Middle Names for Girls

A name is listed when a girl record in our data has a documented meaning, the name has 50 or more births for girls in the SSA 2024 national file, so families can find it in use, and it is short: 2 syllables or fewer, or 5 letters or fewer, in a single word. A short middle name leaves room for a long first or last name. 196 more girls' names meet the other tests but are longer, and 1,922 have no documented meaning of their own in our data yet.

SSA counts spellings, not origins: the meaning shown is the one recorded in our data for the same spelling and sex.

Syllables are estimated from spelling with an English-style rule, so they can be off for names pronounced differently from how they are spelled. The row shows the estimate and the letter count that the rule used.

How well a middle name flows depends on the first and last name next to it, so this list does not rate flow. The middle name generator scores a whole name.

195 of the 420 names come from the Muslim-names dataset (Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Turkish, Kurdish and related origins). Names from other traditions appear only where their recorded meaning fits the rule.

Births and ranks are SSA national data: see the source note under the table.

Each row shows the meaning recorded for that name in our data. A name can have other meanings and other origins.