embrisa.
embrisa.
Theme
By meaning

Names rooted in
the natural world

The botanical names that English took up in the Victorian era and never let go.

115 names in the library

Baby names from trees, flowers, and plants. Olivia the olive tree, Lily the flower, Willow and Rowan and Hazel from the woods, Ivy and Violet in the garden. Meanings, pronunciations, and the family they sit in.

People have long borrowed names from growing things, and English took up the practice most eagerly in the 19th century. Victorian parents made flower and plant names a fashion, and a girl might be called after a bloom in the garden or a tree along the lane. The name carried the plant's quiet associations with it. The trend rose through the 1880s and never fully faded. Once a language decides a child can be named for a flower, the door stays open, and English has kept it open ever since.

Some of these names come straight from the plant, with no step in between. Lily is the Latin lilium, the flower's own name. Ivy is the English word for the climbing evergreen. Violet takes its name from the small purple viola, and Hazel from the hazel tree and its nut. Others reach back further. Olivia grows from the Latin oliva, the olive tree, a form Shakespeare used for a character in Twelfth Night before it settled into common use. Willow comes from the Old English welig, the riverside tree whose flexible branches gave it its name. Rowan carries two roots at once. It names the rowan tree, and it also descends from the Gaelic Ruadhan, meaning little red one, a personal name older than its botanical use. Both origins are real, and a person named Rowan may answer to either.

Nature names returned to favor in recent decades, and the members in this group show the range. Aspen and Laurel name trees, Amber a fossil resin, and Ivy, Violet, and Lily their flowers. Alani and Ashley round out a set rooted in soil and leaf. These names belong to the land. They sit beside a sibling group drawn from sky and sea, where the sources are stars and water rather than plants and ground. A name like Willow reaches down toward roots. A celestial name reaches up. Both look to the natural world, and each takes a different part of it.

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Names that mean light 59 Strong-rooted names 93 Names with a divine root 190 Names from sky and sea 70 Names that carry joy 21 Names that mean life 14 Free-spirited names 26 Names that mean wisdom 12 Names that mean love 26 Names that mean beautiful 26 Names that mean noble 87 Names that mean peace 21 Warrior names 45 Names that mean gift 18 Names that mean grace 44 Names that mean victory 9 Names that mean jewel 14