Names That Mean Light

Names meaning light, bright, shining or radiant. Worth reading closely: light in a name is often a metaphor for fame or for clarity rather than for brightness, and the two senses sit on one root in several languages.

Every name here has a researched page whose stated meaning carries this sense.

Rankings for

93 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Shirley Shirley is a girl's name from an English place name meaning bright clearing, and it was a boys' name until Charlotte Brontë used it for a heroine in 1849.
Girl English #1,583 in US
Lucinda Lucinda was invented by Cervantes — the name appears in Don Quixote in 1605 and has no record before it, which makes it one of the few names on this site with a datable author.
Girl Spanish #1,747 in US
Bobbie Bobbie is 83 percent female in our records and England and Wales ranks it 523rd on 110 births — far above the United States at 2072nd, reversing what an American nickname-name would usually do.
Unisex English #2,072 in US
Aoife Aoife is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "beautiful" or "radiant."
Girl Irish #2,118 in US
Robbie Robbie is a unisex name of Germanic origin meaning "bright fame," a diminutive of Robert.
Unisex Scottish #2,124 in US
Dawn Dawn is a girl's name taken directly from the English word for daybreak, and it is the English counterpart of Aurora rather than a translation of it.
Girl English #2,193 in US
Dianna Dianna means the shining one, and the root is the same one behind Zeus and Jupiter — an Indo-European word for the bright daytime sky that also gives us the ordinary word day.
Girl Latin #2,574 in US
Herbert Herbert is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning bright army.
Boy Germanic #2,661 in US
Roberta Roberta is a girl's name meaning bright fame, the feminine of Robert.
Girl Germanic #2,813 in US
Hubert Hubert means bright mind, and its saint is the patron of hunters — Saint Hubertus, whose stag with a crucifix between its antlers is the emblem on every bottle of Jägermeister.
Boy Germanic #3,392 in US
Niamh Niamh is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "bright" or "radiant."
Girl Irish #3,518 in US
Ora Ora has three unrelated sources — the Latin imperative meaning pray, the Hebrew for light, and an Albanian word for hour — and our data marks it reviving across three markets.
Unisex Latin #3,744 in US
Aine Aine is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "radiance" or "brightness," borne by a goddess of sovereignty and midsummer in Munster.
Girl Irish #3,803 in US
Rupert Rupert is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "bright fame."
Boy Germanic #3,828 in US
Wilbur Wilbur ranks 579th in England and Wales against 3956th in the United States, so a name most people think of as thoroughly American is now used more than six times more readily in England.
Boy English #3,956 in US
Albie Albie is a boy's name of Germanic origin, most often a pet form of Albert, meaning "noble and bright."
Boy Germanic #4,056 in US
Fionn Fionn is a boy's name of Irish origin meaning "fair" or "white," and by extension bright or blessed.
Boy Irish #4,179 in US
Muriel Muriel means bright sea, from Gaelic, and it reached English twice — once through Irish and Scottish settlement and once through Breton, carried back across the Channel by the Normans.
Girl Irish #4,420 in US
Bertha Bertha is a girl's name from a Germanic word meaning bright, and it was Charlemagne's mother's name.
Girl Germanic #4,570 in US
Wilbert Wilbert means bright will, and it is one of a small set of names joining desire to brightness — the same beorht that ends Albert, Robert and Gilbert, on a first element meaning wanting something.
Boy German #4,990 in US
Lucile Lucile means light, and France ranks it 467th while the United States has it at 5006th — a French name that America had and lost, having peaked there in 1917.
Girl French #5,006 in US
Lucienne Lucienne is a French girl's name meaning light, and our data marks it stable rather than falling — an unusual reading for a name that peaked in 1920 and has not ranked highly anywhere since.
Girl French #5,296 in US
Kellie Kellie has no settled meaning — the Irish Ceallach has been read as bright-headed, as strife, and as one who frequents churches, and the three readings are not close to reconciling.
Girl Irish #6,236 in US
Delbert Delbert is recorded in one country and nowhere else — every one of its 47,056 births is American, with no births in any other market in any year we hold, which is rare even among American coinages.
Boy American #6,892 in US
Kelley Kelley is the same Irish name as Kellie, spelled differently, and the two split its births between them — this one peaked in 1968 and that one in 1969, a year apart at nearly the same size.
Unisex Irish #7,207 in US
Malo Malo is a boy's name of Breton origin, borne by the sixth-century saint who gave his name to Saint-Malo.
Boy Breton #7,419 in US
Ayline Ayline is a girl's name of Turkish origin meaning "halo of the moon," from ay, the moon.
Girl Turkish #7,955 in US
Eilidh Eilidh is a girl's name of Scottish Gaelic origin, generally taken as the Gaelic form of Helen and meaning "bright" or "shining one."
Girl Scottish #8,851 in US
Lucette Lucette means little light, a French double diminutive — and the root behind it stands in Lucifer too, which was simply the Latin name for the morning star before it named anything else.
Girl French #9,458 in US
Alberta Alberta means noble and bright, and a Canadian province carries it — Alberta was named for Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, whose full name was Louise Caroline Alberta.
Girl Germanic #10,069 in US
Bob Bob comes from Robert, and the B is not a corruption but a system — medieval English made pet names by rhyming, which is why Rob gave Bob, Will gave Bill and Rick gave Dick.
Boy English #10,578 in US
Roxane Roxane is a girl's name of Persian origin meaning "bright" or "dawn," borne by the Bactrian noblewoman who married Alexander the Great.
Girl French #13,935 in US
Hervé Hervé means battle-worthy, and it is Breton rather than French — a Brittonic name closer in ancestry to Welsh than to anything Latin.
Boy Breton 140,182 births
Bertrand Bertrand means bright raven, and the raven is deliberate — Germanic naming treated it as the bird of the battlefield and of Odin, so the compound is martial rather than ornithological.
Boy French 71,464 births
Berthe Berthe means bright, and Charlemagne's mother carried it — Bertrada of Laon, known as Berthe au Grand Pied, is the reason the name runs through Frankish royalty at all.
Girl French 70,955 births
Aurore Aurore is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "dawn," the French form of Aurora and the name of the Roman goddess of daybreak.
Girl French 68,485 births
Gilberte Gilberte means bright pledge, and the pledge in it is the same word as in Ghislaine — the Germanic gisil named a hostage handed over as security for a treaty, and both names are on this site.
Girl French 62,346 births
Norbert Norbert means bright north, and the north in it is the direction rather than a place — Germanic naming used compass points as elements, which is rare in any other European naming tradition.
Boy German 47,560 births
Aoibheann Aoibheann is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "radiant" or "beautiful," from aoibh.
Girl Irish 2,724 births
Ailbhe Ailbhe is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "white" or "bright," historically used for both sexes.
Girl Irish 2,667 births
Aoibhe Aoibhe is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "radiant" or "beautiful," from aoibh — the look of a face that is smiling.
Girl Irish 2,013 births
Laoise Laoise is a girl's name of Irish origin, usually read as "radiant," and it shares its spelling with the county of Laois.
Girl Irish 1,678 births
Aoibhin Aoibhin is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "little radiant one," from aoibh, the look of a face that is smiling.
Girl Irish 1,661 births
Aoibh Aoibh is a girl's name from an Irish word for beauty or radiance, and the root behind Aoibheann and Aoibhinn.
Girl Irish 684 births
Claragh Claragh is a girl's name, an Irish-styled respelling of Clara, from a Latin word meaning bright or clear.
Girl Latin 103 births

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