147 Baby Girl Names That Sound Like a Song From a 70s Vinyl Record (With Meanings & Origins)

There is a particular warmth to names from the 1970s that no other decade has quite managed to reproduce. It is the warmth of a song heard through a screen door on a summer evening, the warmth of a name that was chosen not because it was fashionable but because it sounded like something worth saying slowly, worth singing rather than simply calling across a room. These were the years of Joni Mitchell and Carole King, of Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks, of Carly Simon and Linda Ronstadt, and the names of that era carry the same quality as the music, unhurried, melodic, and possessed of a beauty that does not announce itself but simply accumulates the longer you sit with it.

The 70s baby name aesthetic is not about flower power, though some of it is rooted there. It is about a specific kind of American and British warmth, a naming culture that loved long vowel sounds and soft consonants, that reached for the botanical and the celestial and the literary simultaneously, that produced names which felt like they belonged to someone who owned a macramé plant hanger and a copy of Tapestry on vinyl and knew every word of both sides. These names were not trying to be remarkable. They simply were, in the way that the best music from that era simply is, without effort, without explanation, and entirely without apology.

Whether you are a parent who grew up with these names and wants to give your daughter the specific warmth of that golden era, or someone who simply hears these names as fresh and beautiful because they have been quiet long enough to sound new again, this collection gives you 147 of the most musically gorgeous, warmly nostalgic, and genuinely beautiful girl names from the decade when vinyl was the only format worth caring about. Popularity rankings are based on the most recent Social Security Administration (SSA) data.

Quick Note on Popularity: Names ranked above 1000 on the SSA database are considered truly rare and unique. Names closer to 1 are among the most popular in the United States today.

Soft and Dreamy Names

Stevie

• Origin: Old English/Germanic
• Meaning: Crown, wreath
• Popularity: >1000

Stevie Nicks made this name synonymous with everything the 70s did best, the long hair, the platform boots, the tambourine, and the voice that sounded like it had been lived in for centuries before it was thirty, a name that belongs to a girl who will always enter a room looking like she just stepped off a stage somewhere extraordinary.

Joni

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: God is gracious
• Popularity: >1000

Joni Mitchell painted her feelings in musical brushstrokes so original that the entire decade essentially structured itself around her emotional vocabulary, and her name carries that specific quality of artistic genius so complete it does not notice itself being genius.

Carole

• Origin: French/Germanic
• Meaning: Free woman, song of joy
• Popularity: >1000

Carole King sat at a piano in a cardigan and rewrote what it meant to be a woman singing about her own life, and her name carries the particular warmth of someone who understood that the most powerful artistic statement is the one that makes every listener feel personally understood.

Linda

• Origin: Spanish/Germanic
• Meaning: Pretty, beautiful, soft
• Popularity: >1000

Linda Ronstadt had the most effortlessly perfect pop voice of the decade and wore overalls on album covers in a way that made overalls look like a deliberate aesthetic statement, her name carrying the specific warmth of a 70s afternoon that is simultaneously casual and completely intentional.

Carly

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Free woman, strong
• Popularity: >1000

Carly Simon made anticipation the most unbearably pleasant feeling in music and stared off the cover of No Secrets with a confidence that the decade found both extraordinary and entirely believable, a name for a girl of warm, direct creative authority.

Wendy

• Origin: English/Welsh
• Meaning: Fair, white, friend
• Popularity: >1000

J.M. Barrie invented this name for the girl who could fly and who eventually chose to grow up anyway, and the 70s adopted it completely, giving it the specific warmth of a name that belongs to someone practical enough to run a household in Neverland and imaginative enough to have been invited there.

Cheryl

• Origin: French/Welsh
• Meaning: Beloved, dear
• Popularity: >1000

A name that belongs to the warmth of 70s American naming in its most characteristic form, soft-edged, musical in its vowels, and carrying the specific affectionate quality of a decade that understood that beloved was one of the most important things a name could mean.

Gail

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: My father rejoices, joyful
• Popularity: >1000

Short, warm, and carrying the Hebrew paternal joy tradition in a form that the 70s completely claimed as its own, Gail has the breezy, sun-warmed quality of a name that belongs to someone who brings a potato salad to every gathering and is always the reason the gathering was worth attending.

Sherry

• Origin: French/Hebrew
• Meaning: Beloved, dear one
• Popularity: >1000

The Four Seasons made this name a song before the 70s inherited it, and the decade gave it the warmth of a name that sounds like it belongs to someone who knows every lyric of every song that played on the radio that summer and can tell you exactly what they were doing when each one came on.

Donna

• Origin: Latin/Italian
• Meaning: Lady, woman of the house
• Popularity: >1000

Donna Summer became the undisputed Queen of Disco and gave this Italian dignity-name a specific 70s dancefloor mythology alongside its traditional warmth, a name that carries both the kitchen and the mirror ball in exactly equal measure.

Tammy

• Origin: Hebrew/Aramaic
• Meaning: Palm tree, date palm
• Popularity: >1000

A name that belongs to the 70s in the way that a particular shade of avocado green belongs to the 70s, completely of its era, completely warm, and currently undergoing exactly the quiet reassessment that produces genuine rediscovery.

Peggy

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Pearl
• Popularity: >1000

The nickname for Margaret that fully escaped its origin and became its own complete name, Peggy carries the specific quality of a 70s woman who has a name that sounds like it belongs to someone who gave good advice and drove a station wagon and was the most capable person in any room she walked into.

Shelly

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Clearing on a slope, from the ledge
• Popularity: >1000

A 70s name of warm, accessible beauty that has the specific quality of a name heard through the opening credits of a television show from that era, instantly evoking the particular warmth of the decade before anyone has said a single word about what decade they mean.

Debbie

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Bee, industrious
• Popularity: >1000

Debbie Harry was the coolest person in New York for several consecutive years and gave this honey-warm name a downtown art scene mythology alongside its traditional domestic warmth, a name that carries the beehive and the CBGB stage in exactly the same breath.

Renee

• Origin: French/Latin
• Meaning: Reborn, born again
• Popularity: >1000

The French rebirth name that carries both the Catholic sacramental tradition and the specifically 70s quality of a name that sounds like the opening of a song you have not heard for twenty years but know every word of the moment it begins.

Tracey

• Origin: Irish/Latin
• Meaning: Warlike, fighter
• Popularity: >1000

A name that was everywhere in the 70s and has now become rare enough to carry the specific charm of something that belongs entirely to its era and arrives today with the pleasant surprise of something that went away and has come back looking exactly the same as it always did.

Lesley

• Origin: Scottish
• Meaning: Holly garden, grey fortress
• Popularity: >1000

The Scottish form of Leslie that the 70s gave to girls specifically and that carries the warm, slightly formal quality of a decade that was the last one to give girls names that sounded grown-up rather than childlike, names that a woman would wear with the same ease as a girl.

Folk and Earthy Names

Crystal

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Ice, clear mineral
• Popularity: >1000

A name that carries the 70s fascination with the natural world and its materials, Crystal belongs to the decade’s love of minerals and geology as naming sources, a girl named for transparency and clarity and the specific beauty of something formed slowly under pressure.

Meadow

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Open field, grassland
• Popularity: >1000

The 70s nature name that arrived with the back-to-the-land movement and the specific idealism of a decade that genuinely believed the countryside was where the truth was, Meadow belongs to a girl who was named for the most open and unhurried landscape available.

Harmony

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Agreement, musical harmony
• Popularity: >1000

A name that carries the decade’s specific musical and philosophical idealism simultaneously, Harmony belongs to a girl who was named at the intersection of the peace movement and the music that soundtracked it, a name of gentle, principled beauty.

Terra

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Earth, land
• Popularity: >1000

The Latin earth name that the 70s environmental movement claimed for its daughters, Terra carries the first Earth Day’s specific warmth of naming your child for the planet you were trying to protect, a name of grounded, quiet ecological commitment.

Willow

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Willow tree
• Popularity: #37

The tree name that the 70s loved for its weeping, graceful quality and that has returned to enormous popularity in the current era, Willow belongs to a girl who moves through the world with the specific flexibility of a tree that bends in every wind without breaking.

Fern

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: The fern plant
• Popularity: >1000

Charlotte’s Web gave this name its most beloved fictional association in 1952 and the 70s adopted it into the decade’s broad botanical naming movement, Fern carrying the ancient green world of the forest floor in a name of quiet, uncelebrated natural beauty.

Amber

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: Jewel, fossilized tree resin
• Popularity: #430

Named for the golden fossilized resin that preserves ancient life inside its translucency, Amber was one of the quintessential 70s names, belonging to the decade’s love of warm golden tones and the natural world’s most beautiful accidents.

Sunny

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Bright, cheerful, sunshine
• Popularity: >1000

A name that belongs to the 70s the way that macramé plant hangers and earth tones belong to the 70s, completely and without the need for any further explanation, Sunny carries the decade’s specific warmth of believing that optimism was not a personality type but simply the correct relationship to the world.

Sandy

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Defender of men, sandy shore
• Popularity: >1000

Sandy from Grease made this name the defining cultural object of the late 70s and gave it a mythology of transformation and parking lot romance that the decade embraced completely, a name that belongs to someone whose story begins one way and ends somewhere completely different.

Brandi

• Origin: Dutch/English
• Meaning: Brandy wine, sword
• Popularity: >1000

The Looking Glass made Brandy such a fine girl in 1972 and the decade adopted both spellings with the specific warmth of a generation that understood that a song could make a name permanent, Brandi carrying the sailor’s longing and the barmaid’s dignity in equal, golden measure.

Robin

• Origin: Old French
• Meaning: Bright fame, shining fame
• Popularity: >1000

A bird name and a diminutive simultaneously, Robin was given to girls throughout the 70s with the specific warmth of a name that belongs to someone who arrives with red at their throat and a song ready before the morning has properly begun.

Heather

• Origin: Old English/Scottish
• Meaning: The heather plant, open land
• Popularity: >1000

The Scottish moorland plant that covers the hillsides in purple each August was one of the most popular names of the 70s, Heather carrying the specific quality of a name that was everywhere in the decade and now carries the warmth of an era the way a pressed flower carries the warmth of a summer that is over.

Kerry

• Origin: Irish/Gaelic
• Meaning: From County Kerry, dark one
• Popularity: >1000

The Irish county name that the 70s gave to daughters with the specific warmth of a Celtic heritage worn casually, Kerry belongs to the decade’s love of Irish names that sounded warm and accessible and carried a landscape in their syllables.

Laurie

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Laurel, victory
• Popularity: >1000

The diminutive of Laura that the 70s elevated to complete independence, Laurie carries the laurel crown tradition in a form warm enough for a girl who wins things without making a ceremony of winning, the victory worn lightly.

Ellie

• Origin: Greek/Germanic
• Meaning: Bright, shining one
• Popularity: #13

A name the 70s loved for its soft brightness and that has returned to enormous current popularity, Ellie belongs to the tradition of diminutives that became fully independent names, carrying the light of their origins in a form of complete, accessible warmth.

Glamorous and Soulful Names

Diana

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Divine, heavenly, goddess
• Popularity: #273

Diana Ross gave this Roman goddess name its greatest 70s authority as the most glamorous woman in Motown and one of the most photographed women in the world, a name of divine radiance and specific 70s stage presence that has never stopped being exactly as magnificent as it always was.

Gloria

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Glory
• Popularity: >1000

Gloria Gaynor told the world she would survive in 1978 and Gloria Steinem told the world to pay attention to what women were actually saying, and this Latin glory name carries both the disco dancefloor and the feminist lecture hall in exactly the same warm, declaratory syllables.

Aretha

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Excellence, virtue
• Popularity: >1000

The Queen of Soul defined the 70s as much as any other single artist and her Greek virtue name carries the specific authority of someone for whom excellence was not an aspiration but simply what happened when she opened her mouth and the room became entirely still.

Minnie

• Origin: Germanic/Hebrew
• Meaning: Of the sea, beloved
• Popularity: >1000

Minnie Riperton hit a note in Lovin’ You that most singers cannot physically locate on a scale and did it so gently that the song felt like a whispered secret, her name carrying the specific 70s warmth of a diminutive that contains a remarkable interior amplitude.

Chaka

• Origin: Swahili/Zulu
• Meaning: Energy, warrior
• Popularity: >1000

Chaka Khan gave this name its musical mythology with a voice that could do things to a standard that Ella Fitzgerald would have admired, and as a girl’s name it carries the specific warmth of a 70s naming culture that was increasingly drawn to names from beyond the European tradition.

Roberta

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Bright fame, famous brilliance
• Popularity: >1000

Roberta Flack killed them softly with her song and gave this formal German name a specific 70s soul warmth that it had never quite had before and has never quite lost since, a name for a girl whose method of creating devastation is so gentle that the victim is grateful.

Gladys

• Origin: Welsh
• Meaning: Country, land, princess
• Popularity: >1000

Gladys Knight left a midnight train to Georgia with a dignity so complete that the song became the definitive statement of the decade’s understanding of love as a willingness to follow someone back to a smaller life and be happy there, a name of specific, earned wisdom.

Dionne

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Divine queen, daughter of Zeus
• Popularity: >1000

Dionne Warwick had a walk to San Jose that the whole decade seemed to be following and a voice that made psychic predictions seem entirely plausible, her name carrying the divine-queen tradition of Greek naming in a form of warm, particular 70s soul authority.

Patti

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Noble, patrician
• Popularity: >1000

Patti Smith published Horses in 1975 and changed what rock music was allowed to be, and her name carries the specific quality of a nickname elevated to complete independence through the force of its bearer’s refusal to be contained by any convention she had not personally agreed to.

Tina

• Origin: Latin/Greek
• Meaning: Follower of Christ, small
• Popularity: >1000

Tina Turner spent the first half of the 70s in a situation she eventually left and the second half becoming someone entirely different and considerably more powerful, and her name carries that specific quality of transformation as a statement of complete personal authority.

Donna

• Origin: Italian/Latin
• Meaning: Lady, woman
• Popularity: >1000

The Italian lady name that Donna Summer turned into a mirror ball mythology and that Donna Fargo turned into a country warmth, Donna carries the full range of what the 70s did with names of Italian origin, everything from the sacred to the dance floor.

Natalie

• Origin: Latin/French
• Meaning: Born on Christmas Day, birthday
• Popularity: #49

Natalie Cole inherited her father’s genius and made it entirely her own, and her name carries the birthday tradition of Latin naming in a form of warm, contemporary elegance that was beloved in the 70s and has remained beloved without interruption.

Sheena

• Origin: Irish/Hebrew
• Meaning: God is gracious
• Popularity: >1000

Sheena Easton made this Irish form of Jane a pop mythology in 1980 and the name carries the specific warmth of an era when a girl from a small town in Scotland could become the biggest voice in the world by simply being exactly herself.

Floral and Botanical Names

Daisy

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Day’s eye, the daisy flower
• Popularity: #133

The flower that opens with the sun and closes when it sets, Daisy was one of the great 70s floral names and carries the decade’s love of informal, cheerful botanical naming in a form of complete, unpretentious warmth that has returned to enormous current popularity.

Violet

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Purple flower
• Popularity: #36

The small purple flower of the woodland edge that was a Victorian name before the 70s loved it and that has returned to current popularity with all its layered botanical and historical warmth intact, Violet carrying the specific quality of a name that has been beautiful in every era it has appeared in.

Ivy

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: The ivy plant
• Popularity: #68

The climbing plant that covers old walls with a persistence that is simultaneously beautiful and structurally problematic, Ivy was a 70s botanical name of considerable quiet charm that has returned to enormous popularity and carries the decade’s specific warmth of choosing the plant that holds on regardless of what it is holding onto.

Lily

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: The lily flower, purity
• Popularity: #32

One of the most enduring floral names in the English language, Lily was loved in the 70s for the same reasons it has been loved in every decade, its clean white beauty, its purity association, and the way its two syllables feel complete without requiring anything before or after them.

Rose

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: The rose flower
• Popularity: #127

The queen of flowers was a beloved 70s name in both its standalone form and as a middle name complement, Rose carrying both the romantic tradition of Western poetry and the specifically warm domesticity of a decade that was simultaneously idealistic and rooted in the pleasures of the everyday.

Clover

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: The clover plant, lucky
• Popularity: >1000

The three-leafed meadow plant that the 70s loved for its association with luck and its specific quality of being something beautiful that most people walk over without noticing, Clover belongs to the decade’s botanical naming tradition and its broader love of names that find the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Briar

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Thorny shrub, wild rose
• Popularity: >1000

The thorny wild rose of the English hedgerow that is simultaneously beautiful and capable of drawing blood, Briar was a 70s name for the botanical naming movement and carries the decade’s understanding that beauty and self-protection are not opposing qualities but simply two aspects of the same growing thing.

Poppy

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: The poppy flower
• Popularity: >1000

The red meadow flower of remembrance and the opium tradition was a 70s name of warm, almost aggressively cheerful botanical naming, Poppy carrying the decade’s specific quality of choosing a flower name that was too cheerful to be sad even when its history suggested otherwise.

Zinnia

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Named for botanist Johann Zinn
• Popularity: >1000

The brilliantly colored annual that blooms through the hottest part of summer and was named for an 18th century German botanist who never got to see most of its colors, Zinnia is a 70s botanical name of complete, uncompromising chromatic enthusiasm.

Rue

• Origin: Old English/French
• Meaning: The rue herb, regret
• Popularity: >1000

The small bitter herb that carries both its practical herbal identity and the English verb for regret in three letters of considerable quiet beauty, Rue was a 70s name from the decade’s herbal naming tradition that carries more emotional complexity than most names twice its length.

Tansy

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Immortality, the tansy plant
• Popularity: >1000

The yellow button-flowered herb whose name means immortality and whose uses ranged from medicinal to culinary in the medieval tradition, Tansy is a 70s herbal name of warm, unconventional botanical beauty that belongs to the decade’s love of names that most people recognize but almost no one is currently using.

Larkspur

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: The larkspur flower
• Popularity: >1000

Named for the tall blue flower whose name combines the bird with the spur-shaped petal, Larkspur is a compound 70s botanical name of considerable garden beauty and complete phonetic distinctiveness, belonging to the decade’s most enthusiastic floral namers.

Wisteria

• Origin: New Latin
• Meaning: Named for anatomist Caspar Wistar
• Popularity: >1000

The cascading purple flowering vine whose beauty is so extreme that it has been painted, photographed, and named after daughters across multiple centuries, Wisteria is a 70s botanical name for the most aesthetically committed parent in any naming conversation.

Dahlia

• Origin: Swedish/Latin
• Meaning: Named for botanist Anders Dahl
• Popularity: >1000

The complex, layered flower named for a Swedish botanist who never saw many of its most extraordinary forms, Dahlia was a 70s botanical name of considerable garden sophistication and carries the decade’s love of flowers that required effort to grow as a metaphor for names that required effort to inhabit fully.

Short and Melodic Names

Cass

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Shining upon men, prophetess
• Popularity: >1000

Mama Cass Elliot had a voice that could fill a concert hall without a microphone and a warmth so complete that her name carries the specific quality of someone whose size of personality made every room she entered immediately more interesting for everyone already in it.

Rae

• Origin: Hebrew/Old English
• Meaning: Ewe, beam of light
• Popularity: >1000

A one-syllable name that the 70s loved for its warm, sunlit quality, Rae carries the Hebrew ewe tradition and the English light tradition simultaneously in a form of complete, unhurried simplicity that feels like the naming equivalent of the best sort of afternoon.

Jo

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: God will increase
• Popularity: >1000

The March sister who wanted to be a writer and cut her hair and refused to marry the boy next door until she was ready, Jo is a 70s name that belongs to the specific warmth of a decade that was beginning to understand that a girl with a short name and a clear sense of herself was not eccentric but simply ahead of schedule.

Bea

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Blessed, happy traveler
• Popularity: >1000

Bea Arthur made the 70s significantly funnier and more honest with every line she delivered, and her name carries the blessed warmth of someone whose joy in their work was evident in every syllable they spoke and who made other people feel that joy simply by being in the same room.

Nell

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Bright, shining one
• Popularity: >1000

A nickname for Eleanor that became fully independent in the 70s through its specific warmth of sounding like a name that belongs to someone unpretentious and entirely competent, Nell carrying the brightness of its meaning in a form that requires no ceremony to make its quality evident.

Meg

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Pearl
• Popularity: >1000

The pearl name in its most accessible and least formal English expression, Meg belongs to the 70s warmth of choosing names that sounded like they were already well-acquainted with you before you had said anything to each other.

Fay

• Origin: Old French/Celtic
• Meaning: Fairy, faith, loyalty
• Popularity: >1000

Part fairy magic and part medieval virtue and part pure 70s warmth, Fay is a one-syllable name that carries the decade’s love of small names with large, mythological suggestions built quietly into their few letters.

Lou

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Famous warrior, renowned fighter
• Popularity: >1000

Lou Reed and Lou Rawls gave this Germanic warrior name its complete 70s mythology in two entirely different musical directions, and as a girl’s name Lou carries the specific warmth of a name that has always belonged equally to everyone who wanted it and needed no permission to take it.

Kay

• Origin: Welsh/Latin
• Meaning: Rejoice, key
• Popularity: >1000

The 70s name of warm, single-syllable completeness that carries both the Welsh Arthurian tradition of Sir Kay and the Latin word for the thing that opens locked things, Kay belonging to a decade that understood that the simplest names often contain the most interesting histories.

Gwen

• Origin: Welsh
• Meaning: White, holy, blessed
• Popularity: >1000

The Welsh name of holy whiteness that the 70s loved for its specific combination of Celtic heritage and complete phonetic accessibility, Gwen carrying the blessed tradition of Welsh naming in a form so compressed and so warm that it belongs to the decade’s best short name tradition.

Nan

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Grace, full of grace
• Popularity: >1000

A grandmotherly name in one era and a 70s warmth in another, Nan carries the Hebrew grace tradition in a form of complete, unhurried simplicity that belongs to the decade’s love of names that sounded like they had been around long enough to know exactly what they were.

Kit

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Pure, follower of Christ
• Popularity: >1000

A 70s nickname for Katherine that achieved complete independence and carries the specific warmth of a name that sounds like it belongs to someone who keeps up with everything and needs no introductions in any room they walk into.

Mae

• Origin: Latin/English
• Meaning: Pearl, great one
• Popularity: >1000

Mae West gave this name its greatest pre-70s mythology and the decade inherited it with the specific warmth of a name that had always belonged to women who said exactly what they meant and were entirely untroubled by whether that was considered appropriate.

Jan

• Origin: Hebrew/Dutch
• Meaning: God is gracious
• Popularity: >1000

The middle Brady daughter gave this name its most specific cultural location and the 70s loved it for the same reason they loved the show, its warmth, its accessibility, and the specific quality of a name that sounds like someone you are already comfortable with before you have said anything at all.

Celestial and Cosmic Names

Aurora

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Dawn
• Popularity: #37

The Roman goddess of the morning who painted the sky before the sun arrived, Aurora was a 70s celestial name for the decade’s fascination with the cosmic and the natural simultaneously, belonging to a girl who arrives with her own light before the day has officially begun.

Stella

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Star
• Popularity: #41

The star name that carries the Latin astronomical tradition in a warm, Italian-accented form, Stella was a 70s name of celestial warmth that has returned to enormous current popularity and belongs to the specific quality of a name that sounds like it was always going to be exactly this beautiful.

Luna

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Moon
• Popularity: #10

The Roman moon goddess whose name has become one of the most beloved girl names of the current era, Luna was a 70s celestial name for the decade’s love of the moon as a cultural object that it shared with every songwriter, every artist, and everyone who ever stayed outside past midnight for no particular reason.

Celeste

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Heavenly, of the sky
• Popularity: #159

The name that carries the entire vault of heaven in three warm syllables, Celeste was a 70s name of celestial elegance that belongs to the decade’s love of names that reached upward without losing the warmth of the earth they were spoken on.

Nova

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: New, bright new star
• Popularity: #28

Named for the astronomical event where a star flares to extraordinary brightness, Nova was a 70s name of cosmic energy that belongs to the decade’s specific warmth of naming daughters for things that suddenly and spectacularly announced their own existence.

Starr

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Star
• Popularity: >1000

The star name in its most direct English form with the doubled R that the 70s added for emphasis, Starr carries the decade’s specific quality of reaching for the celestial and spelling it with a warmth that makes the astronomical feel personal rather than distant.

Soleil

• Origin: French
• Meaning: Sun
• Popularity: >1000

The French word for the sun used as a girl’s name of warm Gallic solar authority, Soleil belongs to the 70s naming tradition of choosing French words for natural phenomena and trusting that the beauty of the language was sufficient reason to give a name to a daughter.

Vega

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: Falling star, swooping eagle
• Popularity: >1000

The brightest star in the constellation Lyra and one of the three stars of the Summer Triangle, Vega was a 70s name from the decade’s astronomical naming movement and carries the Arabic astronomical tradition in a form of complete, star-sharp beauty.

Lyra

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Lyre constellation
• Popularity: >1000

Named for the constellation of Orpheus’s lyre, Lyra carries both the musical and astronomical traditions of Greek mythology in a name that the 70s loved for its specific combination of the cosmic and the melodic, the sky and the song belonging together.

Andromeda

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Ruler of men, advising men
• Popularity: >1000

The chained princess rescued by Perseus and the galaxy nearest to our own, Andromeda was a 70s name for the most astronomically committed parent in the decade, carrying both the mythological rescue narrative and the galactic scale of something so large that our entire solar system is a barely visible detail within it.

Cassidy

• Origin: Irish/Gaelic
• Meaning: Curly haired, descendant of Caiside
• Popularity: >1000

Crosby, Stills and Nash wrote a song for Cassidy that made this Irish name into a 70s folk mythology, and the Grateful Dead played a song called Cassidy for years, making it the most specifically music-associated name in the decade’s folk and rock naming tradition.

Solange

• Origin: French/Latin
• Meaning: Solemn, dignified
• Popularity: >1000

A French name of solemn dignity that the 70s adopted for its specific Gallic warmth and the particular quality of a name that sounds like something worth taking slowly, worth saying as though the syllables themselves deserve individual attention.

Etoile

• Origin: French
• Meaning: Star
• Popularity: >1000

The French word for star used as a girl’s name of complete celestial Gallic warmth, Etoile belongs to the 70s naming tradition of parents who had traveled to France and come home with the specific conviction that French words were simply better names than English ones.

Literary and Romantic Names

Cressida

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Gold, daughter of Chryses
• Popularity: >1000

Shakespeare’s Trojan heroine whose name carries both the gold of its Greek etymology and the specifically romantic tragedy of a love story set against a war neither of its central figures chose, Cressida was a 70s literary name for parents who wanted something from the classical tradition that was not yet overused.

Portia

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Pig, offering
• Popularity: >1000

Shakespeare’s most brilliantly legal heroine who cross-dressed as a lawyer and outwitted Shylock with a precision that the entire courtroom failed to anticipate, Portia carries the Venetian comedy tradition and a specific 70s literary naming warmth for parents who understood that the best Shakespeare heroines were the ones who solved their own problems.

Miranda

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Worthy of admiration, wonderful
• Popularity: #232

The Latin she who must be admired gave Shakespeare his most innocent heroine in The Tempest and gave the Miranda rights their name, and the 70s loved it for the specific combination of classical authority and warm phonetic beauty in a name that sounds like both an instruction and a name.

Viola

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Violet flower
• Popularity: >1000

Shakespeare’s most beautifully named heroine, Viola disguised herself as Cesario and loved the wrong person for three acts before everything resolved itself in the fourth, and the name carries that warm, confused, ultimately joyful quality of a love story that required a costume to reach its correct destination.

Desdemona

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Ill-fated, misery
• Popularity: >1000

Othello’s wife whose innocence was her tragedy carries a name that the 70s occasionally reached for with the specific bravery of parents who understood that the meaning of a name matters less than the strength of character it gives its bearer something to transcend.

Bianca

• Origin: Italian
• Meaning: White, pure
• Popularity: >1000

The Italian white name that Shakespeare used for Katherine’s sister in The Taming of the Shrew and that the 70s loved for its specific Italian warmth and the cool, clean quality of a name that means white without the clinical associations of its English equivalent.

Cordelia

• Origin: Celtic/Latin
• Meaning: Heart, daughter of the sea
• Popularity: >1000

King Lear’s most loyal daughter whose refusal to perform love on demand cost her everything and whose subsequent return to save her father was the most completely moral action in Shakespeare’s darkest play, Cordelia carries a name of Celtic sea-heart authority for parents who understood that loyalty is the most demanding form of love.

Rosalind

• Origin: Germanic/Latin
• Meaning: Beautiful rose, tender horse
• Popularity: >1000

Shakespeare’s most brilliantly witty heroine who dressed as Ganymede and taught her own beloved how to woo her while everyone else failed to notice the obvious, Rosalind carries the Forest of Arden warmth and the specific 70s literary naming tradition of parents who understood that the best heroines had better jokes than the heroes.

Phoebe

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Bright, radiant, shining
• Popularity: #262

The Titaness of the moon and the name of one of the most beloved characters in 90s television, Phoebe was a 70s name of Greek celestial warmth that belongs to the decade’s specific love of names that carried both a classical tradition and a completely accessible everyday warmth.

Juliet

• Origin: Latin/French
• Meaning: Youthful, downy
• Popularity: #166

The most romantic death in Western literature gave this name a mythology so complete that it has functioned as a synonym for passionate love in every language that has translated Shakespeare, Juliet carrying the Verona balcony and the unlucky stars in a name that the 70s loved for its specific combination of dramatic beauty and everyday warmth.

Isadora

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Gift of Isis
• Popularity: >1000

Isadora Duncan invented modern dance, danced barefoot on stages across Europe, wore flowing robes, and died in a freak automobile accident involving her own scarf, and her name carries the specific warmth of someone so completely committed to their own vision of beauty that the rest of the world simply watched and tried to describe what they were seeing.

Guinevere

• Origin: Celtic/Welsh
• Meaning: White shadow, fair one
• Popularity: >1000

The legendary queen of Camelot whose name the 70s reached for with the specific romantic bravery of parents who understood that the most beautiful names often carry the most complicated stories and that giving a daughter an extraordinary name was an act of confidence in her capacity to be extraordinary.

Vintage Revival Names

Loretta

• Origin: Latin/French
• Meaning: Laurel, victory
• Popularity: >1000

Loretta Lynn was Coal Miner’s Daughter and the most autobiographical songwriter of the decade and gave this Italian diminutive of Laura its greatest 70s mythology, her name carrying the specific warmth of a voice that told the truth about a life most songwriters would have been too embarrassed to admit they recognized.

Dolly

• Origin: Hebrew/English
• Meaning: Gift of God, beloved
• Popularity: >1000

Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love You as a statement of professional independence and it became the greatest love song of the decade, her name carrying the specific warmth of someone whose rhinestones and blonde wigs are a deliberate aesthetic statement rather than a failure of taste.

Emmylou

• Origin: Germanic/Hebrew
• Meaning: Home, whole and God is gracious
• Popularity: >1000

Emmy Lou Harris gave this compound name its greatest country-folk mythology with a voice so pure that producers simply pointed microphones at her and tried not to ruin what was happening, Emmylou carrying the specific warmth of a name that sounds like two songs that were always meant to be sung together.

Lorraine

• Origin: French
• Meaning: From Lorraine, famous warrior
• Popularity: >1000

The French regional name that the 70s inherited from the previous generation and that carries the specific warmth of a name from the era of Lorraine’s full popularity, a name that belongs to someone who irons everything and gives good advice and has a garden that looks better than everyone else’s.

Josephine

• Origin: French/Hebrew
• Meaning: God will increase
• Popularity: #110

Empress Josephine’s name that the 70s reached back to with the specific warmth of a generation that was beginning to understand that the great names of earlier centuries had simply been waiting for the right moment to return, Josephine carrying the imperial French glamour and the Hebrew divine promise in equal, warm measure.

Harriet

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Home ruler, ruler of the household
• Popularity: #282

The name of a woman who freed hundreds of enslaved people and never lost a passenger, Harriet carries the specific warmth of a name that the 70s understood as belonging to someone whose quiet, principled determination accomplished more than everyone else’s dramatic gestures combined.

Mabel

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Lovable, amiable, dear
• Popularity: >1000

A name that the 70s inherited from grandmothers and great-aunts and that carries the specific warmth of something so old it has become interesting again, Mabel belonging to the tradition of lovable names that contain their entire emotional program in their meaning and their sound simultaneously.

Hazel

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: The hazel tree, hazel color
• Popularity: #28

The hazel tree name that belonged to grandmothers in the 70s and to the most fashionable nurseries in the current era, Hazel carrying the warm, nutty brown of the late autumn hedgerow in a name of complete, unhurried botanical beauty.

Pearl

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Pearl gemstone
• Popularity: >1000

Pearl Bailey and Pearl Jam and a hundred grandmothers gave this gem name its warm American mythology across several decades, the 70s inheriting it as a name that belonged to the previous generation and then discovering that previous generation names were simply names waiting to be rediscovered.

Opal

• Origin: Sanskrit
• Meaning: Precious stone, jewel
• Popularity: >1000

Named for the gemstone of shifting color that contains every shade of the spectrum simultaneously, Opal was a 70s name from the decade’s revival of Victorian jewel naming and carries the specific warmth of something that looks different every time you look at it depending on the light.

Edna

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Pleasure, rejuvenation
• Popularity: >1000

Edna St. Vincent Millay was the most celebrated poet of the 1920s and her name carries the specific warmth of a vintage name that the 70s had not yet revived but that carries the particular pleasures of something that has been quietly waiting in a drawer for long enough to be genuinely interesting when it is finally brought back out.

Willa

• Origin: Germanic
• Meaning: Will, determination, resolute protector
• Popularity: >1000

Willa Cather wrote the Nebraska prairie into permanent literary existence and gave this feminine form of William a specific American literary warmth that the 70s loved for its combination of determination and quiet, completely undemonstrative artistic achievement.

Nell

• Origin: English
• Meaning: Bright, shining one
• Popularity: >1000

The 70s loved this nickname-that-escaped for its specific warmth of sounding like someone you would trust with your house key and your most embarrassing secret with equal confidence and who would keep both without being asked.

Flora

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Flower, goddess of flowers
• Popularity: >1000

The Roman goddess of spring flowering that the 70s reached for with the specific warmth of a generation that understood the natural world as a source of naming rather than simply a backdrop to human activity, Flora carrying the full annual promise of everything that blooms.

Rare 70s Gems

Tallulah

• Origin: Choctaw/Irish
• Meaning: Leaping water, abundant
• Popularity: >1000

Tallulah Bankhead gave this Choctaw water name its greatest Hollywood mythology decades before the 70s but the decade adopted it with the specific warmth of a generation that was learning to reach beyond the European naming tradition and discovering that the most extraordinary names had been waiting outside it all along.

Saffron

• Origin: Arabic
• Meaning: The saffron spice, yellow
• Popularity: >1000

The most expensive spice in the world harvested thread by thread from the crocus flower, Saffron was a 70s name for parents who wanted something botanical with the specific warmth of spice-route history and the golden color of the most luxurious possible afternoon light.

Callista

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Most beautiful
• Popularity: >1000

The Greek superlative for beauty used as a given name of complete quiet confidence, Callista makes a declaration the moment it is spoken and belongs to the 70s tradition of reaching for the classical tradition and finding names there that carried both their ancient authority and a completely contemporary warmth.

Zinnia

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Named for botanist Johann Zinn
• Popularity: >1000

The summer garden flower in its most brilliantly colored form, Zinnia was a 70s botanical name for parents who wanted something warm enough to sound friendly and unusual enough to sound like they had thought about it longer than anyone else in the room.

Marigold

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Mary’s gold, the marigold flower
• Popularity: >1000

Named for the golden flower of the Virgin Mary that was used in medieval medicine, cooking, and dyeing and that carries both the religious tradition and the golden warmth of the most cheerfully colored flower in the autumn garden, Marigold belongs to the 70s love of compound botanical names of considerable warm specificity.

Periwinkle

• Origin: Old English/Latin
• Meaning: The periwinkle flower, light blue
• Popularity: >1000

The small, pale blue flower of shaded woodland that also names the specific color between blue and purple that the 70s used on everything, Periwinkle is a name for the most botanically committed parent of the decade, someone who wanted a color and a flower and a piece of woodland shade all in the same word.

Clementine

• Origin: Latin/French
• Meaning: Mild, merciful
• Popularity: >1000

Oh my darling Clementine had been a song since the 1880s and the 70s inherited it with the specific warmth of a name that sounds like something sung rather than simply said, a name of mild mercy and the warm orange citrus winter fruit that shares its syllables.

Evangeline

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: Bearer of good news
• Popularity: >1000

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s great American epic heroine gave this Greek name its most literary American mythology and the 70s reached for it with the specific warmth of a generation discovering that American literature had produced names as grandly beautiful as anything from the European tradition.

Seraphina

• Origin: Hebrew
• Meaning: Fiery angel
• Popularity: >1000

Named for the highest order of angels whose defining characteristic is that they burn with divine fire, Seraphina was a 70s name for parents who wanted something celestial with the specific warmth of a name that sounds like it belongs to someone whose intensity is not a personality flaw but a theological category.

Anneliese

• Origin: Germanic/Hebrew
• Meaning: Grace, full of grace and God is my oath
• Popularity: >1000

The German compound of Anna and Liese that the 70s loved for its specific warmth of European naming, the two names together creating something warmer and more complete than either of them alone, belonging to the decade’s love of names that sound like they came from a country where they still named daughters for their grandmothers.

Marlowe

• Origin: Old English
• Meaning: Drained lake, remnants of a lake
• Popularity: >1000

The playwright who wrote Doctor Faustus and the detective Philip Marlowe gave this English place-name its dual literary mythology, and as a girl’s name the 70s occasionally reached for it with the specific warmth of parents who wanted something literary and slightly unconventional without requiring an explanation every time it was introduced.

Romilly

• Origin: French/Latin
• Meaning: Strength, from Rome
• Popularity: >1000

A French place-name surname carried by the great English legal reformer Samuel Romilly and occasionally used as a girl’s name of warm, distinctive authority, Romilly belongs to the 70s tradition of reaching into the surname tradition for names of unusual elegance.

Araminta

• Origin: Latin/Hebrew
• Meaning: Defender, lofty
• Popularity: >1000

The birth name of Harriet Tubman before she renamed herself, and an aristocratic English staple of the 18th century, Araminta carries both the historical courage of its most famous bearer and the drawing-room elegance of its original social world in a name of extraordinary rarity and considerable warm beauty.

Thessaly

• Origin: Greek
• Meaning: From Thessaly, region of witches
• Popularity: >1000

Named for the ancient Greek region associated with witchcraft and magic, Thessaly was a 70s name for the most mythologically adventurous parents of the decade, carrying the Greek landscape and its supernatural associations in a name of considerable phonetic grandeur.

Lavinia

• Origin: Latin
• Meaning: Woman of Rome, purity
• Popularity: >1000

The destined bride of Aeneas in Virgil’s great epic who gave the Roman founding mythology its first feminine name of considerable consequence, Lavinia was a 70s name for parents reaching back to the classical tradition for something warm and rare and entirely unoccupied by the current generation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why do 70s girl names have such a distinctive warm quality?

A: The 1970s naming culture in the United States and Britain was shaped by several converging forces. The folk music revival brought botanical, natural, and Celtic names into mainstream use. The back-to-the-land movement gave parents permission to name daughters for plants, landscapes, and natural phenomena. The feminist movement was beginning to influence naming away from purely decorative names and toward names with strength and meaning. The result was a decade of naming that was simultaneously warmer, more natural, more musical, and more philosophically considered than most eras before or since, producing names that carry those qualities permanently regardless of when they are used.

Q: Which 70s girl names are the most fashionable right now?

A: Names like Willow, Daisy, Hazel, Aurora, Luna, Lily, Stella, Nova, Violet, and Ivy are all 70s names that have returned to enormous current popularity. They share the qualities of botanical warmth, celestial beauty, and accessible elegance that the 70s loved and that contemporary parents are rediscovering with genuine enthusiasm. Names like Amber, Crystal, and Sandy are slightly further behind in the revival cycle but are beginning to attract the kind of thoughtful reassessment that typically precedes a genuine return to use.

Q: Are there 70s girl names that work as both first names and middle names?

A: The majority of 70s names work beautifully in both positions. Names like Rose, Fern, Mae, Rae, Kay, Fay, and Gwen are classic middle name choices that also function as complete first names. Names like Clementine, Evangeline, and Seraphina work best as first names given their length but can appear in the middle position after shorter first names of one or two syllables. The warmth and musicality of 70s names generally make them highly versatile in any naming position.

Q: What makes a name sound like it belongs on a vinyl record?

A: Names that sound like they belong on a vinyl record tend to have long vowels that carry the way a sustained note carries, soft consonants that do not interrupt the flow of the sound, a rhythm that resolves naturally when spoken aloud, and an association with the cultural landscape of the era when vinyl was the primary musical format. They carry a warmth that is pre-digital, a quality of something heard through speakers that distort slightly at high volume and are better for it, a warmth that is the sound of something slightly imperfect and entirely human.

Q: Should I worry that a 70s name will seem dated for a child born today?

A: The names that seemed most dated from the 70s have largely already completed their revival cycle. Names like Linda, Donna, and Tammy carry strong generational associations that make them feel specifically of their era. Names like Willow, Aurora, Hazel, and Violet have crossed out of their era and into the broader naming tradition. The most interesting 70s names for current use are the ones that were slightly unusual even in the 70s, the botanical rarities, the literary names, and the celestial choices that were loved by the most imaginative parents of the decade and that carry enough historical and cultural depth to transcend any single era.

Conclusion

The names in this collection carry something that the digital era of naming has not quite managed to reproduce, the warmth of an era when songs were physical objects you could hold in your hands, when names were chosen slowly and with the specific pleasure of saying them aloud to see how they felt in the mouth, when a girl could be named for a flower or a star or a folk song heroine and no one found any of those choices unusual. These are names that belong on a record sleeve, names that sound like they should be sung rather than simply spoken, names that carry the golden, slightly dusty warmth of an afternoon in the decade when the most beautiful music was made on the most beautiful equipment for the most beautiful reasons. Find the name that makes you want to put a record on and simply listen to how it sounds in the room. Which name is your favorite? I would love to hear in the comments below!