Loreli
Feminine · “German”
Loreli is a rock in the Rhine and a poem, and the poem came first. The Lorelei is a real cliff at the river's narrowest point, but the legend of the woman who sits on it and lures boatmen to their deaths is not folklore — it was written by Clemens Brentano in 1801, and every later version descends from his.
How old is the name Loreli?
Loreli first appears in US birth records in 1938 — 87 years ago. The typical Loreli alive today was born around 2004, making them about 21 years old. About 600 people named Loreli are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Loreli most popular?
Loreli peaked in 1952, reaching #3040 nationally. Today it ranks #7133, 4,093 places below that high. See the whole 1952 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Ley to Loreli
The story of Loreli
Brentano invented Lore Lay in a ballad inside his 1801 novel Godwi, making her a woman accused of witchcraft who throws herself into the river. Heinrich Heine rewrote the story in 1824 as Die Lorelei, and Friedrich Silcher set that poem to music in 1837, at which point it became one of the most-sung German songs in existence. That sequence — invented in 1801, canonized by 1837, believed to be ancient by 1900 — is one of the clearest documented cases of a legend being manufactured and then absorbed. The American name follows the song, peaking in 1952.
Meaningscholars disagree
German, roughly "lurking rock" or "murmuring rock"
The place name is generally read as a compound of a dialect verb lureln, to murmur or to lurk, and Ley, a Middle High German word for a rock or cliff — so a murmuring or lurking rock, after the echo the cliff produces. The reading is plausible and widely repeated but not certain. Brentano's character name is taken directly from the place.
How the name formed
- Ley
- Loreley
- Lorelei
- Loreli
Related forms: Loreley · Lorelei
Pronouncing Loreli
LOR-uh-lye
Three syllables with the stress on the first. German gives lo-re-LYE with the stress at the end and the ei as a long I. The i spelling in Loreli invites an English reader to say LOR-uh-lee instead, which is a fourth version.
Nicknames for Loreli
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
- 1938
- Most girls named
- 200323 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3040reached in 1952
- Change vs 2024
- +36.4%15 in 2025, from 11
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.
Loreli in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Loreley in German — same name
- Lorelei in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Lorelis among us
people named Loreli are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 107,151 born in 2025 was named Loreli
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Loreli
- #7133
- Loreli on the 2025 chart
- #939
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Loreli went to 15 girls in 2025, but Lorely is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 21, which makes it the 939th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,194 places above the chart.
- Loreli15
- Lorely6
About 1 girl in 76,537 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 107,151 for Loreli itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Ailsa test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Loreli's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ailsa climbed just as high around 1926, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ailsa's path sketches the road Loreli is walking now.
Loreli 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
Loreli beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Loreli in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It has a documented author and a datable invention, which almost no legendary name does.
- The German song behind it is one of the most widely known in Europe.
- It offers several genuinely different short forms.
- Lorelei is the standard spelling and the i version invites the wrong final vowel.
- The figure lures men to their deaths, which is a strong story to carry.
- The 1952 peak dates the name to a specific American generation.
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What they receive
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Loreli
Feminine · #7133 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Lorelis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Loreli are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Loreli?
- Loreli is the most-used spelling in US records — 15 of the 21 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Lorely.
- How popular is the name Loreli in 2025?
- Loreli ranks #7133 among US girl names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Loreli?
- About 1 in every 107,151 US girls born in 2025 was named Loreli — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Loreli with classmates?
- Loreli will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Loreli
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Pennie#7133 · Zina#7133 · Elzie#7133 · Rosabel#7133 · Adelene#7133 · Cruz#7133 · Kansas#7133 · Ione#7133
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Loreli? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Loreli and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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