Violet

72,518 people in America carry this name — ranked #708 of 923.

A name being given more often than it was a generation ago.

Say it VY uh liht

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

V AY1 AH0 L IH0 T — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 72,518 2020 Census
  • Rank #708 Familiar
  • Per 100,000 24.0 about 1 in 4,571 people
  • As a surname 743 ranked #33,067 the other way round

What Violet means and where it comes from

Latin in origin, reading literally as “violet”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Violet has been given

152,780 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2019, with 5,402 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 10s 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 2010s. It has been given more often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

What goes well after Violet

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Violet Tammy — runs together
  • Violet Tracy — runs together
  • Violet Tina — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

On the way up

Violet is given more often now than it was a generation ago. Most names move the other way.

Boys or girls: who is called Violet?

0.1% men
72,414 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Where the name Violet is most common in the US

In Nevada the name is given 1.9 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Nevada ×1.9
  • Alaska ×1.8
  • Oregon ×1.7
  • New Hampshire ×1.6
  • Washington ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Names built the same way as Violet

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

The likeliest full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 69.2%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 5.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 15.7%
  • Two or more races — 5.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.6%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 1.0%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

How to spell Violet

Violet is how 75% of them spell it — 96,653 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Latin origin