Avalon
Feminine · “island of apples”
Avalon is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 4,213 girls against 69 boys since 1880.
Avalon is the island at the end of the King Arthur story — the place his body is carried by boat after his last battle, first written down by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century. Tennyson brought it back into English poetry in the nineteenth, and it has been on the American record, quietly and without interruption, since the early years of name statistics.
How old is the name Avalon?
Avalon first appears in US birth records in 1907 — 118 years ago. The typical Avalon alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 3,800 people named Avalon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Avalon most popular?
Avalon peaked in 1921, reaching #1168 nationally. Today it ranks #1458, 290 places below that high. See the whole 1921 chart.
Avalon appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Insula Avallonis to Avalon
The story of Avalon
The name begins in Latin, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's twelfth-century history of the British kings, as Insula Avallonis — the island where Arthur's sword is forged and where he is taken, wounded, at the end. French Arthurian romance carried it on to the Continent, and medieval monks at Glastonbury claimed the place as their own hill. Tennyson's Arthurian poems put it back into wide English use in the nineteenth century, and American mapmakers followed: Avalon on Catalina Island in California, Avalon on the New Jersey shore. It moved from island to map to birth certificate, and it has been recorded as a girl's name in the United States ever since.
Meaningscholars disagree
island of apples
Geoffrey of Monmouth, who gave the name its first written form as Insula Avallonis, later called the same place the Isle of Apples, which points to Brythonic and Welsh 'afal', apple — the reading most often given. A second scholarly line derives it instead from Avalloc, a figure in Welsh tradition said to inhabit the island. The apple reading is the common one; the argument is not closed.
How the name formed
- Insula Avallonis
- AvalonOld French romance
- Avalon
Related forms: Afallon · Avalon · Avalón · Avalon · Avalon
Pronouncing Avalon
AV-uh-lon
Stress on the first syllable, which rhymes with 'have' minus the h. The last syllable is said both as a full 'lon' and, more casually, as 'lun'; both are heard in English and neither is a correction of the other.
Nicknames for Avalon
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
- 1907
- Most girls named
- 2014158 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1168reached in 1921
- Change vs 2023
- +28.9%147 in 2025, from 114
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.
Avalon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Afallon in Welsh — related form
- Avalon in French — same name
- Avalón in Spanish — spelling variant
- Avalon in Italian — same name
- Avalon in German — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, Texas.
Avalons among us
people named Avalon are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 10,934 born in 2025 was named Avalon
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 Brownie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Avalon's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Brownie climbed just as high around 1904, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Brownie's path sketches the road Avalon is walking now.
Avalon 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 Avalon is headed
Avalon should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Avalon beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Avalon in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The spelling is already known to most English speakers from the Arthurian legend and from towns in California and New Jersey — no need to spell it out letter by letter.
- An unbroken presence in American records across generations, without ever climbing into the crowded part of the charts.
- Yields Ava and Val, two short forms that are established given names in their own right.
- Travels intact through French, Italian, German and Spanish, where the Arthurian island keeps the same name.
- Toyota sold a sedan called the Avalon for decades, so some people's first association is a car rather than an island. This fades quickly in conversation, but it is worth knowing before you commit.
- Ava is so widely used right now that an Avalon will be misheard as an Ava fairly often, and may find the nickname arrives whether or not it is invited.
- American records place it firmly on the girls' side, but its root is a place name, not a personal one, and nothing in it is inherently masculine or feminine. A boy given Avalon would be unusual rather than mistaken.
- It is common enough to be recognized and rare enough that a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate — which cuts both ways, depending on how much you like standing out.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Avalon
Feminine · #1458 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Avalons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,800 people named Avalon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Avalon in 2025?
- Avalon ranks #1458 among US girl names in 2025, with 147 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Avalon?
- About 1 in every 10,934 US girls born in 2025 was named Avalon — 147 in all.
- Will my child share the name Avalon with classmates?
- Avalon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Avalon
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Nyra#1458 · Isra#1458 · Laine#1458 · Rochel#1458 · Emeri#1458 · Elianny#1458 · Harlem#1458 · Addisyn#1458
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Avalon? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Avalon and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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