Florida
Feminine · “flowering”
Florida is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 3,527 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Florida was named for a feast, not for flowers. Ponce de Leon reached the coast at Easter and called the place after the Spanish name for that week, and the flowers that everyone assumes are behind it are only in the name because Spanish called Easter the flowering feast in the first place.
How old is the name Florida?
Florida was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Florida alive today was born around 1923, making them about 102 years old. About 700 people named Florida are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Florida most popular?
Florida peaked in 1888, reaching #380 nationally. See the whole 1888 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From floridus to Florida
The story of Florida
American families in the nineteenth century gave daughters the names of states and territories with some enthusiasm: Georgia, Virginia, Carolina, Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, Nevada and Florida all appear in the record as given names, and several of them were commoner than the states' populations would suggest. Some were named for a place a family had come from or was heading to; some simply liked the sound. Florida was among the earliest and, for a while, among the most used, and it holds a distinction the others do not: the word was a name for a season of the church year before it was ever the name of a place.
Meaning
flowering
The Latin floridus means covered in flowers or blooming. The name of the state comes from Pascua Florida, the Spanish term for the Easter season, so the flowers are real but they arrive by way of a church calendar rather than a landscape.
How the name formed
- floridus
- Pascua Florida
- Florida
Related forms: Florida · Florida · Florida
Pronouncing Florida
FLOR-id-uh
Three syllables with the weight at the front. Spanish puts it in the middle, flo-REE-dah, which is how the place was first said.
Nicknames for Florida
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 192599 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #380reached in 1888
- Change vs 1988
- 0.0%5 in 1994, 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.
Florida in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Florida in Spanish — same name
- Florida in Italian — same name
- Florida in Latin — related form
Floridas among us
people named Florida are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Florida 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
- Everyone can spell it and say it on first hearing.
- It carries two established short forms, Flora and Flo, both standing names.
- The meaning is bright, settled and easy to explain, and the history behind it is unexpectedly specific.
- It is a state name first for every American, and that association is not going anywhere.
- The spelling is recorded for boys as well as girls in the United States.
- It reads clearly as a name of the nineteenth century.
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What they receive
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Florida
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Floridas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Florida are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Florida in 2025?
- Florida is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Florida with classmates?
- Florida 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 Florida? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Florida and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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