Amethyst
Feminine · Greek roots · “Not intoxicated”
Amethyst is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 4,560 girls against 16 boys since 1880.
Amethyst comes straight from the Greek amethystos — "not intoxicated" — the word Greek writers used for a purple stone they held to keep wine from going to a drinker's head. It traveled through Latin and Old French into English, and it still moves in four unhurried syllables that end on a soft hiss.
How old is the name Amethyst?
Amethyst first appears in US birth records in 1967 — 58 years ago. The typical Amethyst alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 4,500 people named Amethyst are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Amethyst most popular?
Amethyst peaked in 2022, reaching #1069 nationally. Today it ranks #1241, 172 places below that high. See the whole 2022 chart.
Amethyst appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From amethystos (Greek) to Amethyst
The story of Amethyst
The word begins as a Greek adjective for the stone, amethystos, and passes into Latin as amethystus and Old French as ametiste before English takes it up. It sits in scripture too: the Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible used amethystos for one of the twelve stones on the high priest's breastplate in Exodus, and it appears again among the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem in Revelation. English speakers began handing gemstone words to daughters in earnest in the nineteenth century — Ruby, Pearl, Opal, Beryl — and Amethyst arrived late to that company, the longest and least worn of them. In American records it has kept a quiet, unbroken presence rather than a fashionable one.
Meaning
Not intoxicated
From Greek a- "not" plus a form of methyskein "to make drunk", built on methy, "wine". The sense records an ancient Greek belief about the stone rather than anything about a person.
How the name formed
- amethystosGreek
- amethystusLatin
- ametisteOld French
- amethystEnglish
- Amethyst
Related forms: Améthyste · Amatista · Ametista · Ametista · Amethyst · Ametist
Pronouncing Amethyst
AM-uh-thist
Stress falls on the first syllable. The last syllable rhymes with "fist", with a soft th as in "thin". Because it is an everyday English word, most people say it correctly on sight.
Nicknames for Amethyst
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1967
- Most girls named
- 2022235 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1069reached in 2022
- Change vs 2024
- +2.8%181 in 2025, from 176
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Amethyst in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Améthyste in French — same name
- Amatista in Spanish — same name
- Ametista in Italian — same name
- Ametista in Portuguese — same name
- Amethyst in German — spelling variant
- Ametist in Russian — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Amethysts among us
people named Amethyst are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 8,880 born in 2025 was named Amethyst
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Cleopatra test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Amethyst's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Cleopatra climbed just as high around 1910, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Cleopatra's path sketches the road Amethyst is walking now.
Amethyst sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Amethyst is headed
Amethyst should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Amethyst beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Amethyst in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is a standard English word, so the pronunciation needs no explaining anywhere English is spoken.
- The etymology is fully settled and traceable through Greek, Latin and French — an unusually clean line for a modern given name.
- Amy is available as a short form, giving a plain everyday option alongside the longer name.
- The word exists in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German in near-identical shape, so it stays recognizable abroad.
- It sits in a familiar English naming tradition with Ruby, Pearl and Opal, without duplicating any of them.
- The spelling gets scrambled often — Amythest and Amethist are common slips, since the vowel order is not what the ear predicts. Expect to spell it out at appointments and on forms.
- Everyone meets the stone first. The name arrives with a color and an object attached, which some parents like and others find fixes the name too firmly to one image.
- Four syllables is long for daily use, so a short form will likely take over — and the obvious one, Amy, is a much plainer name than the one you chose.
- A child with this name will probably be the only one wherever they go. That means no surname initial in class, and also a lifetime of brief explanations.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Amethyst to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Amethyst
Feminine · Greek roots · #1241 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Amethysts are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,500 people named Amethyst are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Amethyst in 2025?
- Amethyst ranks #1241 among US girl names in 2025, with 181 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Amethyst?
- About 1 in every 8,880 US girls born in 2025 was named Amethyst — 181 in all.
- Will my child share the name Amethyst with classmates?
- Amethyst will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Amethyst
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Amal#1241 · Everley#1241 · Cooper#1241 · Eliette#1241 · Jana#1241 · Anderson#1241 · Silvia#1235 · Emmaline#1235
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Amethyst? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Amethyst and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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