Boy · English literary coinage
Orville
Say it: OR-vil
Meaning
Apparently coined by Fanny Burney for Lord Orville in Evelina (1778).
Likelythe main view, with some doubt.
A literary name that found real use in 19th-century America.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1910s
In the United States
- 35,151 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1913, about 1 in 758 boys
- 12 babies in 2020
Through the ages
Used by
Famous bearers
- Orville Wright, aviation pioneer
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Well-known works of literature
- National census records of the 19th and 20th centuries
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.