Olivia

What does Olivia mean?

Olivia means “olive”. It is the Latin word oliva, which meant both the olive fruit and the olive branch, used as a girl’s name.53

Wiktionary calls Olivia a Latin name that began among early saints.3 Wikipedia adds that Olive was in common use as the everyday English form.5

Is Olivia the feminine of Oliver?

Not by history. Behind the Name says Shakespeare’s Olivia may have been based on Oliva or Oliver, or taken straight from the Latin word.2 Wiktionary notes that by folk etymology, meaning a guess made from the sound, Olivia is sometimes treated as the feminine of Olivio.3

Did Shakespeare invent the name Olivia?

Wikipedia says the name was not invented by Shakespeare, and that both Oliva and Olivia were in use in English-speaking countries as early as the 13th century.5 Behind the Name agrees the name was rare in his time and says it may have been based on Oliva or Oliver, or taken from the Latin.2

What did the play do for it?

Olivia is the countess whom Duke Orsino loves in Twelfth Night, and she falls in love with his messenger Cesario, who is Viola in disguise.62 Wikipedia says the play was probably written around 1601 to 1602, and a law student, John Manningham, wrote down a performance at the Middle Temple in London on 2 February 1602.6

The name was slow to catch on. Behind the Name says it has been used in the English-speaking world since the 18th century, but did not become popular until the second half of the 20th.2 Wikipedia concludes that the name was popularized by the character.5

How did an olive become a girl’s name?

1. ἐλαίᾱAncient Greek elaíā, “olive”. Wiktionary says Latin olīva comes from Etruscan, from Proto-Hellenic *elaíwā, or from the same Mediterranean source as both.4
2. olīvaLatin: the olive, and the olive branch.34
3. OlivaA saints’ name in Latin.3
4. Oliva, OliviaBoth forms were in use in English-speaking countries by the 13th century.5
5. OliviaShakespeare’s spelling for the countess in Twelfth Night, 1602.2

How popular was Olivia in the United States?

For 7 years, from 2019 to 2025, Olivia has been the most common name given to American baby girls.1 In 2014, the year of its highest rate, 19,840 girls got it.1

Olivia, babies per million born

EarlierLater

Behind the Name says Olivia reached the top rank in England and Wales by 2008 and in the United States by 2019.2

How is Olivia said in other languages, and what are its short forms?

• OliviaLatin
• OlíviaPortuguese
• OlíviaHungarian
• OliwiaPolish
• OlivieCzech
• ОливияRussian
• OlibhiaIrish
• ÓlivíaIcelandic
• ΟλύβιαGreek
• OlivijaCroatian

Short forms

Liv, Livia, Livvy, Livy, Ollie in English; Behind the Name also lists Vivi in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish and Viivi in Finnish.2

Spelling

Alivia and Olyvia are listed English variants; Wikipedia lists dozens more, from Olevia to Alyvia.25

Everyday form

Olive, which Wikipedia calls the vernacular form in common use.5

Who has carried the name?

448 to 463

The first person in Wikipedia’s list of people named Olivia is Olivia of Palermo, a Christian martyr who lived those years.5

Olivia de Havilland

British actress, 1916 to 2020, who appeared in 49 feature films.8

Olivia Newton-John

British and Australian singer and actress, 1948 to 2022.9

Olivia Colman

English actress, born 1974.10

Olivia Rodrigo

American singer-songwriter and actress, born 2003.11

Which English words come from the same olive?

olive

Wiktionary traces it from Middle English olyve and Old French to Latin olīva, the same word the name comes from.4

oil

Wiktionary calls oil a doublet of olive: a pair of words that reach English by different routes from one origin. The oil was first the olive’s.4

Three questions from this page

Where every claim comes from

Every claim on this page was checked on 6 November 2026 against the pages below. The popularity chart is computed from the government file, not typed in.

1. Social Security Administration, national baby names file, 1880 to 2025: names given to at least five babies of one sex in a year. ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html. Read from a Wayback copy of the file dated 2 November 2026. Rates per million babies of that sex are computed from it.
2. Behind the Name, “Olivia”: meaning and history, variants, diminutives, other languages, popularity notes. behindthename.com/name/olivia. Opened 6 November 2026.
3. Wiktionary, “Olivia”: etymology, pronunciation, usage note. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Olivia. Opened 6 November 2026.
4. Wiktionary, “olive”: etymology of the Latin word and its doublets. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/olive. Opened 6 November 2026.
5. Wikipedia, “Olivia (given name)”: origin, early use, variants, list of people. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_(given_name). Opened 6 November 2026.
6. Wikipedia, “Twelfth Night”: date of writing, the 1602 performance, plot. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night. Opened 6 November 2026.
7. Shakespeare, Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London 1623, page 255. Folger Shakespeare Library Digital Image Collection, via Wikimedia Commons (“Twelfth Night F1.jpg”). commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Twelfth_Night_F1.jpg. Opened 6 November 2026.
8. Wikipedia, “Olivia de Havilland”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_de_Havilland. Opened 6 November 2026.
9. Wikipedia, “Olivia Newton-John”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Newton-John. Opened 6 November 2026.
10. Wikipedia, “Olivia Colman”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Colman. Opened 6 November 2026.
11. Wikipedia, “Olivia Rodrigo”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Rodrigo. Opened 6 November 2026.
12. Brysbaert, M., et al. “Word prevalence norms for 62,000 English lemmas”. Behavior Research Methods 51 (2019): 467–479. doi.org/10.3758/s13428-018-1077-9

Image credits and data

Page image: Twelfth Night, First Folio 1623, Folger Shakespeare Library, public domain, original file from Wikimedia Commons, resized.

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