Vintage Girl Names

Names that were everywhere a century ago and then were not. The reliable pattern is the hundred-year rule: a name usually has to feel like a great-grandparent rather than a grandparent before it can come back, because the generation in between still hears it as merely old.

Rankings for

14,427 names, most popular first in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Dixie Dixie names the American South and nobody knows why — the leading account is a French ten-dollar note printed dix in Louisiana, and the rival is the Mason-Dixon line.
American #1,605 in US
Cristina Cristina shares its root with Kirsten in this same group, but arrived by a southern route — Italian and Spanish rather than Scandinavian, from the Greek word for a follower of the anointed one.
Italian #1,624 in US
Yvette Yvette is a girl's name from a Germanic word for the yew tree, by way of Breton.
French #1,625 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.
English #1,628 in US
Arlene Arlene has no established origin at all — it appears in the nineteenth century with no traceable parent name, and the Irish pledge reading usually given for it belongs to a different name entirely.
American #1,633 in US
Maribel Peaked in 1980 · 25,421 births since 1906
#1,654 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.
English #1,660 in US
Stacy Stacy comes from Eustace or Anastasia, two unrelated names, and its meanings are correspondingly different — fruitful or resurrection.
Greek #1,664 in US
Lois Lois is a girl's name that appears once in the New Testament, in a letter naming Timothy's grandmother, and its meaning has never been established.
Greek #1,669 in US
Adrienne Adrienne means from Hadria, an Italian town that also named the Adriatic Sea — so the name and the sea are both called after a small settlement whose own name is uncertain.
French #1,677 in US
Denise Denise is a girl's name, the French feminine of Denis, and like it traces to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine.
French #1,681 in US
Alannah Alannah is a girl's name from the Irish term of endearment a leanbh, meaning "O child," so it began as something said to a baby rather than something anyone was called.
Irish #1,683 in US
Marielle Peaked in 1964 · 22,221 births since 1900
Dutch #1,696 in US
Leticia Leticia means joy, and Napoleon's mother carried it — Letizia Ramolino outlived her son and was styled Madame Mère de l'Empereur, a title created for her alone.
Spanish #1,703 in US
Kristina Kristina means a follower of Christ, the Scandinavian and Slavic form of Christina.
Scandinavian #1,727 in US
Lori Lori is a girl's name, a short form of Laura meaning laurel.
Latin #1,732 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.
Spanish #1,747 in US
Rosemarie Rosemarie looks like Rose plus Marie, and as a name it is — but the herb rosemary has nothing to do with either, and the resemblance is one of the neatest coincidences in naming.
German #1,758 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.
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.
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.
English #1,826 in US
Josette Josette is the only faded name in this group — it peaked in France at 6,650 births in 1946 and now ranks nowhere in France at all, surviving only in the United States at 1,837th.
French #1,837 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.
English #1,846 in US
Vivien Peaked in 1986 · 18,383 births since 1900
French #1,848 in US
Francine Francine means Frenchwoman, and it is a French diminutive of a name that already means French — so it reads as a small French person, which is circular in a way few names manage.
French #1,849 in US
Avril Avril is a girl's name of French origin meaning "April."
French #1,851 in US
Pippa Pippa is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "lover of horses."
Greek #1,855 in US
Judy Judy is a girl's name, the pet form of Judith, from a Hebrew word meaning a woman of Judea.
Hebrew #1,879 in US
Margarita Margarita means pearl, and it names both a cocktail and a pizza — the pizza for Queen Margherita of Italy, the drink by a route nobody has ever settled.
Spanish #1,893 in US
Meghan Meghan means pearl, through Megan and Margaret, and the h is an American addition — Welsh spells it Megan, and the extra letter appeared in twentieth-century American use with no basis in the original.
Welsh #1,910 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.
English #1,916 in US
Cindy Cindy is a girl's name, a pet form of Cynthia, which was a title of the moon goddess Artemis.
Greek #1,929 in US
Lula Lula has no single parent — it shortens Louise, Lucille and Tallulah alike, and it is reviving, ranking 1,306th in England and Wales against 1,938th in the United States.
English #1,938 in US
Sonya Sonya means wisdom, and the Greek word behind it named a divine attribute before it named a person — Constantinople's great church was dedicated to Holy Wisdom, not to any saint called Sophia.
Russian #1,939 in US
Charlene Charlene is a girl's name meaning free man, a feminine of Charles.
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 it is reviving, ninety years after its 1920 peak.
English #1,963 in US
Donna Donna is a girl's name from the Italian word for a lady, a title used as a name.
Italian #1,969 in US
Lenore Peaked in 1926 · 23,090 births since 1880
#1,973 in US
Charity Peaked in 1975 · 36,401 births since 1880
#1,982 in US
Melinda Melinda is an invented name rather than an inherited one — an eighteenth-century literary coinage joining the Greek word for honey to the ending of Belinda and Lucinda.
English #1,984 in US
Kristen Kristen is a girl's name meaning a follower of Christ, and in Denmark it is a man's name — the Danish Kristen is masculine and Kirsten the feminine.
Danish #1,994 in US
Audra Peaked in 1967 · 25,959 births since 1887
#2,003 in US
Norma Norma is a girl's name that appears to have been invented for an opera — Bellini's Norma of 1831 — and it was the birth name of Marilyn Monroe, who appears elsewhere in these pages under the name that replaced it.
Latin #2,005 in US
Katia Katia is a girl's name of Greek and Russian origin.
Greek, Russian #2,039 in US
Yvonne Yvonne is a girl's name from a Germanic word for the yew tree, by way of Breton.
French #2,053 in US
Edie Edie is a girl's name of Old English origin meaning "prosperous in war."
English #2,070 in US
Bridgette Peaked in 1970 · 24,548 births since 1943
French #2,119 in US
Krystal Krystal means ice, and the Greeks believed rock crystal was water frozen so hard it could never melt — which is why the same word names both the mineral and the frost.
American #2,123 in US

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