The name Holly comes from the English word for the holly tree, ultimately derived from Old English ‘holen’.
Holly is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The name Holly isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Holly ranks 439. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 4 were named Holly. In the entire USA, approximately 200,624 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Holly. That is 0.06 % of all living Americans.
The name Holly comes from the English word for the holly tree, ultimately derived from Old English ‘holen’.
Holly could also originate.. from a place name meaning 'clearing by the hollow' or from 'hol-ēage', an old nickname meaning 'hollow-eyed'.
#48 - this is the highest position Holly has ever reached. Not many names manage to reach such a high popularity in even one of the 140+ years of records. The last time Holly reached this top spot at the end of the past century in 1983 when 6,414newborn girls were named Holly. But as our statistics show, Holly hasn't always been a popular name: in some years of record, most recently in the year 1903, it was given to newborns not at all or at least less than 5 times (a name is only included in the official statistics only if it is given at least 5 times in a year). Nevertheless, the name Holly has accompanied people in this country for a long time. It turns out that this name fits very well in our modern times. From zero to hero – even if its peak is in the past, Holly has become a fashionable name after all.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Holly was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, 688 newborn girls were given the name Holly, making this first name #424. Towards the end of the last century, the name had a real flight of fancy and still captivates many people today − just like the music of the 80s. So, the chances to meet a young Holly are still quite high.
Wherever you go, wherever you live – there’s a good chance to meet Holly. Because: There are women and girls named Holly in every state in the USA. This may sound quite unspectacular at first, but in fact, of the more than 50,000 different female first names that occur in the USA, just 537 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Holly is definitely something very special. In some regions it even makes it into the top 100 of the most popular female first names, for example in Utah, where Holly ranks on place 84. The greatest chance of meeting Holly, however, is in Alaska, where one in 324 girls and women bears this beautiful name – that is far above average – in the entire USA it is only one in 769 women and girls and in Mississippi, where the name is least represented in relation to the population, you even have to ask an average of 1,276 women and girls for their name before you once get Holly as an answer.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter H is quite rare as a first letter for girls' names: only 1.7% of all common girls' names in the US begin with H. The most common first letters of girls' names, by the way, are A, S and M, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of girls' names.
With five letters, the name Holly is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
Therefore: As 1.7% of all girls' names begin with an H, this initial letter is less common than the other letters on average. Interesting detail: of all the names that begin with an H, Helen is the most common.
If your name is Holly and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Holly, you can simply say:
Hat
Orange
Lion
Lion
Yoyo
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Holly
Holly
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
H
O
L
L
Y
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
H
O
L
L
Y
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Holly sounds like this:
