Enduring Names

Names whose curve barely moves across the whole series. The rarest movement category, and the only one that is a genuine achievement rather than a phase.

Every name here is placed by how its recent years in the birth records compare with its earlier ones — so the list moves as the records do.

Rankings for

4,205 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Heidi Heidi is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble one."
Germanic #341 in US
Annabelle Annabelle is a girl's name of disputed origin.
Latin #344 in US
Paige Paige is a girl's name from a medieval job title meaning a young male servant, and it reached women by way of a surname.
English #346 in US
Angelina Angelina means little angel, and the Greek root behind it means a messenger — the winged being is a later idea layered onto a word for someone carrying news.
Italian #347 in US
Sydney Sydney is a name from a French place name — Saint-Denis, contracted by English speakers — and the Australian city was named after a man who bore it.
English #348 in US
Rebecca Rebecca is a girl's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is unsettled, and the standard gloss involves a rope for tying cattle.
Hebrew #349 in US
Hope Hope is a girl's name of Old English origin taken from the virtue, from hopian.
English #352 in US
Thea Thea is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "goddess."
Greek #353 in US
Gwendolyn Gwendolyn means white ring or blessed ring, from Welsh, and the second element is genuinely a ring — a torc or armlet, which was the standard Celtic mark of rank.
Welsh #360 in US
Camilla Camilla is a girl's name of Latin origin naming a young attendant at a religious rite.
Latin #361 in US
Helena Helena is a girl's name of Greek origin whose meaning is unresolved, and its saint is credited with finding the True Cross.
Greek #363 in US
Matilda Matilda is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "mighty in battle."
Germanic #364 in US
Kayla Kayla is a girl's name with no established etymology, an American coinage of the 1950s that a soap opera turned into a top-name.
uncertain #365 in US
Adriana Adriana means from Hadria, a small town in northern Italy that also named the Adriatic Sea — so both the name and the sea are called after a settlement most people have never heard of.
Italian #366 in US
Mallory Mallory means unlucky, and it is one of very few names built on an insult — the Norman malheuré described someone ill-fated, and it became a surname before anyone used it as a first name.
French #372 in US
Esmeralda Esmeralda is not the character's name in the novel — Hugo's girl is christened Agnès and called Esmeralda for the green amulet she wears, so the name most readers know her by is a nickname.
Spanish #373 in US
Astrid Astrid is a girl's name of Old Norse origin meaning "divinely beautiful".
Old Norse #376 in US
Vanessa Vanessa was invented by Jonathan Swift around 1713, built from the name of a woman he was writing to — and it later became the name of a genus of butterflies.
English #377 in US
Laura Laura is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "laurel," the tree whose leaves crowned Roman victors and poets.
Latin #379 in US
Nicole Nicole is a girl's name, the French feminine of Nicholas, meaning victory of the people.
French #382 in US
Liana Liana is a girl's name with two sources. It is a short form of Juliana, Eliana and similar names, and independently the botanical word for a woody climbing vine — from the French lier, to bind, which is also the root of liaison.
French #386 in US
Carmen Carmen has two unrelated sources — the Latin word for a song, and a Spanish Marian title from Mount Carmel in Israel.
Spanish #390 in US
Florence Florence is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "blossoming" or "flourishing."
Latin #391 in US
Danna Danna is a girl's name with two sources. In Spanish-speaking use it is a modern form of Daniela, from the Hebrew for God is my judge; in English it is a respelling of Dana, an older name whose own origin is disputed.
Hebrew #394 in US
Regina Regina is the Latin word for a queen, taken unchanged, and it is still the legal abbreviation in British courts — every criminal case against a defendant is formally Regina versus the accused.
Latin #395 in US
Bonnie Bonnie is a girl's name of Scots origin meaning "pretty" or "fine."
Scottish #396 in US
Julianna Julianna descends from a Roman family name whose meaning was never settled — downy-bearded and devoted to Jove are both proposed for Julius, and the family's own claim was descent from Venus.
Latin #399 in US
Lauren Lauren is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "laurel," which became a women's name because a film studio invented one.
English #401 in US
Raven Raven means the bird, and the bird was a war omen before it was a goth accessory — Norse and Anglo-Saxon poetry lists the raven with the wolf and the eagle as the beasts that follow an army.
English #404 in US
Carolina Carolina means free man, and two American states carry it — both Carolinas are named for Charles I in Latin, so a Germanic word for a peasant ended up on the map through a king.
Latin #405 in US
Lana Lana is a girl's name with several competing origins — a Hawaiian word for calm, a Slavic short form of Svetlana, and a Hollywood invention of the 1930s.
Hawaiian #406 in US
Angela Angela is a girl's name from the Greek for messenger, the word that also gives us angel.
Greek #408 in US
Laila Laila means night, and the romance built on it ran for a thousand years before Clapton — Layla and Majnun is a Persian retelling of an Arabic story, and it is the source both of the song and of the name's spread.
Arabic #413 in US
Holly Holly is a girl's name of Old English origin taken from the tree, from holegn.
English #416 in US
Charlee Charlee is a girl's name of Germanic origin, a respelling of Charlie.
English #417 in US
Joy Joy is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning exactly what it says, taken from the English word.
English #419 in US
Melissa Melissa is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "bee," and it was the title of the priestesses who served Demeter.
Greek #420 in US
Dorothy Dorothy is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "gift of God."
Greek #421 in US
Willa Willa is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "resolute" or "will".
Germanic #422 in US
Opal Opal means the gem, and it is the only major stone whose name may come from Sanskrit — upala, a precious stone, reaching Greek and Latin through the trade routes rather than from a European root.
English #423 in US
Marceline Marceline is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "of Mars".
Latin #425 in US
Veronica Veronica is a girl's name from a Latin phrase meaning true image, and the saint behind it was invented to explain a relic — the cloth came first, and the woman was named after it.
Latin #427 in US
Leona Leona means lioness, and our data marks it reviving across six markets — the United States 429th, France 556th, Scotland 631st, Ireland 705th and England and Wales 716th, all within 290 places.
Latin #429 in US
Vienna Vienna is a girl's name taken from the Austrian capital, whose own name is Celtic and unresolved.
Celtic #434 in US
Macie Macie is a girl's name of Norman French origin, a respelling of Macy.
Norman French #439 in US
Lorelei Peaked in 2016 · 21,580 births since 1916
Italian #441 in US
Mariah Mariah shows the sharpest single-artist effect in our data.
English #448 in US
Alma Alma is a girl's name with several competing origins: "nourishing" in Latin, "soul" in Spanish, and "young woman" in Hebrew.
Latin #450 in US

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A style is our reading of a name. A decade is the register — the names children were actually given, in order, with the counts.

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Enduring Names

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