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Names That Mean Water

Names meaning sea, river, wave, rain or water. The sea names are the oldest and the most literal — in a coastal naming culture the sea was a place of work, not a view.

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

Rankings for

54 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Dylan Dylan is a boy's name of Welsh origin meaning "great tide" or "sea," from the elements dy and llanw.
Boy Welsh #41 in US
Brooks Brooks is a boy's name of English origin meaning "of the brook" or "dweller by the stream," from the Old English broc. It began as a surname identifying a family by the water they lived beside.
Boy English #64 in US
Lincoln Lincoln is a boy's name from the English city, whose name combines the Brittonic lindo, meaning pool, with the Latin colonia, a Roman settlement for retired soldiers.
Boy English #69 in US
River River is a name taken from the English word, which comes through Anglo-Norman from the Latin riparius, meaning "of the riverbank."
Unisex English #111 in US
Oaklynn Oaklynn is a girl's name of modern American coinage, combining the tree name Oak with the -lynn ending.
Girl Modern coinage #153 in US
Rosemary Rosemary is not Rose and Mary joined together — it is the herb, from a Latin phrase meaning dew of the sea.
Girl Latin #251 in US
Kailani Kailani is a girl's name built from genuine Hawaiian words, kai meaning sea and lani meaning sky or heaven.
Girl Hawaiian #253 in US
Remington Remington is a unisex name of English origin, a place name meaning the settlement by the boundary stream.
Unisex English #307 in US
Banks Banks is a boy's name of English origin meaning someone who lived by a slope or a riverbank.
Boy English #310 in US
Morgan Morgan is a Welsh name meaning sea-born, and it charts in all seven markets we track within a range of just over three hundred places — one of the most evenly distributed names on this site.
Unisex Welsh #312 in US
Brooke Brooke is a girl's name from the English word for a small stream.
Girl English #313 in US
Zyaire Zyaire is a boy's name of modern American coinage, built on Zaire — the former name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, itself from a Kikongo word for river.
Boy Kikongo #317 in US
Sabrina Sabrina is the Latin name of the River Severn, and the legend behind it is a drowning — a princess thrown into the river became its spirit.
Girl Latin #321 in US
Kendall Kendall means the valley of the River Kent, and Scotland ranks it 309th — above the United States at 329th, which is unusual for a name whose modern use is almost entirely American.
Unisex English #329 in US
Murphy Murphy is a unisex name of Irish origin meaning "sea warrior".
Unisex Irish #397 in US
Madeleine Madeleine is a girl's name meaning "of Magdala," a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee, and it is a place name rather than a description.
Girl French #454 in US
Monroe Monroe is a unisex name of Scottish origin meaning "mouth of the Roe" — a river in Ireland, not Scotland.
Unisex Scottish #467 in US
Meredith Meredith is a Welsh man's name that turned female in America — 95 percent of the births in our records are female, and the Welsh Maredudd it comes from was borne by princes of Deheubarth.
Girl Welsh #469 in US
Rio Rio is a name of Spanish and Portuguese origin meaning "river."
Unisex Spanish #532 in US
Marina Marina means of the sea, and it charts in five markets inside 276 places — Scotland 572nd, England and Wales 581st, the United States 602nd, Ireland 647th and France 848th, which is an unusually even international spread.
Girl Latin #602 in US
Alara Alara is a girl's name from Turkic mythology, where she is a water fairy.
Girl Turkish #653 in US
Romy Romy is a girl's name of Latin origin, a pet form of Rosemarie or Rosemary.
Girl Latin #697 in US
Marvin Marvin is a boy's name from the Welsh Merfyn, and the sea friend reading usually given for it is not supported — the Welsh elements point to marrow and eminent instead.
Boy Welsh #699 in US
Ocean Ocean is a unisex name taken from the English word, which comes through Latin from the Greek Okeanos — a Titan who was the great river the Greeks believed encircled the whole world, rather than a word for the sea itself.
Unisex Greek #717 in US
Clyde Clyde took nothing from Bonnie and Clyde.
Boy Scottish #742 in US
Douglas Douglas is a boy's name from the Scottish Gaelic for dark water, originally a river and then a powerful border family.
Boy Scottish Gaelic #807 in US
Dillon Dillon has two unrelated sources that English cannot separate — an Irish surname of uncertain meaning and the Welsh Dylan, a sea god from the Mabinogi.
Boy Irish #930 in US
Beverly Beverly is a name from an English town meaning beaver stream, and it began as a boys' name before crossing decisively to girls.
Girl English #1,020 in US
Kelvin Kelvin is the only name on this site that is also an SI unit, and the order runs river to man to measurement — a Glasgow river gave a physicist his title, and the title was given to the scale of absolute temperature.
Boy Scottish #1,036 in US
Guadalupe Guadalupe is half Arabic and half Latin — wadi, a valley or river, joined to a word for a wolf.
Unisex Spanish #1,248 in US
Marlene Marlene was invented by the woman who made it famous — Marie Magdalene Dietrich contracted her own two names into one.
Girl German #1,261 in US
Sidney Sidney is a name of Old English origin meaning "wide meadow."
Unisex English #1,326 in US
Alton Alton means the settlement at the river's source, and that is more specific than the old town reading usually given — the Old English element is a spring or wellhead, not age.
Boy English #1,605 in US
Marissa Marissa is usually explained as of the sea, but that reading comes from the Latin stella maris — a title of the Virgin built on a mistranslation of Miriam that scholars abandoned centuries ago.
Girl Italian #1,674 in US
Irving Irving names a Scottish river valley, and it reached American use largely through one writer — Washington Irving, who gave English both Rip Van Winkle and the nickname Gotham for New York.
Boy Scottish #1,789 in US
Irvin Irvin names a Scottish river valley, and the green water reading describes the water rather than the banks — Brittonic river names usually record color or behavior, not the land beside them.
Boy Scottish #1,936 in US
Marin Marin is a unisex name of Latin origin meaning "of the sea," from the Roman Marinus.
Unisex French #2,043 in US
Marnie Marnie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, usually given as "of the sea."
Girl Latin #2,177 in US
Ria Ria is a girl's name with two unrelated sources — a Spanish word for a river mouth, and a Dutch and German short form of Maria.
Girl Spanish #2,337 in US
Shannon Shannon is a name from Ireland's longest river, and it is 86 percent female in our records.
Unisex Irish #2,397 in US
Lynn Lynn is a name from a Welsh and Gaelic word for a lake or a pool below a waterfall.
Unisex Welsh #2,546 in US
Murray Murray is a boy's name of Scottish origin from Moray, the northern province, whose name means "sea settlement."
Boy Scottish #2,610 in US
Moussa Moussa is a boy's name meaning "drawn out of the water," the Arabic form of Moses, who is named more often in the Quran than any other prophet.
Boy Arabic #3,117 in US
Tasnim Tasnim is a girl's name of Arabic origin naming a spring in paradise that the Quran describes.
Girl Arabic #3,818 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
Magali Magali is Occitan rather than French, and it means of Magdala — a town on the Sea of Galilee, so the name is a place several removes back rather than any quality of its bearer.
Girl French #4,528 in US
Rhonda Rhonda is a girl's name from a Welsh river valley, and the great spear reading usually given for it is wrong — the Rhondda is named for its own noisiness, not for a weapon.
Girl Welsh #6,125 in US
Océane Océane means of the ocean, and it is almost entirely French — 283rd there against 2998th in England and Wales and 10001st in the United States.
Girl French #10,001 in US

Other Meanings