Bonita
Feminine · “pretty”
Bonita is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 37,842 girls against 12 boys since 1880.
Bonita is Spanish for pretty — an ordinary adjective used as a name, which Spanish does more readily than English does. The root is the Latin word for good, softened by a diminutive.
How old is the name Bonita?
Bonita first appears in US birth records in 1888 — 137 years ago. The typical Bonita alive today was born around 1953, making them about 72 years old. About 26,500 people named Bonita are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bonita most popular?
Bonita peaked in 1950, reaching #181 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 8,679 places below that high. See the whole 1950 chart.
Where it comes from
From bonus to Bonita
The story of Bonita
Spanish uses adjectives as names more freely than English does — Linda, Alma, Bonita, Consuelo — and American naming borrowed several of them in the twentieth century, often without the Spanish-speaking families who used them first. Bonita appears in American records from the 1900s and rose through the 1930s and 1940s, peaking around 1945, at the same moment as Linda, which carries the same adjectival sense.
Meaning
pretty, lovely
From the Spanish bonita, the feminine diminutive of bueno, 'good', from the Latin bonus. The diminutive shifts the sense from good to pretty, which is a well-documented development in Spanish rather than a translator's liberty.
How the name formed
- bonus
- bueno
- bonita
- Bonita
Related forms: Bonita · Bonita · Bonnie
Pronouncing Bonita
buh-NEE-tuh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Spanish says boh-NEE-tah with a fuller first vowel.
Nicknames for Bonita
Moderate
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
- 1888
- Most girls named
- 19501,528 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #181reached in 1950
- Change vs 2022
- −21.4%11 in 2025, from 14
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.
Bonita in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bonita in Spanish — same name
- Bonita in Italian — same name
- Bonnie in English — related form
Bonitas among us
people named Bonita are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Bonita
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 Johnnie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Bonita's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Johnnie climbed just as high around 1928, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Johnnie's path sketches the road Bonita is walking now.
Bonita 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
Bonita beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Bonita in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is transparent to hundreds of millions of speakers without any explanation.
- Three syllables with a strong middle, a rhythm that holds up against a short surname.
- Nita and Bonnie are both available and are very different in register.
- It is an ordinary adjective in Spanish, so the name is never only a name there.
- It is period-coded to the middle of the twentieth century in American records.
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What they receive
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Bonita
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bonitas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 26,500 people named Bonita are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bonita in 2025?
- Bonita ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Bonita?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Bonita — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Bonita with classmates?
- Bonita will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Bonita
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lida#8860 · Lauretta#8860 · Dot#8860 · Benita#8860 · Trixie#8860 · Adna#8860 · Velia#8860 · Sue#8860
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bonita? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Bonita and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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