← Back to The High and Late Middle Ages
Girl · Latin, through French
Valerie
Say it: VAL-er-ee
Meaning
From the French form of Latin Valeria, the feminine of the Roman family name Valerius, from valere 'to be strong'.
Likelythe main view, with some doubt.
Taken from French into English in the late 19th century, popular in the US from the 1940s.
Its wave through time
Most used in the 1950s
In the United States
- 263,889 babies given this name since 1884
- At its height in 1959, about 1 in 277 girls
- 1,867 babies in 2020
Through the ages
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Valery, Valarie
| French | Valérie |
|---|---|
| Italian | Valeria |
| Spanish | Valeria |
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Roman inscriptions and tombstones
- Calendars of saints and name days
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
- 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.