Christian Girl Names with Meanings

Mary is the single most influential name in Christian naming history, and it shows: this page carries her in a dozen forms drawn straight from the languages that inherited her — Maria in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, Marie in French, Mariam in the Levant and Kerala's Syrian Christian churches, and Miriam in her original Hebrew. Around her sit the other women of the New Testament — Elizabeth, Anna, Martha, Magdalena — and Old Testament figures revived heavily in the last twenty years, chief among them Ruth, Esther and Naomi.

A second, distinctly Catholic pattern names a daughter for a saint whose protection the family wants — Cecilia (patron of musicians), Agnes, Catherine, Teresa, Lucia (patron of sight, and of light itself) — while Protestant families historically preferred plain virtue names: Grace, Faith, Hope, Charity, all of which are back in fashion today alongside vintage revivals like Eleanor, Charlotte and Josephine. Latin American and Filipino Catholic naming adds its own flavour with Marian titles used as first names — Guadalupe, Dolores, Milagros, Rosario.

The list below spans English, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Scandinavian, Slavic, Greek, Latin American, Filipino and Indian Christian names, most common first. Use the country pages if you want one culture's names only.