Valeria
Feminine · “from Latin valere”
Valeria is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 80,052 girls against 105 boys since 1880.
Valeria is the feminine form of Valerius, the name of one of Rome's oldest patrician families, and it has been in continuous use for something like two thousand years. It has never had to be revived, because it never really went away: it is an ordinary, everyday name in Italy, Spain, Latin America, Romania and Russia, and it arrived on American records in the late nineteenth century and simply stayed.
How old is the name Valeria?
Valeria first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Valeria alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 73,500 people named Valeria are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Valeria most popular?
Valeria peaked in 2009, reaching #72 nationally. Today it ranks #162, 90 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Where it comes from
From Valerius to Valeria
The story of Valeria
Valeria began as a Roman family name — the feminine of Valerius, borne by the gens Valeria, among the oldest patrician houses of the Republic. Because Roman women were named for their father's clan, Valeria was a real, common name in the streets of Rome long before it was a fashionable one anywhere else. Christian tradition later attached it to a martyr venerated at Milan, which carried the name through the medieval church calendars of Italy and France. From Latin it passed straight into Italian and Spanish unchanged, into French as Valérie, and into Russian as Valeriya — and each of those languages sent it onward, which is why the same spelling turns up in American records with several different accents behind it.
Meaning
from Latin valere, 'to be strong, to be well'
The same Latin verb sits behind English words like valid and value.
How the name formed
- Valerius
- Valeria
- Valérie
- Valerie
Related forms: Valeria · Valeria · Valérie · Valeriya · Valerie · Valeria
Pronouncing Valeria
vuh-LAIR-ee-uh
That is the usual American reading. Spanish and Italian speakers say vah-LEH-ree-ah, with a clean short e and four distinct syllables; both are correct for the same spelling, and many families use whichever fits the room.
Nicknames for Valeria
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
- 1881
- Most girls named
- 20073,413 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #72reached in 2009
- Change vs 2022
- −8.1%1,835 in 2025, from 1,997
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.
Valeria in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Valeria in Spanish — same name
- Valeria in Italian — same name
- Valérie in French — related form
- Valeriya in Russian — transliteration
- Valerie in English — related form
- Valeria in Romanian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Valerias among us
people named Valeria are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 876 born in 2025 was named Valeria
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 Melinda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Valeria's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Melinda climbed just as high around 1973, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Melinda's path sketches the road Valeria is walking now.
Valeria 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 Valeria is headed
Valeria 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.
Valeria beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Valeria 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 in English, Spanish and Italian alike, with no silent letters and no competing variants to correct.
- Works unchanged in several major languages, so it travels without translation across a bilingual family.
- A documented record stretching from Republican Rome to this year's classrooms, without a gap needing revival.
- Established short forms in more than one language — Val, Vale, Lera — rather than nothing to fall back on.
- Valeria and Valerie are constantly mistaken for each other, especially over the phone. Expect to spell out the ending, and expect the occasional Valerie in her mail.
- The two pronunciations — vuh-LAIR-ee-uh and vah-LEH-ree-ah — can both attach to one child, at school and at home. Most families find this untroublesome, but it is worth deciding which one you will introduce her by.
- Four syllables is a lot next to a long surname, and Val is the only really short option in English.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Valeria to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Valeria
Feminine · #162 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Valerias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 73,500 people named Valeria are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Valeria in 2025?
- Valeria ranks #162 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,835 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Valeria?
- About 1 in every 876 US girls born in 2025 was named Valeria — 1,835 in all.
- Will my child share the name Valeria with classmates?
- Valeria will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Valeria
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Anastasia#163 · Alani#161 · Sage#160 · Ashley#164 · Nevaeh#165 · Isabelle#166 · Arya#158 · Wrenley#158
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Valeria? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Valeria and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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