Lily · Daily fortune

Lily is a feminine name of English origin, taken from the name of the flower — "a symbol of purity", as Behind the Name puts it — and ultimately from Latin lilium. Wikipedia notes that lilies stand for innocence and purity in Christian artistic tradition, that the name rose with the 1800s fashion for flower names, and that it is sometimes used as a diminutive for Elizabeth. It is also the name of Lily Bart, the central character of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth (1905). In 2025 it ranked #18 among American girls' names.

Behind the Name is one sentence long on the point and both sources agree with it: Lily is "from the name of the flower, a symbol of purity", the word being ultimately derived from Latin lilium. Wikipedia says the same — "Lily is a feminine given name usually derived from lily, the flower" — and adds the symbolic layer, that in Christian artistic traditions lilies stand for innocence and purity. There is no separate root to reconstruct: the name is the flower, and the purity association is an attached symbolism rather than a second etymology. In some cases Lily also functions as a short form: Behind the Name lists it in a family with Lilian, Lillian, Liliana and Lillie, and Wikipedia records its occasional use as a diminutive of Elizabeth.

Lily's modern history belongs to the Victorian flower-name wave, which Wikipedia dates to the 1800s and early 1900s for girls' names generally. The lily itself carried more freight than most flowers: in Christian artistic traditions it symbolises innocence and purity, which is the association Behind the Name records in its gloss. The name's literary anchor is Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth (1905), whose central character is Lily Bart — a novel about a woman destroyed by the social economy of old New York, which gives the name a rather less decorative shading than the flower suggests. Wikipedia records a renewed and substantial rise "during the late 20th and early 21st centuries" across Western Europe and the English-speaking countries, helped by the general fashion for girls' names beginning with L, and the appearance of compound forms such as Lily-Rose, which was the 65th most popular name in Quebec in 2022. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century bearers run from the footballer Lily Parr and the soprano Lily Pons to the actress Lily Tomlin and the singer Lily Allen.

Lily ranked #18 for girls in the United States in 2025 (Social Security Administration). Wikipedia describes the trajectory behind that without giving a year-by-year American series: a Victorian-era rise, then a significant increase during the late 20th and early 21st centuries across Western Europe and the English-speaking world, with L-initial girls' names fashionable generally. Its close relatives Lillian and Lilly are ranked separately in the SSA file, so the flower's total share of births is higher than the Lily line alone suggests.

Behind the Name gives one English pronunciation, /ˈlɪl.i/ — LIL-ee, two syllables with a short first vowel. Most other languages use their own form of the flower name rather than the English spelling; the forms below are the ones Behind the Name lists, and their pronunciations were not verified in this pass.

Lily is the flower name that reads as a first name rather than a decoration: two short syllables, nothing ornate, and no need for a formal version on a document. That is also its trade-off — parents who want a long form to grow into generally register Lillian or Liliana and use Lily every day, which is exactly what the related-name cluster in the sources shows people doing. It sits in the sweet spot between the vintage revival (Violet, Hazel, Iris) and the plain-sweet contemporary names (Ella, Ivy, Mia), which is a large part of why it has stayed near the top for two decades without ever feeling like a trend.

The bearers below are the ones named in the Behind the Name entry and the Wikipedia article consulted for this profile.

Names that share Lily's botanical source, its short soft sound, or its longer formal alternatives.