Lily, Poppy, Ivy: the girls named after flowers

Three of the ten most popular girls' names in England and Wales are plants. Lily is second, Poppy is seventh and Ivy is ninth. Add Daisy, Willow, Violet and the rest, and 14,916 girls born in 2025 were named after something that grows. That is one girl in 17.

America has been here before. In 1897 one American girl in 28 had a plant name. By 1962 it was one in 155. Then Heather took the whole category on her own and let it go again. Britain today is above America's best year on record, and it is not close.

How we counted

A plant name is a first name spelled exactly as the English word for a flower, plant, tree or herb. Lily counts. Lilly, Lillie and Rosie do not, because they are not the word. Flora does not, because it is not a plant. Olive is in, because an olive is a tree. Cherry, Apple and Peach are out, because they are fruit first. Names that happen to be plant words but mean something else to most people, like Ash, Heath and Ginger, are out too. The full list is in the page's own notes, so you can check it.

Boys and girls are counted from their own lists in the official files, never from our own gender label. A hyphenated name like Lily-Rose is not counted either, and we come back to those at the end.

Britain now: one girl in 17

The Office for National Statistics counted 253,281 girls born in England and Wales in 2025. 14,916 of them, 5.9%, got one of 46 plant names. Ten of those names are in the top 100. After Lily, Poppy and Ivy come Daisy (18th), Willow (20th), Violet (37th), Olive (47th), Iris (57th), Rose (67th) and Hazel (71st).

Further down are the names you will not find in many other countries at all. Primrose went to 259 girls, Fern to 149 and Blossom to 124. Bluebell went to 25, Peony to 16 and Lilac to 15. In 2024 the share was almost exactly the same, 6.0%, so this is not one odd year.

America's flower years

The American records run back to 1880, and the 1890s were America's flower years. The best was 1897. One girl in 28 got a plant name. Hazel and Rose were each given to nearly one girl in a hundred, and Myrtle to one in 135. Then it fell, every decade, for sixty years. By 1962 it was one girl in 155.

Then came Heather. It was given to about one girl in 20,000 in 1936. In 1975 it was one girl in 64, and it was three quarters of all the plant names given that year. No other plant name in either country has come close to carrying the whole category like that. By 2008 it was back to about one girl in 3,000.

The newest American count we hold is 2017. That year 42,368 American girls got a plant name, one in 40. Lily, Hazel and Violet led. Since then we only have rankings, and they all point one way. In 2015 three plant names were in America's top 100 girls' names. In 2025 there are eight: Violet at 13th, Lily, Hazel, Ivy, Willow, Iris, Daisy and Juniper, which has just reached 100th. Magnolia has gone from 635th to 124th. Hazel has gone from 63rd to 21st, and Violet from 50th to 13th. America is on its way back up. But none of them is in the top ten, and Britain has three.

The names Britain owns

Poppy is the clearest case. It went to 1,789 girls here in 2025 and 421 American girls in 2017. Per girl born, that makes it 29 times as common here. Primrose is 31 times as common, Blossom 22 times and Fern 12 times. Of the twelve biggest plant names in England and Wales, eleven are commoner here than in America per head.

The one exception is Hazel. It is 71st here and 21st in America. Per head it is slightly commoner there, and it has been one of America's big flower names since the 1890s. Rowan, Sage and Dahlia are also commoner in America, but they are small names here.

Boys hardly get them

1,536 boys in England and Wales got a plant name in 2025, one in 178. Nine in ten of them are called Rowan, which is 30th for boys with 1,398. After that it is Sage with 33, Basil with 26 and Aspen with 19. In America it is one boy in 419, and Rowan again.

What we left out

Our rule is strict on spelling, and that keeps some big names out. Rosie went to 1,343 girls in 2025, twice as many as Rose. Lilly and Lillie went to 587 between them. And 3,266 girls had a hyphenated name with a plant word in it, mostly Rose on the end. Count all of those and the figure is closer to one girl in 13. We have stuck to one in 17 because it only counts the word itself, and that is the number you can check.

What it means for you

If you like flower names you are in good company, and that cuts both ways. A Lily or a Poppy born in 2025 will share her name with a lot of girls in her year. If you want the flower without the crowd, the list is long. Iris, Olive and Hazel are in the top 100 but well down it. Primrose, Fern and Blossom are rarer still, and almost unknown in America. For the double names, which are where Rose really lives, see Ivy-Rose, Elsie-Mae, Arlo-James: Britain's double names.