The name Zoe is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "life". Zoe is ranked #40 on our popularity charts and is often added to lists like Saints' Names for Girls and discussed in our forums with posts like "Heaven / Hell / Purgatory Girls".
From the experts:
Zoe is one of those surprising names that has been on the Top 1000 nearly every year since 1880, but it's just recently been zooming toward the top. As popular as it has ever been, Zoe still sounds distinctive. The phonetic Zoey spelling ranks even higher. All forms of the name are among the elite and appealing group of girl names that mean life.
The history of Zoe begins in the third century when the Alexandrian Jews translated Eve, which means 'life,' to the Greek equivalent Zoe. Zoe was in use as far back as the Roman classical period, and was popular with the early Christians, who bestowed it with hopes of eternal life, but it didn't migrate to the English-speaking world until the mid-nineteenth century.
Zoe Washbourne was a strong warrior in the sci-fi show Firefly, Zoe Hart the leading female character on Hart of Dixie, Zoe Barnes a journalist on House of Cards, and kids might recognize Zoe from Sesame Street.
Zoe is currently hot around the world, popular in countries from Scotland to Spain, France to New Zealand .
Zoe has spawned a number of variant spellings, most successful of which is Zoey, embraced by TV scripters--she has been seen on the Nickelodeon show Zoey 101, The West Wing and How I Met Your Mother. Zoie has also been adopted by enough parents to bring it into the Top 1000.
Wide-eyed actress Zooey Deschanel, whose first name is pronounced the same as Zoe, was named after Zooey Glass, the male protagonist of the J. D. Salinger novella Franny and Zooey.
Lists containing Zoe
- Greek Baby Names for Modern Kids
- Saints' Names for Girls
- Mexican Baby Names
- Celebrity-Inspired Baby Names
- Baby Name Favorites Right Now
- Yupster Baby Names for Girls
- Short Baby Names
- May Baby Names
- Cool Baby Names That Start With Z
- Designer Baby Names
- July Baby Names
- English Names with International Style
Zoe in Blog Posts
Zoe in the Forums
16 names similar to Zoe
These 16 names were selected by our users that were looking for other names like Zoe. If you didn't find an alternative name that you like better than Zoe, try our name generator. It allows you to go beyond the similarities of a name, which can provide a lot of inspiration!
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