Ventura
Masculine · “What is coming”
Ventura is given to both — 1,301 boys and 231 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Ventura is a Latin future participle, which is a form English does not have and cannot make. It does not mean fortune or luck exactly; it means the things that are going to come, the events on their way. Latin could say that in one word, and Spanish kept the word and gave it to children.
How old is the name Ventura?
Ventura first appears in US birth records in 1910 — 115 years ago. The typical Ventura alive today was born around 1963, making them about 62 years old. About 900 people named Ventura are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ventura most popular?
Ventura peaked in 1938, reaching #1397 nationally. See the whole 1938 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ventura to Ventura
The story of Ventura
The name is usually a shortening of Buenaventura, the Spanish form of Bonaventure, and there is a story attached to how the saint got it. Giovanni di Fidanza was said to have been a sick child healed through the prayers of Francis of Assisi, who exclaimed O buona ventura over him, and the exclamation became his name. He grew up to run the Franciscan order and to write theology that is still read. Whether the story is true or was invented afterwards to explain an unusual name is not settled, and it has the shape of the second. The name traveled with Spanish settlement to the Americas, where it is carried by a county, a river and a city in California, and where the record holds it for children of both sexes.
Meaning
What is coming
From venire, to come, in the form Latin used for things not yet arrived. Spanish took it as a noun meaning fortune or luck, with the sense of what the future holds, and buena ventura is good fortune. English has no way of forming this: it can say what will come but not in a single word, and every attempt to translate the name has to choose between luck, fortune and destiny, none of which is quite it.
How the name formed
- ventura
- Buenaventura
- Ventura
Related forms: Buenaventura · Bonaventura · Bonaventura · Boaventura
Pronouncing Ventura
ven-TOO-rah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The v in Spanish is made with both lips rather than lip and teeth, so it sits between an English v and an English b; nobody will mind either way.
Nicknames for Ventura
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
- 1910
- Most boys named
- 193823 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1397reached in 1938
- Change vs 2020
- −20.0%8 in 2024, from 10
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.
Ventura in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Buenaventura in Spanish — related form
- Bonaventura in Italian — related form
- Bonaventura in Catalan — related form
- Boaventura in Portuguese — related form
Venturas among us
people named Ventura 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
Ventura 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
- A clear and unusually optimistic meaning that can be given to a child in a few words.
- It works unchanged in Spanish, Italian, Catalan and Portuguese, and is read correctly in all of them.
- The name suits a child of either sex, and always has.
- In California the word is a place before it is a person, and the association is immediate for anyone from the state.
- The record carries the spelling for boys and girls both, so it signals nothing on a form.
- English speakers will stress the first syllable on sight and have to be corrected.
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What they receive
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Ventura
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Venturas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Ventura are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ventura in 2025?
- Ventura is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Ventura with classmates?
- Ventura will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More V names
The most-given names starting with V, all years combined.
Vincent#107 · Victor#209 · Vernon#1382 · Virgil#1409 · Van#970 · Vance#1075 · Vicente#589 · Vaughn#1152
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ventura? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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