Olivia
Feminine · Latin roots · “Olive”
Olivia is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 567,345 girls against 791 boys since 1880. See Olivia as a boy name
Olivia steps into the written record as a countess in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, first performed in the early seventeenth century, and behind her stands the older medieval Oliva and Olive. It is four unhurried syllables with the stress in the middle, oh-LIV-ee-uh, and it has been said in English, Italian, Polish and French mouths without needing to change its spelling much at all.
How old is the name Olivia?
Olivia was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Olivia alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 544,000 people named Olivia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Olivia most popular?
Olivia peaked in 2019, reaching #1 nationally. Today it ranks #1, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2019 chart.
Olivia appears on these lists:
- Transatlantic hits: loved on both sides of the ocean
- Every #1 name in American history
- America's top 100 names right now
- Vowel names: soft starts from A to O
- The steadiest names in America
- Names at their all-time peak, right now
- all guides
Works in British and French families too:
Where it comes from
From oliva (Latin, 'olive') to Olivia
The story of Olivia
The Latin oliva gave the medieval Christian name Oliva and its English cousin Olive, both in use in England well before Shakespeare. The spelling Olivia appears for the wealthy, mourning countess of Twelfth Night, and the play kept it alive in print for centuries afterward. English-speaking families took it up properly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and it traveled with them; by the mid-twentieth century it belonged to Hollywood as well, worn by Olivia de Havilland across a long screen career. Today it charts on both sides of the Atlantic and in France, which few English names manage.
Meaningscholars disagree
'Olive', from Latin oliva — though the route into English is debated
Two serious accounts compete. One takes Olivia straight from Latin oliva, the olive tree, by way of the medieval name Oliva and its English form Olive. The other treats it as a feminine form built on Oliver, a name whose own origin is argued over — Germanic in some readings, olive-related in others. Either way, the olive sits in the name's history; the disagreement is over how it got there.
Cultural footprint
Olivia Rodrigo (b. 2003) — Pop phenomenon whose debut single "drivers license" shattered streaming records
Olivia de Havilland (b. 1916) — Two-time Oscar winner and Gone with the Wind star who lived to 104
Olivia Newton-John (b. 1948) — Grease's Sandy and a four-time Grammy winner
Olivia Wilde (b. 1984) — Actress turned acclaimed director (Booksmart)
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- olivaLatin, 'olive'
- Oliva
- Olive
- Olivia
Related forms: Oliwia · Olivia · Olívia · Olivie · Olive · Oliva
Pronouncing Olivia
oh-LIV-ee-uh
Stress falls on the second syllable. The first syllable is often reduced to a quick 'uh' in fast speech, and some speakers run the ending into three syllables, oh-LIV-yuh. Both are ordinary and neither needs correcting.
Nicknames for Olivia
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
- 201619,414 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1reached in 2019
- Change vs 2022
- −18.8%13,544 in 2025, from 16,670
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.
Olivia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Oliwia in Polish — spelling variant
- Olivia in Italian — same name
- Olívia in Hungarian — spelling variant
- Olivie in Czech — same name
- Olive in French — related form
- Oliva in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. INSEE rounds every published count to the nearest five for statistical confidentiality; the ranks are calculated from the exact figures. International figures from Office for National Statistics, Statistics Canada, National Records of Scotland, INSEE. Sources
Olivias among us
people named Olivia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 119 born in 2025 was named Olivia
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 Jennifer test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Olivia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jennifer climbed just as high around 1970, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jennifer's path sketches the road Olivia is walking now.
Olivia 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 Olivia is headed
Olivia should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Olivia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Olivia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the same way in English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, and near enough in Polish and Hungarian, so it survives travel and family ties abroad.
- A deep bench of established short forms — Liv, Livvy, Olive, Ollie — none of which needed inventing.
- Currently ranked in England and Wales, Canada, Scotland and France as well as the US, which is rare for an English given name.
- A documented written history stretching back through Shakespeare's stage to the medieval Oliva and Olive.
- This is one of the most-used girls' names in the country right now. A child called Olivia will very likely meet others, and may go by Olivia plus a last initial at school.
- Oliver is equally widespread for boys, so Ollie and Liv circulate in the same classrooms. Worth thinking about if you are also considering Oliver for a sibling.
- Because so many Olivias are children and teenagers today, the name reads as distinctly of this generation — much as Jennifer or Linda mark theirs. That may or may not matter to you.
- Olyvia, Alivia and Oliwia all exist as variants, so people occasionally ask how you spell it even though your spelling is the standard one.
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What they receive
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Olivia
Feminine · Latin roots · #1 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Olivias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 544,000 people named Olivia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Olivia in 2025?
- Olivia ranks #1 among US girl names in 2025, with 13,544 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Olivia?
- About 1 in every 119 US girls born in 2025 was named Olivia — 13,544 in all.
- Will my child share the name Olivia with classmates?
- Roughly 1 in 5 classrooms will have a child named Olivia.
Ranked beside Olivia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Charlotte#2 · Emma#3 · Amelia#4 · Sophia#5 · Mia#6 · Isabella#7 · Evelyn#8 · Sofia#9
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Olivia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Olivia and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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