Sun names run further than most parents expect. The hundred here come from Sanskrit, Welsh, Armenian, Aymara, Japanese, Mapudungun, and around twenty other languages, and they cover the sunrise, the noon, and the last red light of the evening.
Fifty are listed for boys and fifty for girls. Every entry gives you the origin, the meaning, a pronunciation you can actually use, and the current popularity where a real figure exists.
A few are simply the word for sun in a living language. Others are the worn-down names of gods whose whole job was moving the light across the sky.
Popularity at a Glance
The most popular names on this list in the United States, 1965 to 2025: Aurora, Daisy, Sienna, Elio and Samson.
50 Boy Names That Mean Sun
Fifty names for boys, running from the Sanskrit sun gods to the bert names of Anglo-Saxon England, where the sun is hiding in the second syllable.
1. Aditya
- Origin: Sanskrit
- Meaning: Belonging to Aditi
- Pronunciation: ah-DEET-yuh
Aditya means belonging to Aditi in Sanskrit, and it doubles as an alternate name for Surya, the Hindu sun god.
In the earliest Hindu texts the Adityas were a group of solar deities, all of them children of the goddess Aditi. Over time the plural narrowed into the singular, and the word settled into its modern sense of sun. Aditya is a mainstream boys’ name across India today, and it shortens comfortably to Adi for a toddler who cannot yet manage four syllables.
2. Aelius
- Origin: Ancient Roman
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: AY-lee-us
Aelius is an Ancient Roman name connected to the Greek word helios, meaning sun.
It was the family name of the emperor Hadrian, which is why it turns up stamped on coins, carved into aqueducts, and attached to the city he founded on the ruins of Jerusalem. For a modern American boy it reads as a quieter, more unusual route to the same sound as Elias without landing in the top 1,000.
3. Agim
- Origin: Albanian
- Meaning: Dawn
- Pronunciation: ah-GEEM
Agim means dawn in Albanian.
One English word does not quite carry it. Albanian speakers use agim for the specific stretch of morning when the light arrives before the sun clears the horizon, so the name holds a moment rather than an object. It is short, it is easy for English speakers to say on the first try, and it has almost no American usage, which is a rare combination.
4. Albert
- Origin: Germanic
- Meaning: Noble and bright
- Pronunciation: AL-burt
- Popularity: #614 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (461 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 18% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Albert comes from the Germanic name Adalbert, built from adal, meaning noble, and beraht, meaning bright. That second element is the sun connection, and it is the same one hiding inside half the German names on this list.
Albert has been drifting gently for decades without ever falling off the map, ranking 614th for American boys in 2025 after 607th in 2024 and 587th in 2023. That flatness is the appeal: a boy named Albert will be the only one in his grade, but no teacher will ever ask him to spell it. Al, Albie, and Bertie are all waiting as nicknames.
5. Altan
- Origin: Turkish
- Meaning: Red dawn
- Pronunciation: ahl-TAHN
Altan is a Turkish name that means red dawn.
There is a second layer to it. In medieval Turkic and Mongolian, altan meant golden, so the name reaches for the color of the sky and the color of the light in the same three sounds. It is common in Turkey and effectively unused in the United States, and its stress falls on the second syllable, ahl-TAHN, not the first.
6. Amun
- Origin: Ancient Egyptian
- Meaning: The hidden one
- Pronunciation: AH-mun
Amun is an Ancient Egyptian name meaning the hidden one.
He started as a local god of Thebes and ended up merged with Ra, the sun god, into the composite deity Amun-Ra, who sat at the head of the Egyptian pantheon for most of the New Kingdom. The name is therefore doing something unusual: it means concealed, and it belongs to the sun. If you want the mythology without the ancient spelling, Amon and Ammon are both in circulation.
7. Anatoly
- Origin: Russian
- Meaning: Sunrise, the east
- Pronunciation: ah-nah-TAW-lee
Anatoly is a Russian name that means sunrise, or more literally the direction the sun comes from. The region of Anatolia carries the same root for the same reason: from Greece, it is where the light appears.
Anatoly Karpov held the world chess championship from 1975 to 1985 and is still argued about as one of the strongest players who ever lived. Tolya is the standard Russian short form, and it is a good deal easier on an American playground than the full four syllables.
8. Antiman
- Origin: Mapuche
- Meaning: Condor of the sun
- Pronunciation: ahn-tee-MAHN
Antiman is a Mapuche name built from antu, meaning sun, and manku, meaning condor.
The Mapuche are the Indigenous people of southern Chile and Argentina, and the same antu element opens a whole family of names, including Antinanco, eagle of the sun. Antiman is a Latinized spelling of a Mapudungun word rather than a native orthography, which is worth knowing if the name belongs to your family’s history rather than your shortlist.
9. Antú
- Origin: Mapudungun
- Meaning: Sun, day
- Pronunciation: ahn-TOO
Antu is the Mapudungun word for sun, and it stands on its own as a name.
It is the same element that opens Antiman and Antinanco, stripped back to two syllables and an accent. Among the sun names here it is one of the very few that is genuinely short, genuinely gender-clear, and genuinely uncommon in the United States, and the accent on the final letter is what tells an English reader to stress it there.
10. Anwar
- Origin: Arabic
- Meaning: Brighter, more luminous
- Pronunciation: AHN-wahr
Anwar is an Arabic name meaning brighter, more luminous. It is a comparative form, so it is not simply light but more light than what came before.
Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, is the best-known bearer, and the name travels widely through the Muslim world. Its Turkish transliteration, Enver, appears further down this list, which makes the two of them a quiet pair for anyone naming siblings.
11. Areg
- Origin: Armenian
- Meaning: Sun, bright
- Pronunciation: ah-REHG
Areg is an Armenian name meaning sun, bright, and Armenian sources describe it specifically as a poetic word rather than the everyday one.
The pronunciation splits along the two branches of the language. Eastern Armenian speakers say ah-REHG; Western Armenian speakers are more likely to say ah-REHK. Either is correct, which is a useful thing to know in advance if the grandparents came from different sides of that line.
12. Arki
- Origin: Sanskrit
- Meaning: Descendant of the sun
- Pronunciation: AR-kee
Arki means descendant of the sun in Sanskrit.
It began as an epithet rather than a given name, attached to Yama, the son of the sun god Surya. Yama was the first mortal to die, and by making that crossing first he became the god who rules the dead. So the name carries a heavy myth behind a light two syllables, which some families will love and others will want to know about before they commit.
13. Arthit
- Origin: Thai
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: ah-TIT
Arthit is a Thai name meaning sun, and it descends from the Sanskrit name of the Hindu god Aditya.
That gives this list a small piece of symmetry: Aditya opens the boys’ section and Arthit sits eleven names later, the same word after it travelled east and lost a syllable. Arthit is ordinary in Thailand and unheard of in American classrooms, and the final consonant is soft, closer to ah-TIT than ar-THIT.
14. Ataru
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: The sun
- Pronunciation: ah-TAH-roo
Ataru is a Japanese name meaning the sun.
Star Wars families have a second reason to look at it. Ataru is the fourth of the seven lightsaber combat forms, the acrobatic one built around leaps and spinning attacks, and it is the form Yoda uses. A name that works as a sun name and as a deep-cut reference is not a common find, and Ataru has the advantage of being easy to say and easy to spell.
15. Baer
- Origin: Limburgish
- Meaning: Bright
- Pronunciation: BAIR
Baer is a Limburgish name that means bright.
Limburgish is spoken in the borderlands where Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands meet, and Baer was in ordinary use there through the medieval period. To an American ear it lands as a homophone of Bear, which is either the whole appeal or the whole problem, depending on how you feel about a boy answering to an animal for the next eighty years.
16. Bert
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Bright
- Pronunciation: BURT
- Popularity: #10,866 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (6 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.
Bert is an English boy’s name meaning bright. It is the short form that got loose from Albert, Egbert, Osbert, and every other name on this list ending in the same syllable.
Bert last appeared in the American top 1,000 in 1983, at 964th, and has not returned since. That is four decades in the wilderness, which by the usual hundred-year rule of old-fashioned names puts it just about due. Sesame Street is the association most Americans still reach for first, so go in with clear eyes.
17. Castor
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: To shine
- Pronunciation: KAS-tur
Castor is a Greek name meaning to shine.
Pollux was the son of Zeus and Castor the mortal son of Tyndareus, so when Castor died Pollux gave up half his immortality rather than be separated from him. Zeus set them in the sky together as Gemini, where their two bright stars still carry their names. For twin boys it is close to unbeatable; for a single son it still reads as strong and a little mythic without being difficult.
18. Cuthbert
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Known and bright
- Pronunciation: KUTH-burt
Cuthbert comes from the Old English elements cuth, meaning known or familiar, and beorht, meaning bright. Famous and bright is the usual gloss.
Saint Cuthbert was the 7th-century monk of Lindisfarne whose shrine at Durham drew pilgrims for eight hundred years, and the name stayed in northern English use long after most Anglo-Saxon names died out. Harry Potter readers will know Cuthbert Binns, the History of Magic teacher who died in the staff room and carried on teaching as a ghost, apparently without noticing.
19. Dai
- Origin: Welsh
- Meaning: To shine
- Pronunciation: DIE
Dai is a Welsh name that means to shine.
It has two lives. As a stand-alone name it grew out of the Celtic root dei, to shine, and in Wales it also serves as the everyday short form of David. Three letters, one syllable, and a meaning that fits this list exactly. Americans will want the spelling confirmed, since it rhymes with sky rather than day.
20. Dashinima
- Origin: Buryat
- Meaning: Lucky sun
- Pronunciation: dah-shee-NEE-mah
Dashinima is a Buryat name meaning happy sun or lucky sun.
The double meaning is not poetic license; it is two Tibetan words joined together. Bkra shis means good fortune, and nyi ma means sun or day. The Buryats are a Mongolic people of southern Siberia whose Buddhist tradition brought Tibetan vocabulary into their naming, and this is one of the results. It is four syllables and it will need spelling out, but nothing about it is hard to pronounce.
21. Diell
- Origin: Albanian
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: dee-EL
Diell is the Albanian word for sun, used directly as a name.
It pairs neatly with Agim earlier in this list, one meaning the sun itself and the other the moment before it appears. Albanian spells the sound with a double L that English readers tend to over-pronounce; it is closer to dee-EL than dee-ELL. Among sun names it is one of the cleanest, a real word in a living language rather than a reconstructed root.
22. Dimas
- Origin: Spanish, Portuguese
- Meaning: Sunset
- Pronunciation: DEE-mahs
Dimas is the Spanish and Portuguese form of Dismas, which comes from the Greek word dysme, meaning sunset.
Dismas is the traditional name given to the repentant thief crucified beside Jesus, which is how the name entered Catholic Spain and travelled from there through Latin America. The stress falls on the first syllable, DEE-mahs, not the second, and the S at the end is pronounced. It is a genuine sunset name in a list dominated by sunrises.
23. Egbert
- Origin: English, Dutch
- Meaning: Bright edge
- Pronunciation: EG-burt
Egbert means bright edge, from the Old English elements ecg, an edge or blade, and beorht, bright. It is the shine of a sword catching the light rather than the shine of the sky.
The name crossed into Dutch and stayed there long after English speakers abandoned it, and it still turns up across northern Europe. Egbert of Wessex, who died in 839, is counted by some historians as the first king of a unified England.
24. Elio
- Origin: Italian
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: EH-lee-o
- Popularity: #388 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (818 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 634% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Elio is the Italian form of Helios, the Greek sun god, and Helio is its Spanish and Portuguese counterpart.
It is climbing fast in the United States. Elio ranked 388th for American boys in 2025, up from 507th in 2024, 645th in 2023, and 875th in 2022, which is more than four hundred places in four years. Call Me By Your Name gave it a push, but the sound is doing most of the work: three vowels, no hard consonants, and an easy fit alongside Leo, Milo, and Theo without being any of them.
25. Enver
- Origin: Turkish
- Meaning: Brighter, more luminous
- Pronunciation: EN-ver
Enver is the Turkish transliteration of the Arabic name Anwar, and it carries the same meaning of brighter or more luminous.
It is common across Turkey, Bosnia, and Albania, which makes it one of the few names here with a real foothold in three countries at once. For an American family it has a practical advantage over its Arabic twin: the spelling matches the way English speakers will say it, so nobody has to be corrected twice.
26. Ergün
- Origin: Turkish
- Meaning: Brave sun
- Pronunciation: air-GEWN
Ergun joins two ordinary Turkish elements: er, meaning man, hero, or brave, and gun, meaning sun.
Those pieces reassemble all over Turkish naming. The same er closes Taner further down this list, and the same gun opens Gunay. Ergun is usually glossed as soldier of the sun, though brave sun is closer to the parts. The umlaut is doing real work in the pronunciation, pulling the vowel toward the sound in the French word tu.
27. Erlantz
- Origin: Basque
- Meaning: Glow, shine
- Pronunciation: air-LANTS
Erlantz is a Basque name meaning glow or shine.
Basque is a language isolate, related to nothing else spoken on earth, which is why its names look and sound unlike anything else on this page. The Basque Country sits at the western end of the Pyrenees on the Atlantic coast, and names like this one came back into everyday use during the cultural revival of the late twentieth century. The tz ending is a single sound, closer to the ts in cats.
28. Günay
- Origin: Turkish, Azerbaijani
- Meaning: Sun and moon
- Pronunciation: goon-EYE
Gunay is a compound of two Turkish words: gun, meaning sun, and ay, meaning moon.
Turkish and Azerbaijani naming does this constantly, and the order can be reversed for a different name, Aygun, which puts the moon first. Gunay works as a forename for either a boy or a girl and also survives as a surname. Getting both halves of the sky into five letters is a neat trick, and it is the reason this one shows up on lists of sun names and moon names alike.
29. Haru
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Light, sun
- Pronunciation: HAH-roo
Haru means light, sun, male when it is written with the kanji character for sun.
Japanese names carry their meaning in the characters rather than the sound, so the same two syllables can be written three common ways and mean three different things. Written one way it is springtime; written another it is clear, sunny weather; written with the sun character it lands squarely on this list. Haru also appears in the girls’ section below, because the sound belongs to both.
30. Haul
- Origin: Welsh
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: HIGH-l
Haul is a modern Welsh name meaning sun, and reference works mark it as rare even in Wales.
It is also the root of Heulwen, the Welsh word for sunshine, which appears in the girls’ list. The pronunciation is roughly HIGH-l, one syllable, nothing like the English word it is spelled like. That gap between spelling and sound is the whole risk here, and any American family choosing it should assume a lifetime of moving-truck jokes.
31. Heliodoro
- Origin: Spanish, Portuguese
- Meaning: Gift of the sun
- Pronunciation: eh-lyo-DAW-ro
Heliodoro comes from the Greek Heliodoros, which joins helios, sun, with doron, gift.
Heliodorus of Emesa wrote the Aethiopica, one of the surviving Greek novels, and described himself as descended from a family of sun priests, which suits the name he was carrying. Five syllables is a commitment, but Spanish gives it the obvious shortcuts in Helio and Doro, and the full version is still in use across Spain, Portugal, and Latin America.
32. Helios
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: HEE-lee-os
Helios means sun in Ancient Greek, and there is no name on this list that gets closer to the source.
He was the Titan who drove a four-horse chariot across the sky each day, and his sister Selene did the same at night with the moon. Half the names here are downstream of him: Elio, Heliodoro, Helie, Helianthus, and Aelius all lead back to the same four letters. Using the original rather than a descendant is a bold choice, but it is a legible one, and no teacher will need it explained.
33. Hinata
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Sunny place, toward the sun
- Pronunciation: hee-NAH-tah
Hinata is read as sunny place or toward the sun, and it is used for both girls and boys in Japan.
It is frequently written in hiragana rather than kanji, because the character readings behind it are irregular enough that the phonetic spelling is simply easier. Anime viewers will know Hinata Shoyo from Haikyuu!!, the main character of that series, who is too short for volleyball and jumps his way around the problem.
34. Hito
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: To the sun
- Pronunciation: HEE-toh
Hito is a Japanese name meaning to the sun.
It is short, it ends in the vowel that makes so many Japanese names travel well into English, and it sits in the same sound family as Hiro and Ito without being either. Wrestling fans may recognize Mr. Hito, the Japanese professional who spent years in the Calgary territory and whom Bret Hart credits as one of his most important teachers.
35. Kem
- Origin: Romani
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: KEM
Kem is a Romani name meaning sun.
Three letters, one syllable, and a meaning that needs no explaining once you have said it. The American singer and producer Kem, born Kim Owens, has been recording under it since the early 2000s. For parents who want the sun theme without any of the length or the diacritics that come with most of this list, it is the shortest route there is.
36. Lairus
- Origin: Biblical Latin
- Meaning: He shines
- Pronunciation: LIE-rus
Lairus is a spelling that circulates for Jairus, the Biblical Latin and Greek form of the Hebrew name Jair, which means he shines. The root is or, the Hebrew verb to shine.
In the Gospels, Jairus is the synagogue leader who begs Jesus to come and heal his dying daughter, and the story ends with the girl restored. So this is a Latin-looking name with a Hebrew engine, which is true of a surprising number of names that came through the New Testament.
37. Lambert
- Origin: German, Dutch
- Meaning: Bright land
- Pronunciation: LAM-burt
Lambert joins the Old German elements lant, meaning land, and beraht, meaning bright. Brightness across the land is the usual poetic reading.
English speakers now meet it far more often as a surname, but it began as a forename and spent centuries as one, carried largely by the cult of Saint Lambert of Maastricht. The current appetite for surnames used as first names has quietly opened the door for it again, and it comes with Bert already attached.
38. Langa
- Origin: Xhosa
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: LAHN-gah
Langa means sun in Xhosa.
Xhosa is one of South Africa’s official languages, first language to roughly 8.2 million people and a second language to around 11 million more, and it belongs to the Bantu family. Langa is also a place name in South Africa with weight of its own. Two syllables, both open, and the kind of rhythm that carries easily in English.
39. Lugus
- Origin: Gaulish
- Meaning: Light, brightness
- Pronunciation: LOO-gus
Lugus is an ancient Gaulish name meaning light or brightness.
He was the Celtic god of craft, trade, and skill, and the Romans identified him with their own Mercury. His name is buried in cities across Europe: Lyon in France and Lugo in Spain were both Lugdunum, the fort of Lugus. His Irish descendant, Lugh, is the more familiar spelling to most people and the easier one to use.
40. Mehr
- Origin: Persian
- Meaning: Sun, friendship
- Pronunciation: MEHR
Mehr is a Persian name carrying two meanings at once: sun and friendship. Persian compounds it constantly, giving Mehrdad, Mehrnaz, and Mehrab.
It is also the seventh month of the Iranian solar calendar, the first month of autumn, thirty days long. The Mehregan festival that falls in it is one of the oldest Persian celebrations still observed. One syllable, no ambiguity about how to say it, and centuries of use behind it.
41. Osbert
- Origin: Old English
- Meaning: God bright
- Pronunciation: OZ-burt
Osbert is built from the Old English elements os, meaning god, and beorht, meaning bright.
It is the fourth Anglo-Saxon bert name on this list, alongside Egbert, Cuthbert, and Albert, and they were all assembled from the same small kit of elements. Osbert Salvin, the Victorian ornithologist, co-wrote the Biologia Centrali-Americana, a 215-part survey of the natural history of Mexico and Central America that took decades to finish. The name has not ranked in America in living memory, which is either the drawback or the point.
42. Rashmi
- Origin: Sinhalese
- Meaning: Ray of sunlight
- Pronunciation: RASH-mee
Rashmi means ray of sunlight in Sinhalese, the majority language of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka submitted the name to the regional tropical cyclone naming list, and Rashmi was assigned to the seventh cyclone of the 2008 North Indian Ocean season. That is a slightly odd claim to fame for a name that means sunbeam. In South Asia the name is used for both boys and girls, so an American family should expect to clarify.
43. Ravindra
- Origin: Sanskrit
- Meaning: Lord of the sun
- Pronunciation: rah-VEEN-drah
Ravindra joins ravi, the Sanskrit word for sun, with Indra, meaning lord.
If lord of the sun feels like a lot to hand a newborn, ravi on its own is a common Hindi name and simply means sun. Ravi Shankar carried it around the world. Between the two, most families choose the shorter one, but Ravindra keeps the fuller sound and still shortens to Ravi at home.
44. Samson
- Origin: Hebrew
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: SAM-sun
- Popularity: #477 among U.S. boys’ names in 2025 (639 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 96% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Samson comes through Biblical Latin from the Hebrew Shimshon, which is built on shemesh, the Hebrew word for sun. The strongman of the Book of Judges is, at the level of etymology, a sun name.
It has been climbing steadily: 477th for American boys in 2025, up from 522nd in 2024, 563rd in 2023, and 582nd in 2022. Sam is right there as a nickname, which is a large part of why parents are willing to take on the rest of it. Shemesh itself appears in the girls’ list below.
45. Taner
- Origin: Turkish
- Meaning: Dawn man
- Pronunciation: tah-NAIR
Taner is built from the Turkish words tan, meaning dawn, and er, meaning man, hero, or brave. Dawn man is the literal reading.
It is one of a cluster of Turkish names on this page assembled the same way, sharing the er of Ergun and the dawn imagery of Altan. For a boy born in the small hours, the fit is exact. Two syllables, no silent letters, and no realistic way for an English speaker to get it wrong.
46. Tyr
- Origin: Old Norse
- Meaning: Sky, shine
- Pronunciation: TEER
Tyr traces back to the same Indo-European root as Zeus, dyew-, meaning sky or shine, which also produced the Latin Jupiter and the Sanskrit Dyaus.
In Norse myth he is the god who put his hand in the wolf Fenrir’s mouth as a pledge, and lost it when the gods broke their word. Tuesday is his day, worn down from Tyr’s day. Three letters, one syllable, and a straight line back to the oldest layer of European naming.
47. Wilbert
- Origin: Dutch
- Meaning: Bright will
- Pronunciation: WIL-burt
Wilbert means bright will, from the Old German elements willo, meaning will or desire, and beraht, meaning bright.
It had a real run in America in the 1920s and had faded out by the 1990s, which puts it in the useful middle ground: uncommon enough that your son will almost certainly be the only one, familiar enough that nobody will ask him to repeat it. The Reverend W. Awdry, who wrote the Thomas the Tank Engine books, was christened Wilbert.
48. Willka
- Origin: Aymara
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: WEEL-kah
Willka comes from the Aymara word wilka, meaning sun. Aymara is spoken across the Andean highlands of Bolivia, Peru, and Chile.
The Willkamayu, sun river, runs through Peru’s Sacred Valley. The Inca read it as the earthly reflection of the Milky Way, and the sun tracks along its course near the December solstice, which is how it earned the name. The Spanish rendering of the river, Vilcanota, is the one most maps still use.
49. Yo-Han
- Origin: Korean
- Meaning: Shine, sunlight
- Pronunciation: yo-HAHN
Yo-Han is a Korean name meaning shine or sunlight.
There is a false friend worth knowing about. The French Yohan and the German Johann look and sound close to identical, but they are forms of John and mean God is gracious, from an entirely different language family. The Korean name arrives at the same syllables by a separate road, so the meaning you get depends on which tradition you are naming from.
50. Zeus
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Sky, shine
- Pronunciation: ZOOS
Zeus goes back to the Indo-European god Dyeus, from the root dyew-, meaning sky or shine. The same root produced Jupiter in Latin, Dyaus in Sanskrit, and Tyr in Old Norse, which makes the two ends of this list relatives.
He ruled from Olympus, controlled the weather, and threw the thunderbolt. As a name in the United States it is used, though thinly, and it is usually chosen by parents who want something unmissable. Nothing about it is subtle, and that is plainly the intention.
50 Girl Names That Mean Sun
Fifty names for girls, weighted toward dawn goddesses and the sol names of Scandinavia, with current US rankings on the ones that are actually in use.
51. Aelia
- Origin: Ancient Roman
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: EYE-lee-ah
Aelia is the feminine form of Aelius, an Ancient Roman name connected to the Greek helios, meaning sun.
It belonged to the family of the emperor Hadrian, and because Roman daughters took the feminine of the family name, there were a great many Aelias. The name is stamped on coins and cut into inscriptions all over the empire. For a modern girl it sits close to Aaliyah and Amelia in sound while being neither, and it comes with two thousand years of documentation.
52. Áine
- Origin: Irish
- Meaning: Radiance
- Pronunciation: AW-nyeh
Aine is an Irish name meaning radiance.
She was the goddess of summer and of the sun’s warmth, honored at midsummer on the hill of Knockainey in County Limerick, and sometimes appearing as a red mare. Her sister Grian is further down this list, which gives you a ready-made pair of twin girls’ names. The pronunciation is the hurdle: AW-nyeh, roughly, and not the ANN-ee that most Americans reach for first.
53. Akino
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: My rising sun
- Pronunciation: ah-KEE-no
Akino is a Japanese name meaning my rising sun.
It shares its first syllables with Akira and Akiko without being a variant of either, and the final O gives it a shape American ears already know from Keiko and Yuko. The singer Akino Kawamitsu, who records simply as Akino, grew up in Utah and has sung the theme songs for several anime series, which is how most people outside Japan meet the name.
54. Alba
- Origin: Spanish, Italian
- Meaning: Dawn
- Pronunciation: AHL-bah
- Popularity: #1,261 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (177 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.
Alba means dawn in Spanish, Italian, and Catalan.
There is a second thread. Elsewhere it functions as the feminine of the Roman Albus, meaning white or bright, and both roads arrive at the same pale early light. In the United States it is genuinely dormant, last appearing in the top 1,000 in 1923 at 928th, so an American Alba would be borrowing a name that is ordinary abroad and unused at home.
55. Álfsól
- Origin: Icelandic
- Meaning: Elf sun
- Pronunciation: ALF-sohl
Alfsol is an Icelandic name meaning elven sun, from alfr, elf, and sol, sun.
Iceland regulates given names through the Personal Names Register, and a name that has fallen out of use does not automatically qualify for revival. Alfsol had to be individually approved, and one family was granted it in 1998. That is an unusual pedigree for a name: not merely rare but formally readmitted after centuries away.
56. Anpao
- Origin: Lakota
- Meaning: Dawn
- Pronunciation: ahn-PAH-o
Anpao is a Lakota name for the dawn.
In Lakota tradition Anpao is a two-faced spirit who dances with Han, the spirit of darkness, and their dance is what keeps Wi, the sun, from scorching the earth. It is a creation story that makes the dawn an act of restraint rather than an arrival. If the name belongs to your family’s tradition it carries real weight, and if it does not, that is worth sitting with before choosing it.
57. Arani
- Origin: Sanskrit
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: ah-RAH-nee
Arani is a Sanskrit name that can mean sun, though the reading shifts with context.
Sanskrit words routinely carry several senses at once, and arani is one of them, which is why you will see it glossed differently depending on the source. It is used across the regions of India rather than belonging to one of them. Three open syllables and a stress that falls in the middle make it easy for English speakers, and it sits near Arya and Amani without duplicating either.
58. Arevik
- Origin: Armenian
- Meaning: Like the sun
- Pronunciation: ah-reh-VEEK
Arevik means like the sun in Armenian, built from arev, sun, plus a diminutive ending.
That ending is doing something specific. It is affectionate, so the name lands closer to little sun than to sun, which is a distinction most sun names on this page cannot make. It runs ah-reh-VEEK, three syllables with the stress at the end. For a family with Armenian roots it is ordinary at home and striking in an American classroom.
59. Arpi
- Origin: Armenian
- Meaning: Sun, ether
- Pronunciation: ahr-PEE
- Popularity: #7,179 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (15 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 84% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Arpi is an Armenian name meaning sun, ether, and like Areg it is described as a poetic word rather than the everyday one.
It ranked second in Armenia in 2025, so this is not a rediscovered curiosity but a name at the top of a national chart right now. Two syllables, four letters, no diacritics, and nothing in the spelling that an American teacher could misread. Among the Armenian names here it is the one most ready to travel.
60. Aruna
- Origin: Sanskrit
- Meaning: Reddish brown, dawn
- Pronunciation: ah-ROO-nah
Aruna means reddish brown, dawn in Sanskrit, naming the color of the sky rather than the light itself.
In Hindu tradition Aruna is the charioteer who drives the sun god Surya across the sky, which makes the name the red glow that runs just ahead of sunrise. It is used for both women and men across India. Aruna Miller, the American engineer who became lieutenant governor of Maryland, is one of its better-known bearers in the United States.
61. Aurora
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Dawn
- Pronunciation: aw-RAWR-ah
- Popularity: #15 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (7,065 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 226% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Aurora is the Latin word for dawn and the name of the Roman goddess of the morning, who raced ahead of the sun to announce it.
It is now the most popular name on this entire page by a wide margin, ranking 15th for American girls in 2025 after 16th in 2024, 22nd in 2023, and 31st in 2022. Sleeping Beauty gave it a generation of recognition and the northern lights gave it the rest. Rory and Rora are both in use as nicknames, and neither is a stretch.
62. Austra
- Origin: Latvian
- Meaning: Dawn
- Pronunciation: OW-strah
Austra means dawn in Latvian and is the direct cognate of the Lithuanian Ausra.
The Baltic languages preserve some of the oldest Indo-European vocabulary still in daily use, and this word is one of the reasons linguists keep going back to them. Austra Skujyte set the world record for the women’s decathlon in 2005 with 8,358 points at a meet in Columbia, Missouri, a mark that stood for years. Two syllables, and the AU is the sound in ouch.
63. Beltane
- Origin: Celtic
- Meaning: Bright fire
- Pronunciation: BEL-tayn
Beltane evolved from a Celtic word meaning bright fire.
It is the May Day festival of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man, marking the start of summer, and the fire in the name is the sun’s. Cattle were driven between two bonfires for protection before being moved to the summer pastures. Using a festival as a first name is a real choice rather than a neutral one, and it will read as deliberate to anyone who knows the calendar.
64. Brigid
- Origin: Irish
- Meaning: The exalted one
- Pronunciation: BRIJ-id
Brigid means the exalted one in Irish.
The goddess Brigid held poetry, smithcraft, healing, and the dawn, and her feast on the first of February marks the turn toward spring. She was absorbed almost whole into Saint Brigid of Kildare, which is why the name survived Christianization intact when so many did not. The tradition paints her as a redhead with a temper, and there are more spellings of this name than of almost any other Irish one: Bridget, Brighid, Bríd, Breeda.
65. Daisy
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Day’s eye
- Pronunciation: DAY-zee
- Popularity: #75 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (3,206 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 25% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Daisy comes from the Old English daegeseage, meaning day’s eye.
The flower earned that name because it opens its petals with the morning light and shuts them again at dusk, tracking the sun the way a pupil tracks a room. Most people using the name have no idea it is a sun name at all. It ranked 75th for American girls in 2025, up from 76th in 2024, 110th in 2023, and 124th in 2022, so it is quietly climbing back toward the top fifty.
66. Dawn
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Dawn
- Pronunciation: DAWN
- Popularity: #2,174 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (85 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.
Dawn comes straight from the English word, which traces back to the Old English dagung.
Its American arc is unusually steep. It peaked at 14th for girls in 1971, then fell for three decades and left the top 1,000 entirely in 2000 at 910th, where it has stayed. That makes it a name with a very specific generation attached to it, and it is roughly twenty-five years from the point at which such names typically start coming back. One syllable, no spelling questions, and the plainest possible statement of the theme.
67. Éadaoin
- Origin: Irish
- Meaning: Jealousy, passion
- Pronunciation: EH-deen
Eadaoin is the modern Irish spelling of Etain, possibly from the Old Irish et, meaning jealousy or passion.
The legend behind it is one of the strangest in Irish myth. Etain was the wife of Midir, whose jealous first wife Fuamnach turned her into a fly; she was swallowed, reborn as a mortal, and married the high king Eochaid Airem with no memory of her first life. Midir eventually won her back by beating Eochaid at chess. Some scholars read her as a sun goddess, which is how she reaches this list.
68. Elanor
- Origin: Literature
- Meaning: Star sun
- Pronunciation: EL-ah-nor
Elanor means star sun in Sindarin, one of the two Elvish languages Tolkien invented.
In The Lord of the Rings it is first a small golden flower that grows in Lothlorien, and then the name Samwise Gamgee gives his eldest daughter. Tolkien defines it inside the book itself, which is rare enough that the meaning is not guesswork. The single L is what separates it from Eleanor, and it is also what guarantees a lifetime of corrections.
69. Èlia
- Origin: Catalan
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: EH-lee-ah
Elia is the Catalan form of the name behind Elio and Helios, and it means sun.
It has spread well past Catalonia, turning up in Italy, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, across the rest of Spain, and in Israel. The grave accent marks the stress for Catalan readers; drop it and you have the Italian Elia, which is a boys’ name and a form of Elijah entirely. That one mark is carrying a lot of weight.
70. Éliane
- Origin: French
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: ay-LYAHN
Eliane is a French name meaning sun, from the same Greek helios root that runs through this whole section.
It had a real moment in France in the 1940s and 1950s and has been quiet since, which is roughly where Vivienne and Josephine sat before Americans found them. It works with or without the accent. The French pronunciation compresses the middle into one glide, ay-LYAHN rather than ay-lee-AHN, and Americans will settle on whichever they hear first.
71. Ēostre
- Origin: Old English
- Meaning: To shine, dawn
- Pronunciation: AY-oh-struh
Eostre is an Old English name built on a root meaning to shine.
The monk Bede recorded her as a goddess honored in April by the Anglo-Saxons, and her name is where the English word Easter comes from, while most other European languages took theirs from the Hebrew Pesach. The German Ostara later in this list is her counterpart. Almost everything we know about her comes from a single paragraph written more than a thousand years ago, which is either a problem or a mystery, depending on your taste.
72. Grian
- Origin: Irish
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: GREE-an
Grian is the Irish word for sun used as a name.
Her role in the mythology is genuinely disputed, and scholars have argued for a century about whether she is a separate figure or a second face of Aine, who appears near the top of this list. Most of the sources treat them as sisters. If you want a pair of sun names for twins that come from one tradition and one story, these two are the strongest option here.
73. Gry
- Origin: Norwegian, Danish, Swedish
- Meaning: To dawn
- Pronunciation: GREE
Gry means to dawn in Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. It is the verb, not the noun, which gives it a bit of motion.
Unlike most Scandinavian names it is not ancient at all. The earliest recorded use was in Norway in 1897, and Denmark did not pick it up until the twentieth century. Three letters and one syllable make it the shortest name in the girls’ list, and the Y sits somewhere between the English E and U, so Americans will approximate it and that will be fine.
74. Halo
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Disc of the sun
- Pronunciation: HAY-lo
- Popularity: #613 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (477 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 278% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Halo comes from the Latin halos, the disc of the sun.
Its American trajectory has been jumpy. It ranked 612th for girls in 2025 after 513th in 2024, 565th in 2023, and 768th in 2022, which is a lot of movement in a short window and suggests a name still finding its level. The word-name category it belongs to, alongside Nova and Aurora, is where a good deal of current naming energy sits. The video game is the association to weigh.
75. Haru
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Light, sun
- Pronunciation: HAH-roo
Haru means light, sun, and male when it is written with the kanji for sun, which is a slightly odd set of senses for a name used more often for girls than boys in Japan.
The character carries all three at once, and Japanese naming is comfortable with that in a way English is not. Write the same sound differently and you get springtime or clear weather instead. Two syllables, no consonant clusters, and one of the easiest names on this page for an English speaker to say correctly.
76. Hathor
- Origin: Ancient Egyptian
- Meaning: House of Horus
- Pronunciation: HATH-or
Hathor is the Greek rendering of the Egyptian hwt-hrw, which joins hwt, house, with the god Horus. The house of Horus is the literal reading.
She was a goddess of love, and Egyptian art usually gives her a cow’s head or a cow’s horns. Her connection to this list runs through Horus, the falcon god of the sky and the sun, whom she contains in her name. Her temple at Dendera is one of the best-preserved in Egypt, and the inscriptions there call her the Golden One.
77. Helene
- Origin: Ancient Greek
- Meaning: Shining, bright
- Pronunciation: heh-LEH-neh
Helene is the older Greek form of Helen, meaning shining or bright.
Scholars have never fully settled whether it belongs to the helios family or to a separate root meaning torch, and the sources hedge. What is not in doubt is its reach: Helene is the standard modern form in Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, well ahead of the English spelling. Helen of Troy anchors it in the Iliad, and the final E changes the whole rhythm, giving three syllables where English gives two.
78. Helianthus
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Sunflower
- Pronunciation: hee-lee-AN-thus
Helianthus is Greek for sunflower, from helios, sun, and anthos, flower.
It is the botanical genus name rather than a traditional given name, covering about seventy species. Helianthus annuus is the common sunflower and Helianthus tuberosus is the Jerusalem artichoke, which is neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke. Four syllables is a great deal to hand a child, but Lia, Ann, and Anthe are all sitting inside it, and Helia is the obvious short form.
79. Helie
- Origin: Ancient Greek
- Meaning: Of the sun
- Pronunciation: HEE-lee-ee
Helie is an Ancient Greek name meaning of the sun.
She was one of the Heliades, the daughters of Helios, who wept so long over their brother Phaethon’s death that they were turned into poplar trees and their tears into amber. It is a small, strange name attached to a story about grief and amber, and it is the shortest way on this list to say daughter of the sun in one word.
80. Hemera
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Day
- Pronunciation: heh-MEH-rah
Hemera is a Greek name meaning day.
Her parentage is a nice piece of symmetry: daughter of Erebos, darkness, and Nyx, night, with Aether, the upper light, as her brother. Day born out of night, in other words. That sibling pairing has made Hemera and Aether a recurring suggestion for boy and girl twins. Three syllables, all soft, and it sits comfortably near Hera without being her.
81. Hesperia
- Origin: Ancient Greek
- Meaning: Evening
- Pronunciation: hes-PEER-ee-ah
Hesperia is an Ancient Greek name meaning evening, from hesperos, the evening star.
The Greeks also used Hesperia as their word for Italy, the country lying to the west where the sun went down, and the Romans later pushed the same label further on to Spain. It is the west-facing counterpart to all the dawn names in this list. Hespera and Hesper are both used as shorter forms, and there is a city in California carrying the full version.
82. Heulwen
- Origin: Welsh
- Meaning: Sunshine
- Pronunciation: HAYL-wen
Heulwen is a Welsh name meaning sunshine, built from haul, sun, and gwen, white or blessed.
Haul appears on its own in the boys’ list above, so these two are the same word split across the sections. The pronunciation depends on where in Wales you ask: HAYL-wen in the north, HIEL-wen in the south. That gwen ending is the same one in Olwen, Gwendolyn, and Bronwen, which makes it far more recognizable to American ears than the first half suggests.
83. Marici
- Origin: Sanskrit
- Meaning: Ray of light
- Pronunciation: mah-REE-chee
Marici means ray of light in Sanskrit.
In Buddhism she is a bodhisattva associated with the light before sunrise, and she is usually depicted with three faces and many arms, each hand holding a different weapon, riding a chariot pulled by boars. She was adopted into Japanese practice as Marishiten and became a protector figure among the samurai. The name is soft in the mouth and considerably fiercer in the iconography.
84. Olwen
- Origin: Welsh
- Meaning: White footprint
- Pronunciation: OL-wen
Olwen joins the Welsh ol, meaning footprint or track, with gwen, meaning white or blessed.
In the tale of Culhwch and Olwen, one of the oldest Arthurian stories, she is the daughter of the giant Yspaddaden, who sets Culhwch a list of near-impossible tasks before he will allow the marriage. White trefoils were said to spring up wherever she walked, which is where the footprint comes from. She has also been read as a sun figure, the golden wheel of summer, and the name is far easier for Americans than most Welsh ones.
85. Ôstara
- Origin: Old High German
- Meaning: To shine
- Pronunciation: oh-STAH-rah
Ostara is Old High German and comes from a root meaning to shine. She is the German counterpart of the Anglo-Saxon Eostre earlier in this list.
The old German calendar had a month called Ostermonat, Ostara’s month, in which the spring equinox was celebrated, and the modern German word for Easter, Ostern, came out of the same place. Neopagan revivals have kept the name in circulation, so it arrives with a modern set of associations layered over the ancient ones.
86. Roxana
- Origin: Persian
- Meaning: Bright, shining
- Pronunciation: rok-SAN-ah
- Popularity: #2,366 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (77 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 38% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Roxana is the Latin form of a name from the Old Iranian rauxsna, meaning bright or shining. The Greek historians recorded it when they wrote about Alexander.
Roxana was a Bactrian princess whom Alexander the Great married after taking the fortress at Sogdian Rock, and the ancient accounts insist he chose her out of genuine attachment rather than politics. In the United States the name last ranked in 2005 at 970th and has been absent since, though Roxanne and Roxy both keep the sound alive.
87. Saulė
- Origin: Lithuanian
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: SOW-leh
Saule is the Lithuanian word for sun and the name of the Baltic sun goddess, who drives her chariot across the sky and is mourned by the whole pantheon when she sets.
Lithuanians say it either SOW-lay or sow-LAY depending on the region. There is a near-twin worth not confusing it with: the Kazakh Saule, written without the accent, which means ray of light or sunbeam and is said SOW-la. Two languages, two peoples, one sound, and a very small mark separating them.
88. Shams
- Origin: Arabic
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: SHAMS
Shams means sun in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, and it is used for both women and men.
Before Islam, Shams was an Arabian sun goddess and the patron deity of the Himyarite kingdom in what is now Yemen. The name later fed a family of compounds, including Shams ad-Din, sun of the faith, which was the given name of the traveller Ibn Battuta. It is one syllable and it is said as it looks, which cannot be claimed for many names on this page.
89. Shemesh
- Origin: Hebrew
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: SHEH-mesh
Shemesh is the Hebrew word for sun.
It is the root that produced Shimshon, and from there Samson, who appears in the boys’ list above, so the pair of them bracket this page. A related sun deity, Shamash, was worshipped in Akkadian and Babylonian religion, and the Canaanites of the eastern Mediterranean had their own version. Beit Shemesh, house of the sun, is still a city in Israel. As a first name it is uncommon even in Hebrew, which is part of the appeal.
90. Sienna
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Orange-red
- Pronunciation: see-EN-ah
- Popularity: #94 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (2,659 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.
Sienna is an English name meaning orange-red.
The pigment took its name from Siena in Tuscany, where the clay is that particular burnt orange, and the name took its meaning from the pigment. It is the color of low late light, which is how it reaches a sun list. It ranked 94th for American girls in 2025, a jump from 139th in 2024, and the double N is the American spelling while the Italian city keeps one.
91. Sol
- Origin: Spanish, Portuguese
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: SOHL
- Popularity: #722 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (389 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 195% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Sol is the Spanish and Portuguese word for sun, and it is also the name of the Norse sun goddess, which is an unusual double origin.
It reads as a modern minimalist choice, but it had an American life a century ago as a boys’ name, peaking at 256th in 1913 before disappearing from masculine use. On the girls’ side it ranked 722nd in 2025, after 821st in 2024 and 891st in 2023. It is the element inside Solana, Sole, Soley, Solfrid, and Solvita, all of which follow.
92. Solana
- Origin: Spanish
- Meaning: Sunny spot
- Pronunciation: so-LAH-nah
Solana is a Spanish name meaning sunny spot, a place exposed to the sun. It also works as a feminine form of the surname Solano.
The singer SZA was born Solana Rowe, which is by some distance the name’s highest-profile outing. In Spain, La Solana takes its name from a well that sat on the sunlit side of a hill, La Fuente de la Solana. Four syllables that flow without effort in English, and it gives you Sol, Lana, and Ana as ready-made nicknames.
93. Solbritt
- Origin: Swedish
- Meaning: Sun and Britt
- Pronunciation: SOOL-brit
Solbritt is a Swedish name made by joining sol, sun, to Britt, the Swedish form of Brigid.
It was coined in 1909, which is recent enough that its invention is documented rather than guessed at. Scandinavian naming went through a long phase of building compounds like this, and Solveig, Solfrid, and Sunniva all came out of the same impulse. Given that Brigid appears earlier in this list, Solbritt is effectively two names from this page welded into one.
94. Sole
- Origin: Italian
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: SO-leh
Sole is the Italian word for sun.
For most of its history it was not used alone but attached to Maria, as Maria Sole, in the Italian tradition of double names. It only broke off and stood on its own in recent decades. English speakers should know that the E is pronounced, giving two syllables, SO-leh, and that written down it will be read as the English words sole and soul by roughly everyone.
95. Soleil
- Origin: French
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: so-LAY
- Popularity: #758 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (358 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 46% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Soleil is the French word for sun, and here is the curiosity: the French themselves barely use it as a name.
Americans use it more. It ranked 756th for US girls in 2025, up from 823rd in 2024 and 971st in 2023, and the actress Soleil Moon Frye kept it visible for decades. Cirque du Soleil supplies the rest of the recognition. The spelling is the only real obstacle, since so-LAY gives no clue that five of its letters are silent or nearly so.
96. Sóley
- Origin: Icelandic
- Meaning: Buttercup
- Pronunciation: SO-lay
Soley is the Icelandic name for the buttercup flower, and it is built from sol, sun, and ey, island. Island of sun, literally, for a small yellow flower.
It is used in Iceland, Sweden, and Denmark. Icelandic flower names of this kind tend to be blunt and visual rather than decorative, and this is a good example of the habit. To an American ear it sounds like Solay or Sunny without being either, and the accent is the only thing standing between it and easy adoption.
97. Solfrid
- Origin: Norwegian
- Meaning: Beautiful sun
- Pronunciation: SOOL-freed
Solfrid is a Norwegian name built from the Old Norse sol, sun, and fridr, meaning beautiful or beloved.
Reference works date it as a nineteenth-century coinage, with the earliest documented use in 1891, so it is old-fashioned rather than ancient. It fell out of Norwegian favor during the 1960s and is rarely given today, which puts it in the same bracket as Doris or Mildred in English: fully formed, entirely usable, and currently sitting unclaimed.
98. Solvita
- Origin: Latvian
- Meaning: Sun and life
- Pronunciation: sol-VEE-tah
Solvita is Latvian, and reference works read it as a variant of Solveiga shaped by the Latin words sol, sun, and vita, life.
Latvia keeps a name-day calendar, and Solvita’s falls on the first of January, which is a pleasing fit for a name that reads as life-giving sun. Latvian names carry that final A on nearly every feminine form, so the shape is standard at home even where the name itself is uncommon. Vita and Sol are both there if four syllables are too many.
99. Sun
- Origin: English
- Meaning: Sun
- Pronunciation: SUN
Sun is the English noun used directly as a name, with no etymology to unpack and nothing hiding behind it.
It has never settled onto one side of the gender line, and the numbers it does post are small in both columns. That leaves it genuinely open, which very few names are. If it feels too spare, Sunny is the softer version and Summer is the popular one that carries the same warmth with none of the exposure.
100. Tesni
- Origin: Welsh
- Meaning: Warmth from the sun
- Pronunciation: TESS-nee
Tesni is a Welsh name meaning warmth from the sun.
It is also read as the warm spell that arrives after summer has technically ended, the sort of thing English calls an Indian summer, which gives it a slightly wistful edge the other Welsh names here do not have. Two syllables, phonetic to an English reader, and no silent letters or unfamiliar clusters, which makes it the most portable Welsh name in this list.
Sun Name FAQs
Baby Names For Your Ray Of Sunshine
One hundred names, and the striking thing is how many separate cultures landed on the same idea without ever consulting one another. The sun is antu in Mapudungun, wilka in Aymara, langa in Xhosa, shams in Arabic, saule in Lithuanian, and haul in Welsh, and every one of those words ended up on a birth certificate somewhere.
If you want the meaning without a lifetime of explaining it, start with Aurora, Daisy, Elio, or Samson, all of which are in current American use. If you want the name nobody else in the class will have, Dashinima, Erlantz, Alfsol, and Willka are still waiting.
