Meanings & themes
Gothic names with candlelit edges
27 names · 17 girls · 10 boys · records through 2025
A register with a long literary pedigree: the Gothic novel, the Victorian graveyard poets, and a century of film have all fed the same small pool of names.
This guide has 27 names: 17 girl names and 10 boy names. A curated set of gothic and darkly romantic names matched against the latest US records; only names in real use appear. Built from US Social Security birth records through 2025. Tap + beside any name to keep it on your shortlist as you read.
Before the names
It overlaps the dark-academia list without duplicating it — that one runs to tweed and Latin homework, this one to nightfall. Where they meet, the ranks tell you which name is doing which job.
Every entry appears in current American records; the purely atmospheric words do not.
Girl names
17 names
Boy names
10 names
- Vincent#107 today
- Malachi#134 today
- Xander#259 today
- Damien#352 today
- Onyx#365 today
- Edgar#486 today
- Ash#1176 today
- Draven#1217 today
- Jet#1244 today
- Rune#1778 today
Every rank and count here is published by the US Social Security Administration and refreshed each year when the new figures land. The method is stated at the top of this page.
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