The name Nova is of Latin origin, meaning ‘new’ or ‘novel’. The name can also refer to a celestial event, such as a supernova, which is an exploding star that releases a huge amount of energy.
Nova is a first name for girls, occasionally also given to boys.
The first name Nova is one of the top 100 most popular girls names in the US – currently at #89 in our SmartGenius ranking. Over 1,000 babies each year are named Nova, accounting for approximately 0.20 % of all newborn girls. In the entire USA, approximately 37,989 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Nova. That is 0.01 % of all living Americans.
The name Nova is of Latin origin, meaning ‘new’ or ‘novel’. The name can also refer to a celestial event, such as a supernova, which is an exploding star that releases a huge amount of energy.
The word 'novel' for a work... of prose fiction derives from the Italian and Latin word 'novella' for 'short story of something new'.
#27 - this is the highest rank Nova has ever achieved. Not many names manage to reach such a high popularity in even one of the 140+ years of recording. The last time Nova reached this top spot was in 2022 when 6,152 newborn girls were given this name. But as our statistics show, Nova hasn't always been a popular name: in some years of record, most recently in the year 1884, not a single newborn or less than 5 were named Nova (a name is only included in the official statistics if it has been given at least 5 times in a year). Nevertheless, the name Nova has accompanied people in this country for a long time. It turns out that this name fits very well into our time today. From zero to hero - even though it took a while for Nova to really catch on, it has become a very popular name.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Nova was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
The name Nova may not be in the top rankings of the most popular girls’ names, but it is one of the few female given names, along with only 536 others, that can be found in every single state in the U.S. from Alaska to Florida and from California to New York. Of course, the name occurs more frequently in some states than in others – and Nova is apparently especially popular in Nevada. Although the name is not one of the top 100 most popular women’s names here either, one in 1,148 women in Nevada is called Nova. In total, that’s 389 women who feel addressed when the name Nova is shouted loudly across Nevada and who ensure that their name makes it to #294 in our SmartGenius ranking of the most common female names in this nice state. If you asked all women in the entire U.S. for their first name, you would hear Nova as the answer a total of 36,403 times. This places Nova at #624 in our SmartGenius statistics for the most popular women’s names in the whole of the USA. This is true for all currently living women across all states and age groups – the recent popularity of the name Nova as a baby name is, of course, a bit different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter N is neither particularly common nor particularly rare as a first letter for girls' names: 4.1% of all common girls' names in the US begin with this letter. By the way, the most common first letters of girls' names are A and S, while X and U are the least common initials of girls' names.
With four letters, the name Nova is shorter than most other given names. In fact, only 5.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly four letters. Just 1.2% of all first names are even shorter, while 93% consist of more than four 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.
Thus, it follows that with 4.1% of all girls' names starting with an N, this initial letter occurs about as often as all 26 letters on average. Nevertheless, there are girls' names with N that are quite common, the most common in the U.S. at present is Nancy.
If your name is Nova 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 Nova, you can simply say:
Nut
Orange
Violin
Apple
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Nova
Nova
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
N
O
V
A
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.
N
O
V
A
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. Nova sounds like this:
