Lauren
- Pronunciation
- [Lau-ren]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Laurel
- Origin
- French
About the Name Lauren
Lauren descends through medieval French as the feminine form of Laurent (the French form of Laurence, ultimately Latin Laurentius meaning "of laurel" — referring to the laurel wreath as classical Roman symbol of victory and honor; see separate entry on Lorenzo for the broader etymology).
The name has been used continuously in French and Anglo-French naming traditions for centuries, but its modern English-language emergence as a major American girls' name is essentially a 20th-century phenomenon. The single most influential modern bearer is American actress Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske, 1924–2014, the iconic mid-century American actress whose role in Howard Hawks's 1944 To Have and Have Not opposite Humphrey Bogart and the famous "You know how to whistle, don't you?" line made her a permanent figure of American film history).
Lauren held a US top-25 girls' rank from 1981 through 2003 — over two decades of top-tier American popularity. The name has receded slightly since but remains in steady use. Notable contemporary bearers include American fashion designer Ralph Lauren (Ralph Lifshitz, 1939, who chose Lauren as his fashion-brand surname for the Polo Ralph Lauren label), American model and actress Lauren Conrad, and contemporary actress Lauren Graham (Lorelai Gilmore in Gilmore Girls). The name's appeal is its compact French-American elegance — two short syllables, soft consonants, instantly readable, and tonal versatility across casual and formal registers. Common nicknames Lauri, Laurie, and the rare Renny each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Lauryn and Laurent have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Laurence (French unisex), Laurel (American), Loretta (Italian), and the related Laurence family across European languages.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Lauren
US Popularity History (1978–2025)
Annual US births named Lauren by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1989 with 21,065 girls named Lauren (girl rank #9 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #401 for girls (777 US births). That's 392 places below its 1989 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Lauren Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Lauren the strongest states are North Dakota, Alaska, Mississippi.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota | #117 | 92 |
| 2 | Alaska | #131 | 26 |
| 3 | Mississippi | #148 | 186 |
| 4 | Nebraska | #149 | 142 |
| 5 | South Dakota | #150 | 56 |
| 6 | Iowa | #165 | 218 |
| 7 | Minnesota | #169 | 386 |
| 8 | Florida | #171 | 1,025 |
| 9 | Michigan | #177 | 538 |
| 10 | Maine | #181 | 48 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oklahoma | #466 | 94 |
| 2 | Utah | #407 | 110 |
| 3 | Arizona | #406 | 168 |
| 4 | Colorado | #372 | 158 |
| 5 | Nevada | #363 | 60 |
| 6 | Illinois | #362 | 357 |
| 7 | New Jersey | #355 | 239 |
| 8 | Oregon | #351 | 117 |
| 9 | Kentucky | #344 | 140 |
| 10 | Pennsylvania | #339 | 335 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Lauren in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Famous People Named Lauren
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Lauren.
- Lauren Graham — TV Actress (1967)
Looking for names like Lauren?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Lauren to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Lauren against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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