Midori
Feminine · “Green”
Japanese did not have a separate everyday word for green until fairly recently. One word covered blue and green together, and the word behind this name originally meant a bud or a new shoot rather than a color at all; it took over the green half of the range only in the last century or so.
How old is the name Midori?
Midori first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Midori alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 1,000 people named Midori are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Midori most popular?
Midori peaked in 1923, reaching #1598 nationally. See the whole 1923 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Midori
The older word is still doing the job in places, which is why Japanese traffic lights are officially blue. When signals were introduced the documents called the go light by the older color word, and although the lamp itself is green, the law and ordinary speech both still call it blue; the compromise, in later years, was to use the greenest shade of blue that international standards would allow. Vegetables, unripe fruit and new leaves are described the same way. Language does not divide the spectrum where physics does, and Japanese is one of the clearest cases of a boundary moving inside living memory, with this word being the one that moved.
Meaning
Green, new growth
The word first meant the fresh shoots of a plant and by extension their color, and it is still used of a baby's downy hair in an old fixed phrase. It became the ordinary word for green in the modern period, taking that part of the range from the older word that had covered everything from grass to the sea. As a given name it is straightforwardly the color.
Pronouncing Midori
mee-DOH-ree
Three syllables, each of equal length in Japanese, which does not stress syllables the way English does; English speakers put the weight in the middle and Japanese speakers hear it as a small distortion they are used to.
Nicknames for Midori
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
- 1915
- Most girls named
- 198833 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1598reached in 1923
- Change vs 2022
- −23.5%13 in 2024, from 17
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.
Midori in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Midori in Japanese — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Midoris among us
people named Midori 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
Midori 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
- It is a real, current and ordinary Japanese name rather than a borrowing or an approximation.
- Every sound in it exists in English, so nobody has to learn anything to say it.
- The meaning is concrete, pleasant and easy to give a child in one word.
- English stress patterns change the shape of the name slightly, which Japanese speakers will notice.
- There is a well-known green liqueur of the same name, and adults will make the connection.
- Outside Japanese-American families the name will need its origin explained most times it is given.
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Midori
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Midoris are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Midori are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Midori in 2025?
- Midori is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Midori with classmates?
- Midori will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Mary#125 · Margaret#112 · Michelle#465 · Melissa#419 · Maria#87 · Martha#712 · Marie#617 · Mildred#1962
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Midori? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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