Octavia
Feminine · Latin roots · “Eighth”
Octavia is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 23,978 girls against 139 boys since 1880.
Octavia was a family name in Rome before it was anyone's first name — the women of the gens Octavia all carried it, including the sister of the emperor Augustus. It kept its shape through Latin into Italian, French and Spanish, and English speakers picked it up again in the nineteenth century along with the rest of the Roman roll-call. Four syllables with the weight landing squarely on the second: ok-TAY-vee-uh.
How old is the name Octavia?
Octavia was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Octavia alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 20,000 people named Octavia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Octavia most popular?
Octavia peaked in 2022, reaching #247 nationally. Today it ranks #308, 61 places below that high. See the whole 2022 chart.
Where it comes from
From octavus (Latin, 'eighth') to Octavia
The story of Octavia
Roman families often numbered their children, and the ordinals hardened into names: Quintus for a fifth, Sextus for a sixth, Octavius for an eighth. Octavia was the feminine form and the standard name for daughters of the gens Octavia, worn by Augustus's sister and, a generation or two later, by the first wife of the emperor Nero. The Latin form survived intact in the Romance languages, and English took it up during the nineteenth-century enthusiasm for classical names, when Roman ordinals came back into parish registers alongside Augustus and Cornelia. It has stayed in quiet, continuous American use ever since.
Meaning
Eighth
The feminine of the Roman name Octavius, from Latin octavus, 'eighth'.
How the name formed
- octavusLatin, 'eighth'
- Octavius
- Octavia
- Ottavia / Octavie
Related forms: Ottavia · Octavie · Otávia · Oktawia · Octavia · Octavia
Pronouncing Octavia
ok-TAY-vee-uh
Four syllables, stress on the second. Italian Ottavia and Spanish Octavia put an 'ah' in that middle syllable instead.
Nicknames for Octavia
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 20221,238 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #247reached in 2022
- Change vs 2022
- −20.7%982 in 2025, from 1,238
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.
Octavia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ottavia in Italian — same name
- Octavie in French — same name
- Otávia in Portuguese — spelling variant
- Oktawia in Polish — spelling variant
- Octavia in Spanish — same name
- Octavia in Romanian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania.
Octavias among us
people named Octavia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,637 born in 2025 was named Octavia
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 Audra test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Octavia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Audra climbed just as high around 1967, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Audra's path sketches the road Octavia is walking now.
Octavia 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
Where Octavia is headed
Octavia should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Octavia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Octavia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds for an English reader, with no silent letters or competing variants to correct.
- An unbroken written record from Roman inscriptions to the present, and continuous use in the US without ever disappearing.
- Several established short forms — Tavi, Tavia, Via — so it can be shortened without inventing anything.
- Recognizable across Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Polish with only small changes of spelling.
- The meaning is a number, and it means 'eighth'. Most people never think about it; a few will do the arithmetic out loud about your firstborn.
- It sits close to Olivia, which is one of the most-used girls' names in the country. Expect a certain amount of being misheard and gently corrected over a phone line.
- Four syllables is a lot to say in full, so in practice she will probably answer to a short form at school whether or not you pick one.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Octavia to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Octavia
Feminine · Latin roots · #308 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Octavias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 20,000 people named Octavia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Octavia in 2025?
- Octavia ranks #308 among US girl names in 2025, with 982 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Octavia?
- About 1 in every 1,637 US girls born in 2025 was named Octavia — 982 in all.
- Will my child share the name Octavia with classmates?
- Octavia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Octavia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Francesca#307 · Harlow#309 · Joanna#306 · Elodie#310 · Tessa#311 · Elaine#304 · Morgan#312 · Adelina#304
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Octavia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Octavia and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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