Best Girls Names

Charlotte, the name of the young Princess of Cambridge, is the latest classic name to join Sophia, Emma, Olivia, and Isabella at the top of the popularity list. It is now among the most popular girl names in many English-speaking and European countries.

Hazel has a pleasantly hazy, brownish-green-eyed, old-fashioned image that more and more parents are choosing to share. Former Old Lady name Hazel reentered the popularity lists in 1998 and now is near the top of the charts.

Violet is soft and sweet, yet with a vivacious edge. Today, Violet is the top flower name for girls, outranking Lily and Iris in the Top 100, and the second most popular color name for girls after Scarlett.

After decades of disuse, soft and feminine Evelyn has returned to the baby name stage in a huge way. It reached the Top 10 for the first time in 2017. Evelyn has now surpassed its former heights, joining a legion of contemporary little Evas, Avas, Eves, Evies, and Evelines.

Sadie started as a nickname for Sarah, but their images couldn't be more disparate. Where Sarah is serious and sweet, Sadie is full of sass and fun.

Eden is an attractive, serene name with obvious intimations of Paradise, one of several place names drawn from the Bible by the Puritans in the 17th century.

Poppy, unlike most floral names which are sweet and feminine, has a lot of spunk. Long popular throughout the rest of the English-speaking world, Poppy is finally starting to rise toward the top in the US, where it entered the Top 1000 for the first time in 2016.

You might think of Harper as the hottest name of the last decade, jumping from obscurity to the Top 10, where it remained until last year.

Scarlett Johansson is doing more for this sparky southern name than Scarlett O'Hara ever did. Since the turn of the 21st century, Scarlett has gone from an obscure literary name to one of the most popular girls' names starting with S, right after longtime favorites Sophia and Sofia.

Arden, the name of the magical forest in Shakespeare's As You Like It, is a stylish A name with a strong, straightforward image. Another reason to love Arden: its similarity to "ardent." Arden is solidly unisex, with the current gender distribution running about 60 percent girls and 40 percent boys.

Aria is a multi-cultural name with two extremely popular versions: this more word-like one along with Arya, the spelling used for the feisty young heroine of Game of Thrones. There were about 6400 baby girls named Aria in the US last year alog with 2400 named Arya, which counted together places the name in the Top 10.

Sage is an evocatively fragrant herbal name that also connotes wisdom, giving it a double advantage. It entered the Top 1000 at about the same time for both genders in the early 1990s, but it has pulled ahead for the girls. Toni Collette named her daughter Sage Florence.

Piper is a bright, musical name that entered the list in 1999, one year after the debut of the TV series Charmed, which featured a Piper, and it's been a consistent riser since. Piper Kerman is the memoirist whose prison experiences provided the basis for the hit Netflix series Orange is the New Black.

Stylish, gentle, and rustic at the same time, Rowan is a name that falls into various categories. Unisex and cool, mystical and woodsy, with the feel of both Rose and Riley, Rowan is a fresh but familiar choice.

Noelle is the feminine variation of Noël, a masculine given name derived from the French word for "Christmas." As a word, Noël originated as a variant of nael, which evolved from the Latin natalis, meaning "birth." Noelle and Noel have traditionally been given to children born around Christmastime, particularly in the Middle ages.

Most of us had never heard this lovely Welsh name with links to the moon until we heard the 1976 smash hit Fleetwood Mac song of that name, with lyrics by Stevie Nicks. That same year it popped onto the U.S. Top 1000 at Number 593.

Margo and Margot sound exactly the same, so why has the Margot spelling hopped back onto the Top 1000, outpacing Margo in numbers more than two to one? (Over 350 baby girls were named Margot in the most recent year, versus 150 named Margo.)

Cara is a simple, sweet, Italian endearment that enjoyed its greatest popularity from the 1970s through the 1990s, reaching a high of Number 189 in 1977. Despite the rising celebrity of English model/actress Cara Delevingne, who played Enchantress in Suicide Squad, Cara dropped off the Top 1000 in the US in 2020, perhaps because it sounds too close to the dreaded Karen.

Morgan has long been a traditional Welsh male name, a variant of the Old Welsh name Morcant, from the Welsh elements mor, meaning "sea" and cant, "circle." The female Morgan is unrelated to the male version—it is a name from Arthurian legend created for Morgan le Fay, King Arthur's half-sister and famed sorceress. Her name comes from Morgen, an Old Welsh name meaning "sea-born," and is related to the Irish name Muirgen.

Sydney was a hot girls' name in the 1990s, but she's arguably still cool. One of the original old man names adopted for baby girls, Sydney's popularity may be down but she's not out.