English Names

English names are rarely English all the way down. The language absorbed Norse from settlement, French from conquest and Latin from the church, so a name that arrived as a plain English word — a trade, a place, a colour — usually rests on a root borrowed from somewhere else. What makes them English is the layer they settled in, not the layer underneath. The largest single group on this site, and the one that includes almost every surname now used as a first name.

Languages behind these names Old English Latin Germanic Hebrew Greek uncertain

Rankings for

448 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Trey Trey means three, and it is a card and dice word — the trey is the three-spot, which is why the name attached itself to sons who were the third to carry a family name.
Boy English #889 in US
Jerry Jerry is a name that serves as the short form of at least three unrelated names — Jeremiah from Hebrew, Gerald and Gerard from Germanic — so its meaning depends entirely on which one a family had in mind.
Boy English #907 in US
Clare Clare is the older English spelling and the one the Irish county carries, and its history is British and Irish rather than American — England, Scotland and Ireland all peaked far above the United States.
Girl English #924 in US
Maddie Maddie is a girl's name of Aramaic origin meaning "of Magdala," a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee — so it is a place name rather than a description.
Girl English #927 in US
Brittany Brittany is a girl's name taken from the French region, which is named for British settlers who crossed the Channel in late antiquity.
Girl English #928 in US
Hadlee Peaked in 2016 · 5,414 births since 1994
Girl English #930 in US
Darla Darla is a girl's name coined in twentieth-century America from the word darling.
Girl English #942 in US
Mitchell Mitchell is a boy's name from a medieval English form of Michael, meaning who is like God — though a second and quite separate source exists from an old word simply meaning big.
Boy English #952 in US
Mathew Mathew drops a t from Matthew, and the doubled t was never in the Hebrew — it entered through the Greek and Latin spellings, so the shorter form is arguably closer to the original.
Boy English #974 in US
Byron Byron means at the cattle sheds — a working place name that became shorthand for romantic poetry, which is a longer journey than most names make.
Boy English #983 in US
Joan Joan is a girl's name, the medieval English feminine of John meaning God is gracious, and it was once as common as Mary.
Girl English #986 in US
Howard Howard is a boy's name whose origin is genuinely contested — high guardian, brave heart and even a keeper of pigs have all been proposed.
Boy English #1,003 in US
Mattie Mattie serves two entirely unrelated names — Martha, which is Aramaic for a lady, and Matilda, which is Germanic for might in battle.
Girl English #1,006 in US
Baylee Peaked in 1997 · 23,484 births since 1980
Girl English #1,008 in US
Carly Carly means free man, and the Germanic word named a free peasant rather than a lord — so a name that now reads as light and modern began at the bottom of the free classes.
Girl English #1,011 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
Kooper Peaked in 2022 · 4,600 births since 1990
Boy English #1,025 in US
Dana Dana is a name with several unrelated sources — a Danish origin, a Hebrew feminine of Daniel, and an Irish mother goddess.
Unisex English #1,028 in US
Devon Devon is the English county, named for the Dumnonii — a Celtic people whose own name may mean the deep ones, possibly referring to mining.
Unisex English #1,028 in US
Whitney Whitney was already climbing before Whitney Houston, and the debut album accelerated it rather than starting it — 1,632 births in 1982, 2,488 by 1984, then 4,068 in 1985 and 9,781 in 1986.
Girl English #1,044 in US
Cedric Cedric was invented by Walter Scott in Ivanhoe in 1819, and it appears to be a misspelling — he took the Anglo-Saxon Cerdic and transposed the letters.
Boy English #1,053 in US
Ellen Ellen is a girl's name of Greek origin, a medieval English form of Helen whose meaning has never been settled.
Girl English #1,062 in US
Ellison Peaked in 2021 · 9,233 births since 1881
Unisex English #1,066 in US
Gary Gary is a boy's name that reached the charts by an unusually traceable route: a surname became a steel town in Indiana, the town's name was given to an actor, and the actor made it a first name.
Boy English #1,074 in US
Vance Peaked in 1969 · 27,745 births since 1880
Boy English #1,080 in US
Edmund Edmund was England's patron saint before George — Edmund the Martyr, king of East Anglia, was killed by a Viking army in 869 and held that position for some three hundred years before a crusader saint displaced him.
Boy English #1,083 in US
Rodney Rodney is a boy's name from an English place name, and its rise as a given name follows a single admiral — George Rodney, who broke the French line at the Saintes in 1782.
Boy English #1,091 in US
Kingsley Peaked in 2020 · 13,784 births since 1907
Unisex English #1,095 in US
Dayton Peaked in 2008 · 18,206 births since 1880
Boy English #1,097 in US
Mollie Mollie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a diminutive of Mary reached through a chain of medieval sound shifts.
Girl English #1,113 in US
Terry Terry is a name serving as a short form of Terence and of the Germanic Theodoric, two unrelated names, and it is genuinely mixed — about 18 percent of the births in our records are female.
Unisex English #1,116 in US
Allyson Allyson descends from Alice by way of a French diminutive, and it is not Alice plus son — the ending is the Old French -on, the same one behind Marion, and nothing in it refers to a child.
Girl English #1,140 in US
Hadleigh Peaked in 2016 · 4,845 births since 1994
Girl English #1,171 in US
Maxton Peaked in 2017 · 5,060 births since 1927
Boy English #1,182 in US
Kristopher Kristopher means Christ-bearer, and the legend built the meaning backward — a giant who carried a child across a river turned out to be carrying Christ, which is the story explaining the name.
Boy English #1,188 in US
Will Will means will-helmet, and the compound is stranger than it looks — the Germanic joins desire to a piece of armor, so the name reads as protection by determination.
Boy English #1,195 in US
Norman Norman means a Northman — a Viking.
Boy English #1,197 in US
Fern Fern seed was believed to make you invisible, and Shakespeare has a character say so — ferns produce spores rather than visible seeds, so the seed itself was thought to be unseeable.
Girl English #1,221 in US
Carolyn Carolyn is a girl's name, an English elaboration of Caroline meaning free man through Charles.
Girl English #1,222 in US
Elmer Elmer means noble and famous, and its American popularity is traceable to two brothers — the Ebenezer and Jonathan Elmer who signed early revolutionary documents, after whom patriotic families went on to name sons.
Boy English #1,223 in US
Alisha Alisha means noble, and it is British and Irish rather than American — England and Wales 376th, Ireland 381st and Northern Ireland 407th all rank it far above the United States at 1229th.
Girl English #1,229 in US
May May has three separate sources that English cannot tell apart — the month, the hawthorn blossom that opens in it, and a short form of Mary and Margaret.
Girl English #1,230 in US
Hayley Hayley is a girl's name from an English place name meaning "hay clearing," and it became a girl's name because of one child actress.
Girl English #1,257 in US
Heather Heather is a girl's name taken directly from the flowering shrub that covers Scottish and northern English moorland.
Girl English #1,264 in US
Jillian Jillian means youthful, and it descends from the same Roman family name as July — Julius, Julia, Jill and Jillian all come from the gens that claimed descent from Venus.
Girl English #1,271 in US
Addie Addie shortens Adelaide and Adeline alike, and both descend from the Germanic word for noble — the same adal that sits inside Alice, Allison and Albert.
Girl English #1,275 in US
Cassie Cassie is a girl's name of Greek origin, usually short for Cassandra, whose curse was to prophesy truly and never be believed.
Girl English #1,281 in US
Reginald Reginald means counsel-power, and England and Wales ranks it 229th on 217 births against 1285th in the United States — one of the sharpest British-versus-American splits in this group.
Boy English #1,285 in US

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