it.

35. Eula

• Origin: English, from Greek
• Meaning: Sweetly speaking
• Pronunciation: YOO-luh
• Popularity: #15,634 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (5 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 100% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Eula is a short form of Eulalia, from Greek roots meaning to speak sweetly. It was most heavily used in the American South, where it often stood on its own without the longer name behind it.

Eula Hall called herself a hillbilly activist. She left school after eighth grade, and in 1973 she founded the Mud Creek Clinic in Floyd County, Kentucky, to treat coal miners and families with no insurance. When the building burned down in 1982 she ran the clinic from her front porch and a pay phone until it was rebuilt. It carries her name today. Eula last ranked in the U.S. in 1960.

36. Eunice

• Origin: Biblical, from Greek
• Meaning: Good victory
• Pronunciation: YOO-nis
• Popularity: #2,362 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (77 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 20% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Eunice joins the Greek eu, good, and nike, victory. In 2 Timothy she is Timothy’s mother, praised alongside his grandmother Lois, and the Puritans picked it up from there.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver used the name for something bigger. She started a day camp in her own backyard in 1962 for children with intellectual disabilities, and six years later that became the first Special Olympics at Soldier Field in Chicago. The name has been off the U.S. top 1,000 since 1995.

37. Euphemia

• Origin: Ancient Greek
• Meaning: Words of good omen
• Pronunciation: yoo-FEE-mee-uh
• Popularity: #6,186 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (19 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 106% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Euphemia comes from the Greek euphemeo, built from eu, good, and phemi, to speak, so the name literally means using words of good omen. Saint Euphemia was an early martyr at Chalcedon, and the name traveled through the Orthodox world before settling hard in Scotland.

It looks harder than it is. Say it yoo-FEE-mee-uh and you are done. Effie, Eppie and Phemie are the traditional short forms, so nobody has to use all five syllables at bedtime. Euphemia last ranked in the U.S. in 1903.

38. Florence

• Origin: English, from Latin
• Meaning: Flourishing, prosperous
• Pronunciation: FLOR-uns
• Namesakes: Florence Nightingale, Florence Griffith Joyner
• Popularity: #391 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (796 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 383% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Florence comes from the Latin Florentius and Florentia, from florens, flourishing. Florence Nightingale was named for the Italian city where she was born, and her fame turned a place name into a nursery standard across the Victorian world.

Florence Griffith Joyner, known as Flo-Jo, took it somewhere else entirely. Her 100m and 200m world records, both set in 1988, still stand nearly four decades later, and she ran in six-inch nails and one-legged track suits while doing it.

Florence ranked #391 in the U.S. in 2025 and is already common again in Britain. Flo, Florrie and Flossie are the listed diminutives.

39. Francine

• Origin: French
• Meaning: From France
• Pronunciation: fran-SEEN
• Popularity: #1,850 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (108 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 104% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

French speakers shrank Francoise, the feminine form of Francois, into Francine, and Francois itself means Frenchman. It crossed into English in the early 20th century and peaked mid-century.

It has since become a favorite name for fictional characters, which is its own kind of fame: a suburban mother in American Dad, a bossy monkey in Arthur, and a snooty ostrich neighbor in Animal Crossing. The name left the U.S. top 1,000 after 1987. Fran and Frankie are the natural short forms.

40. Gertrude

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Spear of strength
• Pronunciation: GUR-trood
• Namesakes: Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Ederle
• Popularity: #6,632 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (17 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 85% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Gertrude joins the Old German ger, spear, with drud, strength. Saint Gertrude of Nivelles carried it in the 7th century, and Shakespeare gave it to Hamlet’s mother.

Two 20th century Gertrudes are worth knowing. Gertrude Stein ran the most important salon in modernist Paris, and Gertrude Ederle swam the English Channel in 1926, beating the existing men’s record by nearly two hours.

It is a classic German girl’s name with real Victorian weight, and it last ranked in the U.S. in 1965. Be realistic about the playground: Trudy is the friendlier route in.

41. Gladys

• Origin: Welsh
• Meaning: Uncertain, possibly country
• Pronunciation: GLAD-is
• Namesakes: Gladys Knight
• Popularity: #3,224 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (49 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 39% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The meaning of the Welsh name Gladys is genuinely unsettled. It comes from the Old Welsh Gwladus, probably related to gwlad, country, and it also served as the Welsh form of Claudia.

What it does not mean is princess, despite what a lot of baby name lists claim, and it has no connection to the Latin gladiolus or to gladiator. Gladys Knight has carried it with more style than any etymology could. It slipped off the U.S. top 1,000 after 1999.

42. Gussie

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Great, venerable
• Pronunciation: GUS-ee
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 1991 at #9,639 (8 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.

Gussie is the standard English diminutive of Augusta, so it inherits that Roman honorific meaning venerable. In the 1880s and 1890s American families used it as a full legal name often enough that it turns up on its own in census records, and it was given to a small number of boys as well.

It sits in the same sound family as Millie, Nellie and Sadie, all of which have already come back. Gussie has not, which is either a warning or an opportunity depending on your temperament.

43. Hattie

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Home ruler
• Pronunciation: HAT-ee
• Namesakes: Hattie McDaniel
• Popularity: #334 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (923 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 162% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Shorten Harriet, the English form of Henriette, and you get Hattie, so the meaning traces back through Henry to home ruler.

Hattie McDaniel became the first Black performer to win an Academy Award, for Gone With the Wind in 1940. She was seated at a segregated table at the back of the Ambassador Hotel ballroom that night, and she had been barred from the film’s Atlanta premiere entirely because the theater was whites only.

The name is thoroughly back: #334 in the U.S. in 2025, and #153 in England and Wales the same year.

44. Henrietta

• Origin: English, from French
• Meaning: Home ruler
• Pronunciation: hen-ree-ET-uh
• Namesakes: Henrietta Lacks, Henrietta Swan Leavitt
• Popularity: #2,666 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (65 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 109% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Henrietta is the Latinate form of Henriette, brought to England by Henrietta Maria, the French wife of Charles I. It was also Anglicized as Harriet, which was initially the more popular of the two.

Two bearers changed science. Henrietta Swan Leavitt worked out the period-luminosity relationship in Cepheid variable stars in 1912, which is the yardstick astronomers still use to measure the universe. Henrietta Lacks never consented to anything: cells taken during a 1951 cancer biopsy at Johns Hopkins became HeLa, the first immortal human cell line, used in tens of thousands of studies including the polio vaccine, while her family learned about it two decades later.

The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1968. Etta, Hattie and Hettie all come out of it.

45. Hephzibah

• Origin: Biblical, from Hebrew
• Meaning: My delight is in her
• Pronunciation: HEF-zi-buh
• Popularity: #10,405 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (9 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 22% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Hephzibah is Hebrew for my delight is in her. In 2 Kings she is the wife of King Hezekiah and mother of Manasseh, and Isaiah 62:4 turns the name into a promise about a restored Jerusalem, paired with Beulah in the same verse.

Say it HEF-zi-buh and stop worrying about it. Eppie and Hepsie are the listed English short forms, and both are considerably softer than the full version. It has never appeared in the U.S. top 1,000, which makes it one of the rarest names here.

46. Hester

• Origin: English, from Latin
• Meaning: Star
• Pronunciation: HES-tur
• Namesakes: Hester Prynne, Hester Bateman
• Popularity: #15,770 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (5 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 11% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Hester is the Latin form of Esther, which most likely means star, and it has been used in England since the Reformation. Nathaniel Hawthorne fixed it in the American imagination in 1850 with Hester Prynne, who is by some distance the most dignified character in The Scarlet Letter.

Real Hesters were formidable too. Hester Bateman ran one of London’s most successful silversmithing workshops in the 18th century after taking over her husband’s business, and Hester A. Davis served as Arkansas’s first state archeologist and helped write the federal law that protects archaeological sites today. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1950.

47. Hilda

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Battle
• Pronunciation: HIL-duh
• Namesakes: Saint Hilda of Whitby
• Popularity: #3,007 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (55 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 5% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Germanic names built on hild, battle, shortened down to Hilda. Saint Hilda of Whitby founded the abbey that hosted the Synod of Whitby in 664 and encouraged the cowherd Caedmon to become the first named English poet, which is a solid claim to being the most consequential Hilda in history.

Norse mythology has the same root in Hildr, a valkyrie whose ability to wake the dead each night meant the fighting never ended, which is why old poets called battle Hildr’s game. Hilda faded in late medieval England, came back in the 19th century, and left the U.S. top 1,000 after 1986. It ranked #22 in Finland in 2025.

48. Honora

• Origin: Irish, English, from Latin
• Meaning: Honor
• Pronunciation: huh-NOR-uh
• Popularity: #7,263 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (15 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 24% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Honora is a variant of the Latin Honoria, from honor, and the Normans carried it into both England and Ireland. In Ireland it became so common that it generated its own family of nicknames.

That is really the argument for it. If you like Nora but want the long form on the birth certificate, this is where Nora comes from, along with Noreen and Nonie. Honora last ranked in the U.S. in 1899 and remains most common in Ireland and among Irish families in the States, England and Canada.

49. Hortense

• Origin: French, from Latin
• Meaning: Garden
• Pronunciation: or-TAHNS
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 1976 at #8,508 (6 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.

French speakers turned Hortensia into Hortense, and Hortensia came from the Roman family name Hortensius, which traces to hortus, garden. The hydrangea is called hortensia in French for the same reason.

In French the H is silent, which is part of why the name stayed far more comfortable in French-speaking countries than in English-speaking ones. Hortense de Beauharnais, stepdaughter of Napoleon and mother of Napoleon III, is its most historically loaded bearer. It last ranked in the U.S. in 1941.

50. Hulda

• Origin: Old Norse, Hebrew
• Meaning: Hiding, secrecy; also mole or weasel
• Pronunciation: HOOL-duh
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 1980 at #10,949 (5 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.

Hulda is two names wearing one spelling. The Norse one comes from Old Norse hulda, hiding or secrecy, and belonged to a sorceress in the sagas; archaic Swedish huld, gracious or lovable, feeds the same form, which is why a Swedish name list will give you a much warmer meaning than a Norse one.

The Hebrew Huldah is separate and means mole or weasel. She is a prophetess in 2 Kings who authenticates the rediscovered book of the law, and one of the gates of the Second Temple was named for her. Hulda last ranked in the U.S. in 1926 and is still current in Iceland.

51. Ida

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Work, labor
• Pronunciation: EYE-duh
• Namesakes: Ida B. Wells
• Popularity: #1,120 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (209 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 99% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Ida comes from the Germanic element id, probably meaning work or labor. The Normans brought it to England, it died out in the Middle Ages, and Tennyson’s 1847 poem The Princess brought it roaring back, with its Princess Ida founding a women’s university.

Ida B. Wells is the bearer who matters most. She documented lynching in America with statistics and named sources at a time when doing so got her printing press destroyed and drove her out of Memphis, and she was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer citation in 2020.

Mount Ida is also the highest peak on Crete, the cave where Rhea hid the infant Zeus from his father Cronus. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1986.

52. Idella

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Work, labor
• Pronunciation: eye-DEL-uh
• Popularity: #12,399 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (7 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 30% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Idella is Ida with the popular -ella ending attached, a very American way of building a name in the 19th century. Behind the Name lists Idella and Idelle among Ida’s English variants, so the meaning comes along with it.

Idella Jones Childs taught in segregated Mississippi schools for 35 years, then spent her retirement documenting local Black history and getting buildings and cemeteries onto the National Register. Her home in Yazoo City doubled as a civil rights meeting place. Idella has been out of the U.S. rankings for generations.

53. Inez

• Origin: English, Spanish
• Meaning: Chaste, pure
• Pronunciation: ie-NEZ or EE-nez
• Popularity: #1,400 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (156 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 99% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Inez is the English spelling of the Spanish name Ines, which is the Spanish form of Agnes. That is where the meaning comes from: Greek hagnos, chaste.

It was surprisingly common in the United States between 1900 and 1930, particularly in the Southwest and the South, and it has an easy elegance that most z-ending names do not. Ines last ranked in the U.S. in 1933. The stress can fall on either syllable depending on which language you grew up with, so pick one and be firm about it.

54. Irene

• Origin: Ancient Greek
• Meaning: Peace
• Pronunciation: ie-REEN
• Popularity: #651 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (442 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 12% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Irene comes from the Greek Eirene, meaning peace. Eirene was the personification of peace and one of the Horai, and Athens put up a bronze statue of her holding the infant Ploutos, wealth, after a peace treaty in 375 BC. Copies of it turn up on coins and vases for centuries afterward.

The name was standard in the Byzantine Empire, where an 8th century Empress Irene became the first woman to rule the empire in her own right, having first deposed and blinded her own son. English speakers only picked it up in the 19th century. It ranked #651 in the U.S. in 2025, so unlike most names here it never fully left.

55. Jemima

• Origin: Biblical, from Hebrew
• Meaning: Dove, or daytime
• Pronunciation: juh-MIE-muh
• Popularity: #3,544 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (43 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 28% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Jemima is traditionally read as dove, though the more likely derivation is the Hebrew yomam, daytime. In the Book of Job she is the eldest of the three daughters born to Job after his ordeal, and the text makes a point of saying he gave them an inheritance alongside their brothers.

The name lands very differently depending on where you are. In Britain it is a gentle biblical choice that has stayed in ordinary middle-class use, helped along by Beatrix Potter’s Jemima Puddle-Duck. In the United States it is inseparable from a racist advertising caricature that was only retired in 2021. It last ranked in the U.S. top 1,000 in 1897, and that history is the reason.

56. Juanita

• Origin: Spanish
• Meaning: God is gracious
• Pronunciation: wah-NEE-tuh
• Popularity: #2,794 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (61 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 34% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Juanita is the diminutive of Juana, the Spanish name that descends from Johanna and ultimately from the Hebrew for God is gracious.

Its American story is unusual. Juanita was far more popular in the United States through the mid 20th century than it ever was in Spain, and it stayed in the U.S. top 1,000 until 2002. Nita and Juana are the natural short forms.

57. Keziah

• Origin: Biblical, from Hebrew
• Meaning: Cassia, cinnamon
• Pronunciation: kuh-ZIE-uh
• Popularity: #767 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (354 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 75% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Keziah comes from the Hebrew Qetsia, the cassia tree whose bark gives us a form of cinnamon. She is Job’s second daughter, which makes Jemima and Keziah a genuine pair of old-fashioned sisters straight out of the same verse.

Kezia is the common shorter spelling. Unlike most names on this list, Keziah is currently on the way up rather than down, ranking #766 in the U.S. in 2025, and Kizzy has been a period nickname since at least the 18th century.

58. Lavinia

• Origin: Roman Mythology
• Meaning: Unknown, probably Etruscan
• Pronunciation: luh-VIN-ee-uh
• Popularity: #2,290 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (80 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 82% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Lavinia’s meaning is honestly unknown and probably Etruscan, which no baby name site should pretend otherwise about. In the Aeneid she is the daughter of King Latinus and the wife Aeneas wins by war, making her the mythological mother of the Roman people.

The 19th century used it for gothic effect. Lavinia Fisher kept an inn outside Charleston, South Carolina, and was hanged in 1820 with her husband for highway robbery, which local legend has since inflated into a claim that she was America’s first female serial killer. There is no evidence for the murders, only for the robbery. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1929, and Vinnie and Lavi both work as short forms.

59. Letha

• Origin: English, from Greek
• Meaning: Truth
• Pronunciation: LEE-thuh

Letha is a clipped form of Aletha or Alethea, from the Greek aletheia, truth. American parents in the 1800s used it as a standalone name.

It is long gone from the U.S. rankings now. The sound is close to Leta and Letta, and it pairs neatly with the other virtue names of the era such as Mercy, Verity and Constance.

60. Lillian

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Lily
• Pronunciation: LIL-ee-un
• Namesakes: Lillian Hellman, Lillian Gish
• Popularity: #57 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (3,966 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 23% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Lillian probably began as a diminutive of Elizabeth, and it may also be an elaborated form of Lily, from the Latin lilium. It has been in English use since the 16th century.

That double origin is genuinely useful. If you want to honor a grandmother named Elizabeth without reusing the name outright, Lillian gets you there, and it works for a Lily too.

It is the most popular name on this entire list by a wide margin, ranking #57 in the U.S. in 2025, which is a fair reminder that old-fashioned does not have to mean rare.

61. Lottie

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Free man
• Pronunciation: LAHT-ee
• Popularity: #528 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (570 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 525% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Clip Charlotte and you land on Lottie, which carries the same meaning down from Charles: free man. Britain took it back first, and America has been catching up fast.

The name has plenty of texture. Lottie Dod won Wimbledon at 15 in 1887, still the youngest ladies’ singles champion, and then won an Olympic silver in archery for good measure. Lottie Graves-Claiborne, billed as Lottie the Body, danced the Black burlesque circuit from the late 1940s into the 1980s and became a fixture of Detroit nightlife.

Lottie ranked #527 in the U.S. in 2025.

62. Louella

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Combination of Lou and the -ella ending
• Pronunciation: loo-EL-uh
• Popularity: #1,475 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (146 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 318% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Louella is a made-in-America combination of Lou, from Louise or Louisa, and the fashionable suffix -ella. The Germanic root under Louis means famous warrior, which is a lot of history for such a soft-sounding name.

Louella Parsons ran Hollywood’s first syndicated gossip column and could make or break a career with a paragraph, which is why the name reads as 1930s Los Angeles to anyone who knows the period.

Here is the interesting part: Louella itself last ranked in 1955, but the Luella spelling came back and ranked #778 in the U.S. in 2025. Same name, one letter, forty years of difference.

63. Lucretia

• Origin: Ancient Roman
• Meaning: Possibly profit, wealth
• Pronunciation: loo-KREE-shuh
• Namesakes: Lucretia Mott
• Popularity: #11,518 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (8 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 3% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Roman family name Lucretius, possibly from lucrum, profit, gives the feminine Lucretia. In Roman legend her rape by the king’s son and her subsequent suicide triggered the uprising that ended the monarchy and created the Republic, which is why she appears in so many paintings by Titian, Rembrandt and Artemisia Gentileschi.

Lucretia Mott gave the name a very different weight. She organized the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and spent decades as an abolitionist and Quaker minister. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1977.

64. Lula

• Origin: English
• Meaning: From names beginning with Lou
• Pronunciation: LOO-luh
• Popularity: #1,937 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (100 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 76% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Lula is a diminutive of Louise and of anything else starting with Lou, and it was used as a full given name across the American South from the 1880s onward.

It is also a masculine nickname in Brazilian Portuguese, short for Luiz, which is how a Brazilian president ended up sharing a name with an Alabama great-grandmother. Lula last ranked in the U.S. in 1965 and sits in the same easy two-syllable range as Lulu and Lola.

65. Mabel

• Origin: Medieval English, from Latin
• Meaning: Lovable
• Pronunciation: MAY-bul
• Popularity: #201 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (1,522 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 309% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Medieval speakers cut Amabilis, meaning lovable, down to Mabel. It was common in the Middle Ages, went rare after the 15th century, and came back hard in the 1800s, helped along by Charlotte M. Yonge’s bestselling 1853 novel The Heir of Redclyffe.

Amabel, Annabel, Arabella and even Maybelline all grow from that same Latin root, which makes Mabel the plainest member of a very fancy family. It ranked #201 in the U.S. in 2025 and is one of the clearest revival successes on this list.

66. Madge

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Pearl
• Pronunciation: MAJ
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 2016 at #17,841 (5 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.

Madge is a diminutive of Margaret, so the meaning is pearl, by way of the Greek margarites. It has also done service as a short form of Madeline.

In the British tabloids, Madge is what they call Madonna, a nickname she is said to have picked up in England and to have tolerated with varying patience. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1948, and it is one of the few one-syllable options here.

67. Mahala

• Origin: English, from Hebrew
• Meaning: Tenderness, or sickness
• Pronunciation: muh-HAY-luh
• Popularity: #7,359 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (15 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 34% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Mahala is an English variant of the biblical Mahlah or Mahalath, used as a Christian name since the Reformation. The Hebrew root is debated: sources give both tenderness and sickness, and no one can settle it, so any list that states one flatly is overreaching.

It was widespread in 19th century America and appears in early country and folk song. Mahala last ranked in the U.S. in 1907, and Hala and Halie both fall out of it.

68. Mamie

• Origin: English
• Meaning: From Mary or Margaret
• Pronunciation: MAY-mee
• Namesakes: Mamie Eisenhower, Mamie Smith
• Popularity: #6,249 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (19 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 2% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Mamie is an affectionate form of Mary or Margaret. It was everywhere in the Victorian United States, then vanished almost completely.

Two bearers are worth knowing. Mamie Smith recorded Crazy Blues in 1920, the first blues record by a Black singer and the release that proved to the record industry that a Black audience existed. Mamie Till-Mobley insisted on an open casket for her son Emmett in 1955 and let Jet magazine photograph it, a decision that did more to move white America than any speech that year.

The name is also the French affectionate term for grandmother. It last ranked in the U.S. in 1966.

69. Marion

• Origin: Medieval French
• Meaning: From the name Mary
• Pronunciation: MAR-ee-un
• Popularity: #2,044 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (93 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 17% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Marion is a medieval French diminutive of Marie. English legend attached it to Maid Marian, and the two spellings have been trading places ever since.

It is an early example of the full circle that name fashion runs: a given name that became a surname, then came back as a first name for boys. John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison, which tells you how ordinary that was in 1907. The name last ranked for American girls in 1988.

70. Martha

• Origin: Aramaic
• Meaning: The lady, the mistress
• Pronunciation: MAR-thuh
• Namesakes: Martha Washington, Martha Graham
• Popularity: #713 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (393 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 1% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Martha comes from the Aramaic marta, the lady or the mistress, the feminine of mar, master. In the Gospels she is the sister of Mary and Lazarus, the one busy in the kitchen while her sister sits and listens.

It has never once left the U.S. top 1,000, which almost nothing else on this list can claim, and it ranked #712 in 2025.

Comic book and science fiction households get a bonus: Martha is the name of Batman’s mother, Superman’s adoptive mother, and the tenth Doctor’s companion in Doctor Who. Mattie and Patsy are the traditional nicknames.

71. Maude

• Origin: Medieval English
• Meaning: Strength in battle
• Pronunciation: MAWD
• Popularity: #3,367 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (46 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 186% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Medieval England said Matilda as Maude, from the Germanic maht, might, and hild, battle. The Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, was called Maud by her English subjects, and she spent most of the 1140s fighting her cousin for the throne.

American television gave it a second life in the 1970s, when Bea Arthur played the loud, liberal, four-times-married Maude Findlay on CBS. The spelling Maud last ranked in the U.S. in 1933, though Matilda itself is at #364 in 2025, so the sound is closer to hand than the number suggests.

72. Mercy

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Compassion
• Pronunciation: MUR-see
• Popularity: #867 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (313 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 70% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Mercy is a virtue name, from the English word, which reached us through Old French from the Latin merces, meaning wages or reward. Puritans adopted it in the 17th century along with Faith, Charity, Verity and Prudence.

Mercy Otis Warren wrote propaganda plays for the American Revolution and then published a three-volume history of it in 1805, one of the first by anyone, let alone a woman. The name is back in the U.S. top 1,000 at #862 in 2025.

73. Meta

• Origin: German, Scandinavian
• Meaning: Pearl
• Pronunciation: MAY-tuh

German and Scandinavian parents clipped Margareta down to Meta, which puts the same pearl meaning behind it as Margaret and Madge. It is still used in Germany, Denmark and Slovenia.

The correct pronunciation is MAY-tuh, and you should assume that roughly nobody in an English-speaking country will get there unaided. Since 2021 the word has also belonged to a very large technology company, which is a fresh complication that no baby name book from twenty years ago had to mention.

74. Mildred

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Gentle strength
• Pronunciation: MIL-drid
• Namesakes: Mildred Loving
• Popularity: #1,973 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (98 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 34% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Mildred comes from the Old English Mildthryth, joining milde, gentle, with thryth, strength. Saint Mildthryth was a 7th century Anglo-Saxon abbess of Thanet.

Mildred Loving is the bearer who changed American law. She and her husband Richard were arrested in their own bedroom in Virginia in 1958, and their case ended with the Supreme Court striking down every remaining ban on interracial marriage in 1967.

Disney fans know it from a joke: the first name Prince Eric guesses in The Little Mermaid is Mildred. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1984, and Millie is doing very well without it.

75. Millicent

• Origin: English, from Gothic
• Meaning: Strong worker
• Pronunciation: MIL-i-sunt
• Namesakes: Millicent Fawcett
• Popularity: #1,900 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (103 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 86% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Millicent descends from the Gothic Amalaswintha, combining amals, vigorous, with swinths, strong. The Normans brought it to England as Melisent, and a 12th century Queen Melisende ruled Jerusalem in her own right.

Millicent Fawcett led the constitutional wing of British suffrage for decades, the patient counterweight to the Pankhursts, and her statue stands in Parliament Square.

It is also, improbably, Barbie’s middle name: Barbara Millicent Roberts. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1965, and Millie sits right inside it.

76. Mina

• Origin: Persian, Sanskrit, English
• Meaning: Enamel, azure; fish
• Pronunciation: MEE-nuh
• Popularity: #597 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (491 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 56% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

A Persian name, Mina means enamel or azure, the deep blue glaze on Iranian tilework.

The same spelling is an entirely separate Sanskrit name meaning fish, which in Hindu astrology is the zodiac sign corresponding to Pisces, and in English it is a short form of Wilhelmina, Jasmina and anything else ending in -mina. Three unrelated origins, one four-letter spelling, which makes Mina unusually easy to share across a mixed family.

It ranked #595 in the U.S. in 2025. Bram Stoker’s Mina Harker is the fictional bearer most people meet first.

77. Minerva

• Origin: Roman Mythology
• Meaning: Possibly intellect
• Pronunciation: mi-NUR-vuh
• Popularity: #2,112 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (89 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 81% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Minerva’s origin is uncertain and may be Etruscan, though Latin mens, intellect, is the usual guess. She was the Roman goddess of wisdom, crafts and strategic war, roughly the equivalent of the Greek Athena, and the owl on her shoulder is why owls still stand for wisdom.

That makes Minerva and names for twin girls an easy match: pair her with Athena and you have the same goddess twice in two languages. Harry Potter readers have their own Minerva in Professor McGonagall. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1973.

78. Minnie

• Origin: English, from Germanic
• Meaning: Will, helmet
• Pronunciation: MIN-ee
• Namesakes: Minnie Riperton, Minnie Minoso
• Popularity: #3,060 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (54 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 62% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Minnie is a diminutive of Wilhelmina, which carries the Germanic elements for will and helmet. It was one of the most popular names in the United States in the 1880s, which is easy to forget now.

Walt Disney introduced Minnie Mouse in 1928, and the studio has said her full name is Minerva, though that came long after the character did. The name last ranked in the U.S. in 1971. Minnie Riperton’s five-octave range keeps it alive on the radio.

79. Minta

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Unknown
• Pronunciation: MIN-tuh
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 1993 at #11,361 (7 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.

Minta is the short form of Araminta, an invented name with no known meaning that William Congreve made up for his 1693 comedy The Old Bachelor. Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross and was called Minty as a child, which is the most significant thing anyone named Minta has to work with.

Minta Durfee was Charlie Chaplin’s first leading lady at Keystone and later testified for her estranged husband Roscoe Arbuckle during the scandal that ended his career. Araminta last ranked in the U.S. in 1884, and Minta has been out of the rankings even longer.

80. Muriel

• Origin: Irish, Scottish, Breton
• Meaning: Bright sea
• Pronunciation: MYOOR-ee-ul
• Namesakes: Muriel Spark
• Popularity: #4,430 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (32 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 15% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Muriel is the Anglicized form of the Irish Muirgel and Scottish Muireall, from elements meaning sea and bright. Breton settlers carried it into England after the Norman Conquest, and Dinah Craik’s 1856 novel John Halifax, Gentleman made it fashionable again.

Muriel Spark wrote The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Muriel’s Wedding gave Toni Collette her first lead and made a generation associate the name with ABBA and defiant self-invention. It last ranked in the U.S. in 1966, and Meriel and Meryl are the listed variants.

81. Myrtle

• Origin: English
• Meaning: The myrtle shrub
• Pronunciation: MUR-tul
• Popularity: #11,611 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (8 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 15% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Myrtle comes straight from the name of the evergreen shrub, by way of Greek myrtos. The plant was sacred to Aphrodite and has been a wedding flower in Britain since Queen Victoria’s daughter carried a sprig in 1858, cut from a bush at Osborne House that royal brides still use.

Modern readers meet Moaning Myrtle first, which does the name no favors, and it has been off the U.S. top 1,000 since 1965. Still, the rest of the Victorian flower shelf has already come back, so it is not out of the question.

82. Nellie

• Origin: English
• Meaning: From Eleanor or Helen
• Pronunciation: NEL-ee
• Namesakes: Nellie Bly, Nellie Melba
• Popularity: #533 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (567 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 202% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Nellie is a diminutive of Nell, which grew out of Eleanor, Ellen and Helen. It reads sweet, but the bearers do not.

Nellie Bly had herself committed to the Blackwell’s Island asylum in 1887 to report on it from the inside, then circled the globe in 72 days. Dame Nellie Melba was the most celebrated soprano of her era, and both Melba toast and peach Melba were named for her.

It ranked #533 in the U.S. in 2025 and #101 in England and Wales, so the smelly Nellie jokes your grandmother endured are now several generations out of date.

83. Nettie

• Origin: English
• Meaning: From names ending in -nette
• Pronunciation: NET-ee
• Popularity: #5,663 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (22 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 55% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Annette, Jeanette and other names with that ending all shrink to Nettie, used as a full given name across 19th century America.

Nettie McBirney of Tulsa wrote and broadcast under the name Aunt Chick and invented a set of cookie cutters that released the dough cleanly, still sold today as Aunt Chick’s. Alice Walker gave the name to Celie’s sister in The Color Purple. Nettie last ranked in the U.S. in 1962.

84. Norma

• Origin: Literature, from Latin
• Meaning: Rule, standard
• Pronunciation: NOR-muh
• Namesakes: Norma Shearer, Norma Rae
• Popularity: #2,012 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (95 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 21% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Norma is usually taken as the feminine of Norman, but that is only half the story. The Italian poet Felice Romani invented it in 1831 for the title character of Bellini’s opera, a Gaulish druid priestess, and the Latin norma, meaning rule or carpenter’s square, is the likely source.

Norma Jeane Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe, and Sally Field’s Norma Rae won an Oscar in 1980, which fixed the name to a woman standing on a table holding a union sign. It last ranked in the U.S. in 2002.

85. Ora

• Origin: English, Hebrew
• Meaning: Pray; light
• Pronunciation: OR-uh
• Popularity: #3,760 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (40 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 103% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The English Ora appeared in America in the 19th century and is usually traced to the Latin oro, to pray. It was given to both girls and boys.

The Hebrew Ora is a completely separate name, the feminine of the unisex Or, meaning light, and it is still in ordinary use in Israel. Two letters short of Nora and Cora, it last ranked in the U.S. in 1962. Rita Ora has kept the spelling visible as a surname.

86. Phyllis

• Origin: Greek Mythology
• Meaning: Foliage
• Pronunciation: FIL-is
• Namesakes: Phillis Wheatley, Phyllis Diller
• Popularity: #12,873 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (7 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 24% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Phyllis means foliage in Greek. In the myth, Phyllis is a Thracian princess who kills herself believing her husband has abandoned her, and the gods turn her into an almond tree; when he returns and embraces the bare trunk, it blossoms. English poets adopted the name in the 16th century as a stock name for a country girl.

Phillis Wheatley, using the older spelling, became the first African American to publish a book of poetry in 1773, while still enslaved. Phyllis Diller did the opposite kind of pioneering as one of the first women to headline stand-up. It last ranked in the U.S. in 1984.

87. Rena

• Origin: English, Hebrew
• Meaning: Joy, song
• Pronunciation: REE-nuh

Rena works as a short form of Irene, Serena, Regina and Renata, and it also stands alone as a Hebrew name meaning joy or song. American families in the 1880s used it both ways without much concern for which.

It has the same easy shape as Rena’s near neighbors Reba and Rhea, and unlike most names on this list it has no famous bearer weighing it down, which is either a drawback or the whole appeal.

88. Sophronia

• Origin: Late Greek, Literature
• Meaning: Self-controlled, sensible
• Pronunciation: suh-FROH-nee-uh
• Popularity: #14,711 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (6 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 23% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Sophronia is the feminine form of Sophronius, from the Greek sophron, meaning of sound mind or self-controlled. Torquato Tasso used it in his 1580 epic Jerusalem Delivered for the woman who falsely confesses to a crime to save her city, and Dickens later borrowed it too.

It has not appeared in the U.S. top 1,000 since 1909. If you want a name with the fullness of Sophia and none of the company, this is it, and Frona was the period short form.

89. Tamar

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Date palm
• Pronunciation: TAY-mar or tah-MAR
• Namesakes: Queen Tamar of Georgia
• Popularity: #2,455 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (73 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 12% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Tamar means date palm in Hebrew and belongs to three separate women in the Old Testament, including Judah’s daughter-in-law and a daughter of King David. It remains a common name in Israel.

The most powerful bearer ruled Georgia. Queen Tamar held the throne from 1184 to 1213, the peak of the medieval Georgian kingdom, and the Georgian Orthodox Church made her a saint. Tamara is the expanded form that English speakers know better.

90. Thirza

• Origin: Dutch, from Hebrew
• Meaning: Favorable, pleasing
• Pronunciation: TEER-zuh

Thirza is the Dutch name that developed from the Hebrew Tirzah, meaning favorable. In the Old Testament, Tirzah is one of the five daughters of Zelophehad who successfully petition Moses for the right to inherit their father’s land, and it is also the name of an early capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.

The Thirza spelling stays largely within the Netherlands, which makes it a specific and easy-to-explain choice for a family with Dutch roots rather than a name pulled at random off a list.

91. Thomasina

• Origin: Medieval English
• Meaning: Twin
• Pronunciation: tom-uh-SEE-nuh
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 2019 at #15,407 (6 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since. Steady in the United States, up 14% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Middle Ages gave Thomas a feminine form, Thomasina, and Thomas comes from an Aramaic word meaning twin.

Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play Arcadia gave it its best modern outing in Thomasina Coverly, a 13-year-old in 1809 who works out the second law of thermodynamics decades early while her tutor is busy having an affair. The Cornish forms Tamsin and Tamsyn are far more common in Britain, and Tommie is the listed diminutive. It last ranked in the U.S. in 1932.

92. Tillie

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Strength in battle
• Pronunciation: TIL-ee
• Popularity: #1,269 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (177 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 271% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Tillie is a diminutive of Matilda, so it carries the same Germanic meaning: might plus battle.

Palace Amusements in Asbury Park, New Jersey painted an enormous grinning face on its wall, and the whole town called it Tillie. When the building was demolished in 2004, preservationists cut the mural out of the wall and saved it, which is a decent measure of how much affection a nickname can absorb. Tillie last ranked in the U.S. in 1942, well behind Tilly in Britain.

93. Tryphena

• Origin: Biblical, from Greek
• Meaning: Softness, delicacy
• Pronunciation: try-FEE-nuh
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 2016 at #18,667 (5 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since. Steady in the United States, down 14% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Tryphena comes from the Greek tryphe, softness or delicacy. Paul greets her and Tryphosa in the closing lines of Romans, calling them women who work hard in the Lord, which is a nice bit of irony given the meaning.

Tryphena Sparks was Thomas Hardy’s cousin and, by some accounts, briefly something more; scholars still argue about it, and she is one of several candidates for the model behind his heroines. The name has never charted in the U.S. top 1,000.

94. Vera

• Origin: Russian, Latin
• Meaning: Faith; true
• Pronunciation: VEER-uh
• Namesakes: Vera Wang, Vera Rubin
• Popularity: #205 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (1,482 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 166% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Vera means faith in Russian, and it is often associated with the Latin verus, true. English speakers adopted it in the late 19th century.

Vera Rubin’s observations of galaxy rotation in the 1970s provided the strongest evidence for dark matter, and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is named for her. Vera Wang did something quieter to the wedding industry.

It ranked #205 in the U.S. in 2025, making it one of the strongest performers on this list. In British rhyming slang a Vera is a cigarette paper, from Vera Lynn for skin, which is worth knowing before a trip.

95. Verna

• Origin: English
• Meaning: From the name Vernon
• Pronunciation: VUR-nuh
• Popularity: #3,513 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (44 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 28% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Vernon, a Norman surname from a place name meaning alder grove, takes the feminine form Verna. It came into use in the 19th century.

The frequent claim that it comes from the Latin vernus, spring, is an after-the-fact association rather than the actual derivation, though it is pretty enough that it keeps getting repeated. Verna last ranked in the U.S. in 1972 and peaked at #90 in Canada in 1938.

96. Vesta

• Origin: Roman Mythology
• Meaning: Hearth, fireside
• Pronunciation: VES-tuh
• Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 2024 at #17,537 (5 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since. Rising in the United States, up 31% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Vesta was the Roman goddess of the hearth, most likely a cognate of the Greek Hestia. Her temple in the Forum held no statue, only a fire that the Vestal Virgins kept burning, and Romans believed that if it ever went out the city would fall with it.

The name suits a winter baby and pairs well with the other mythological options here. Vesta Tilley was Britain’s most successful male impersonator on the Victorian music hall stage. It last ranked in the U.S. in 1942.

97. Winifred

• Origin: Welsh, English
• Meaning: Blessed reconciliation
• Pronunciation: WIN-i-fred
• Popularity: #923 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (284 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 327% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Winifred has a genuinely mixed parentage. It is the Anglicized form of the Welsh Gwenfrewi, from elements meaning blessed and reconciliation, reshaped along the way to look like the Old English Winfred, friend of peace.

Saint Winifred was a 7th century Welsh martyr, probably legendary, said to have been beheaded by a spurned prince, with a healing spring rising where her head fell. Holywell in Flintshire has been a pilgrimage site ever since.

The name returned to the U.S. top 1,000 at #922 in 2025, and Winnie is doing most of the work.

98. Zillah

• Origin: Biblical, from Hebrew
• Meaning: Shade
• Pronunciation: ZIL-uh
• Popularity: #7,485 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (15 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 30% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

Zillah means shade in Hebrew. In Genesis she is the second wife of Lamech and the mother of Tubal-cain, the first metalworker, which puts her among the earliest named women in the Bible.

It spread through 19th century America along with the general Victorian appetite for biblical, mythological and medieval names, and Emily Bronte used it for the housekeeper in Wuthering Heights. Zillah last ranked in the U.S. in 1893, making it the earliest departure on this list.

99. Zora

• Origin: South Slavic
• Meaning: Dawn
• Pronunciation: ZOR-uh
• Namesakes: Zora Neale Hurston
• Popularity: #969 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (264 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 192% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.

The Slavic name Zora means dawn in Croatian, Serbian, Slovene, Czech and Slovak. Zorana, Zarja and Zorica all come from the same root with the same meaning.

Zora Neale Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God, trained as an anthropologist under Franz Boas, and died in obscurity in 1960 before Alice Walker found her unmarked grave and brought the work back into print.

For parents circling Aurora, this is the same idea in two syllables. It re-entered the U.S. top 1,000 at #968 in 2025.

100. Zula

• Origin: Polish, English
• Meaning: Lily
• Pronunciation: ZOO-luh

Zula is a Polish name meaning lily. It is a short form of Zuzanna, the Polish and Latvian form of Susanna, which comes from the Hebrew for lily. Zula Pogorzelska was one of interwar Warsaw’s biggest cabaret stars.

The English Zula that turns up in 19th century American records is a different matter, with no agreed origin, and it dropped out of the U.S. rankings a very long time ago. Either way it closes the alphabet on a name almost nobody else is using.

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Old-Fashioned Girl Names FAQs

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What’s in a Name? History

Naming fashion moves in roughly hundred-year cycles, which is why the names here feel either overdue or unusable with very little in between. The ones your great-grandmother’s generation wore out have finally been gone long enough to sound new again.

That is the whole trick with a vintage name. Wait long enough and it stops reading as somebody’s great-aunt and starts reading as a kindergartner, which is exactly what happened to Mabel and is happening now to Elsie.

If none of these landed, our lists of Victorian girl names, elegant girl names and last names as first names cover the shelves either side of this one.