Florentine
Feminine · “of Florence”
Florentine is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 666 girls against 12 boys since 1880.
Florentine is a place adjective used as a name, and the record holds it almost entirely for daughters. On a menu it means something very specific, and the reason usually given for that is a story nobody can support.
How old is the name Florentine?
Florentine first appears in US birth records in 1887 — 138 years ago. The typical Florentine alive today was born around 1920, making them about 105 years old. Fewer than a hundred people named Florentine are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
When was the name Florentine most popular?
Florentine peaked in 1894, reaching #1136 nationally. See the whole 1894 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Florentinus to Florentine
The story of Florentine
A dish described as florentine has spinach in it — eggs florentine, chicken florentine, and so on — and the explanation everybody gives is that Catherine de' Medici brought her cooks and her taste for spinach from Florence when she married into the French royal family in the fifteen-thirties. Food historians have been dismantling that story for decades. Spinach was eaten in France before she arrived, the French culinary revolution came a century later, and the whole narrative of Catherine civilizing French cooking appears to have been constructed in the nineteenth century. What is documented is the convention itself, which is firm: a menu saying florentine means spinach, almost always with a cream or cheese sauce, and cooks use the term without any idea where it came from. The useful part is the convention; the charming part is not true.
Meaning
of Florence
The Latin adjective from the city's name, which itself means flourishing. It was used as a personal name from late antiquity and survives in French and German as well as English, which is why the record holds it for children of both sexes.
How the name formed
- Florentinus
- Florentine
Related forms: Florentine · Florentine · Fiorentina
Pronouncing Florentine
FLOR-un-teen
Three syllables with the stress at the front and a secondary weight at the end. The ending says teen rather than the tine of English words like divine.
Nicknames for Florentine
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
- 1887
- Most girls named
- 191731 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1136reached in 1894
- Change vs 1947
- +20.0%6 in 1963, from 5
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.
Florentine in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Florentine in French — same name
- Florentine in German — same name
- Fiorentina in Italian — related form
Florentines among us
Fewer than a hundred people named Florentine are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Florentine sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Flo and Tina come from opposite ends and sound nothing alike.
- The meaning is documented and names a real and very old city.
- It works for a child of either sex, which the record confirms.
- The ending is read the English way on first sight, which gives a different name.
- Florentina and Florence will both be written for it.
- It is also a biscuit, and readers will think of that.
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Florentine
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Florentines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. Fewer than a hundred people named Florentine are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
- How popular is the name Florentine in 2025?
- Florentine is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Florentine with classmates?
- Florentine will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More F names
The most-given names starting with F, all years combined.
Frances#318 · Florence#391 · Faith#254 · Felicia#5554 · Fannie#3342 · Faye#514 · Flora#607 · Freda#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Florentine? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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