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 Greek Hebrew uncertain

Rankings for

448 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Nelly Nelly charts in five markets and England ranks it highest at 353rd — ahead of Scotland 486th, Ireland 640th, France 726th and the United States 1294th.
Girl English #1,294 in US
Harris Harris is a boy's name of English origin meaning "son of Harry," a surname turned first name that has climbed to ninth in Scotland.
Boy English #1,297 in US
Townes Peaked in 2025 · 1,557 births since 2002
Boy English #1,321 in US
Sidney Sidney is a name of Old English origin meaning "wide meadow."
Unisex English #1,326 in US
Madisyn Peaked in 2010 · 18,375 births since 1986
Girl English #1,327 in US
Janie Janie means God is gracious, shortened from Jane — and Jane is the English feminine of John, which makes it part of the largest name family in Europe by a considerable margin.
Girl English #1,332 in US
Tori Tori means victory through Victoria, and a separate Japanese tori means bird — the two are unrelated, and the shrine gates called torii are a third word again.
Girl English #1,336 in US
Trent Trent means the trespasser, and it is a warning rather than a description — the English river was named for its habit of flooding across its banks and cutting new channels.
Boy English #1,341 in US
Wendy Wendy is usually credited to J.
Girl English #1,345 in US
Clifford Clifford is a boy's name from an English place name meaning a ford by a cliff — a river crossing below a steep bank.
Boy English #1,352 in US
Georgie Georgie is a unisex name of Greek origin meaning "farmer," a diminutive of George and Georgia alike.
Unisex English #1,366 in US
Lindsey Lindsey is a girl's name from a district of Lincolnshire, and it originally meant an island — Lindsey was cut off by marsh and river, so the wetland reading and the island reading describe the same place.
Girl English #1,371 in US
Perry Perry means at the pear tree, from an English place name — and our data marks it reviving, at 1373rd in the United States and 1681st in England and Wales.
Boy English #1,373 in US
Brett Brett means a Breton — someone from Brittany, which is named for the Britons who fled there when the Anglo-Saxons arrived.
Boy English #1,385 in US
Dale Dale is a name from the Old English word for a valley, and like Craig and Heather it is a plain landscape noun rather than a compound.
Boy English #1,409 in US
Haylee Peaked in 2009 · 32,177 births since 1968
Girl English #1,418 in US
Freddy Freddy is far stronger in England than in America — 328th in England and Wales on 135 births against 1422nd in the United States on 127, despite the two countries being nowhere near comparable in size.
Boy English #1,422 in US
Milton Milton means the mill settlement, and there is a second and quite separate source meaning the middle settlement — two entirely different Old English place names that ended up producing exactly the same modern spelling.
Boy English #1,440 in US
Nick Nick means victory of the people, and the compound is political rather than personal — the Greek joins victory to the citizen body, so it describes a public triumph and not an individual one.
Boy English #1,444 in US
Jonathon Jonathon respells Jonathan, and the original names a gift — Yahweh has given, borne in scripture by the friend whose bond with David the text describes in terms it uses nowhere else.
Boy English #1,487 in US
Cecil Cecil means blind, from a Roman family name, and the saint who made it famous is patron of music on the strength of one ambiguous line in her own account of her wedding day.
Boy English #1,489 in US
Clarence Clarence is a boy's name taken from an English dukedom, itself named for a Suffolk town.
Boy English #1,501 in US
Brent Brent means burned land, from ground cleared by fire — a place name recording a specific agricultural practice rather than a hill or a holy site, which are the two readings usually offered for it.
Boy English #1,510 in US
Jenny Jenny began as a pet form of Jane, not Jennifer — the two attached to each other only in the twentieth century, and Jennifer was almost unknown outside Cornwall before 1900.
Girl English #1,511 in US
Jewel Jewel may descend from the Latin for a joke — the leading account traces it through Old French to jocus, a game or plaything, which would make the most precious thing in the house a toy by origin.
Unisex English #1,516 in US
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
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
Todd Todd is a boy's name from a northern English dialect word for a fox, given as a nickname to someone crafty or red-haired.
Boy English #1,619 in US
Nell Nell is a girl's name that reached its modern form through a medieval habit of mishearing, from "mine Ellen" run together.
Girl English #1,628 in US
Lester Lester means from Leicester, and the spelling is the honest one — Leicester has been pronounced LES-ter for centuries, so the surname simply wrote down what people had actually been saying to each other all along.
Boy English #1,636 in US
Kent Kent is the oldest recorded place name in England — Cantium appears in Greek writing before the Roman invasion, and its meaning was already uncertain to the Romans who wrote it down.
Boy English #1,658 in US
Geneva Geneva is not named after the Swiss city — it is a form of Genevieve, whose own meaning is unsettled, and the city's name comes from a Celtic word for a bend or estuary entirely separately.
Girl English #1,660 in US
Mayson Peaked in 2012 · 9,372 births since 1990
Unisex English #1,687 in US
Chad Chad is a boy's name from a seventh-century English saint, and it has since become an American internet stereotype and, separately, the name of a country and a disputed ballot.
Boy English #1,700 in US
Marlo Peaked in 1970 · 12,310 births since 1915
Unisex English #1,721 in US
Fredrick Fredrick is an American respelling that ranks higher in England and Wales than in the United States — 934th against 1730th, which reverses the usual direction for a respelling.
Boy English #1,730 in US
Clinton Clinton means the settlement on the hill, from an English place name — and the two American presidents who carried it did so by adoption and by surname, not by descent from the place.
Boy English #1,740 in US
Morris Morris means dark-skinned, from the Latin for a Moor — and the morris dance carries the same word, having been thought to imitate Moorish dancing when it reached England.
Boy English #1,762 in US
Maryann Maryann joins two names whose own meanings are unsettled — Mary has never been securely derived from the Hebrew, and Ann means grace, so only half of the compound has a firm reading.
Girl English #1,772 in US
Tess Tess is a girl's name of Greek origin, a short form of Theresa whose meaning has never been established despite centuries of attempts.
Girl English #1,783 in US
Belinda Belinda is a literary invention with a snake in it — the Germanic element behind it is usually read as a serpent, and Pope's Rape of the Lock made the name fashionable in 1712.
Girl English #1,826 in US
Darlene Darlene is a girl's name built from the English word darling, and it is one of a small group of American twentieth-century coinages that used the -ene ending.
Girl English #1,846 in US
Susie Susie means lily, shortened from Susan, and the Hebrew word was borrowed from Egyptian — where it may have named a lotus rather than a lily, which changes the flower entirely.
Girl English #1,916 in US
Clifton Clifton means the settlement by the cliff, and it is the same first element as Clifford — one describes a ford below the cliff and the other the farm on top of it.
Boy English #1,916 in US
Lula Lula has no single parent — it shortens Louise, Lucille and Tallulah alike, and our data marks it reviving, ranking 1306th in England and Wales against 1938th in the United States.
Girl English #1,938 in US
Alissa Alissa means noble, and the flower it resembles was named for rabies — alyssum joins the Greek negative to lyssa, madness, because the plant was believed to cure the bite of a mad dog.
Girl English #1,946 in US
Charlene Charlene is a girl's name meaning free man, a feminine of Charles.
Girl English #1,951 in US
Mildred Mildred is a girl's name from Old English elements meaning gentle strength, and it is among the least fashionable names of the twentieth century — yet our data marks it reviving, ninety years after its 1920 peak.
Girl English #1,963 in US

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