Livia
- Pronunciation
- [Li-vi-a]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Life. Ancient Roman Name. Abbreviation Of Olivia.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Livia
Livia is an ancient Roman name, the feminine of the old family name Livius, traditionally connected to the Latin idea of "life" or to the color of olives and often read simply as "life." It was borne in antiquity by Livia Drusilla, the powerful wife of the emperor Augustus, lending it an air of imperial dignity. In modern usage it also functions as a short, elegant form of Olivia, giving it a foot in both the classical world and today's most fashionable naming currents.
That double identity — antique Roman gravitas paired with a fresh, Olivia-adjacent sound — explains much of its appeal. Livia first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2004, reached its peak in 2014 at #667, and has stayed in the rankings since, sitting at #836 in 2024 after a place at #826 the year before and #893 in 2022 — a steady, durable presence rather than a brief flash.
Pronounced Li-vi-a, the name flows across three light syllables and offers the sweet nicknames Liv and Livvy. Its recorded variant is Livy, a tidy short form that doubles as an affectionate pet name and happens to recall the great Roman historian of the same name. For parents who love Olivia's sound but want something less ubiquitous, Livia offers the same beauty with deeper classical roots and a more distinctive profile.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Livia
US Popularity History (2004–2025)
Annual US births named Livia by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2018 with 430 girls named Livia (girl rank #680 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #820 for girls (332 US births). That's 140 places below its 2018 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 Livia 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 Livia the strongest states are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts | #318 | 172 |
| 2 | Connecticut | #477 | 58 |
| 3 | Iowa | #494 | 20 |
| 4 | Minnesota | #503 | 110 |
| 5 | New York | #570 | 288 |
| 6 | New Jersey | #589 | 125 |
| 7 | Utah | #594 | 51 |
| 8 | Oregon | #599 | 31 |
| 9 | Colorado | #631 | 53 |
| 10 | Pennsylvania | #658 | 132 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | #1,065 | 81 |
| 2 | Indiana | #976 | 25 |
| 3 | Tennessee | #964 | 27 |
| 4 | Georgia | #909 | 46 |
| 5 | North Carolina | #902 | 31 |
| 6 | Ohio | #849 | 82 |
| 7 | Missouri | #835 | 27 |
| 8 | Arizona | #824 | 39 |
| 9 | South Carolina | #819 | 16 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | #801 | 15 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Livia in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Livia?
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 Livia to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Livia 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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