Holly
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Holly is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From the name of the tree; suitable for a child born around Christmas.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 1.4K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.4K
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.5K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #731 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 578 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈780,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From the name of the tree; suitable for a child born around Christmas.
Sources 1
- Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Holly counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈780,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Holly | 50 |
| US United States | #299 | 182,754 | 1 in 1.8K | 182K | Holly | 578 |
| GB United Kingdom | #276 | ≈47,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 52 | Holly | 327 |
| CA Canada | #285 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | 15 | Holly | 244 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.4K | — | Holly | 22 |
| AU Australia | #271 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 76 | Holly | 233 |
| IE Ireland | #199 | ≈3,500 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 213 | Holly | 95 |
| NZ New Zealand | #241 | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 24 | Holly | 136 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Holly is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
From the vocabulary word denoting the evergreen shrub or tree (Middle English holi(n), Old English holegn). The name was first used at the beginning of the 20th century, and has been particularly popular since about 1960. It is bestowed especially on girls born around Christmas, when sprigs of holly are traditionally taken indoors to decorate rooms. Variant: Hollie.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
part-translation of Gaelic Mac Cuilinn (see McCullen) in County Kerry, and in Ulster sometimes a variant of McQuillan, also an Anglicized form of Mac Cuilinn. It is rarely of English origin.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Possibly an altered spelling of Czech or Slovak Holy (see Holy).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, Any of various shrubs or (mostly) small trees, of the genus Ilex, either evergreen or deciduous, used as decoration especially at Christmas.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Person who lives by a holly tree.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Arthur Holly Comptonb. 1892USAmerican physicist (1892–1962)
- Michelle Phillipsb. 1944USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer and actress
- Holly Palanceb. 1950USAmerican actress
- Holly Hunterb. 1958USAmerican actress (born 1958)
- Holly Blackb. 1971USAmerican children's fiction writer
- Holly Marie Combsb. 1973USAmerican actress
- Holly Madisonb. 1979USAmerican television personality
- Holly Holmb. 1981USAmerican boxer and mixed martial artist (born 1981)
- Mae Mullerb. 1997GBnot in their usual nameBritish singer
- Holly Taylorb. 1997USCanadian actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 78 sources across 40 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 182K | #305 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 751 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 489 | #305 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2019 | 213 | #21 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 86 | — |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2015 | 76 | #98 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2020 | 64 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2020 | 64 | #79 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2020 | 64 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 52 | #79 |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 24 | #87 |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2025 | 24 | — |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Holly mean, and where does it come from?
- From the name of the tree; suitable for a child born around Christmas. Recorded by Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular….
- What are other forms of the name Holly?
- In the etymology graph, Hollie is a form of the same name in other languages.
- Is Holly a male or female name?
- Holly is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Holly have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 779 thousand people named Holly in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled holly.
- How common is the name Holly?
- In the United States, the national register counted 182,754 people named Holly in 2020, about 1 in 1.8 thousand residents.
- How common is Holly compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Holly is the 199th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Holly?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/hollyThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Holly” — the 199th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.