Lori: Meaning of Baby Name Lori

About the Name Lori

Lori is an English short form drawn from the laurel tree tradition — the same root that gives Laura, Lauren, Laurence, and Laurel, all tracing to the Latin laurus, the laurel or bay tree that in classical antiquity symbolized honor, victory, and poetic achievement. Lori is specifically a diminutive or nickname form within this cluster, favoring the open, informal vowel ending over the more formal -a or -en shapes. The laurel connection gives it classical depth despite its twentieth-century American feel.

The name first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1955 and rose to its national peak of #8 in 1963, accumulating more than 314,000 recorded top-1000 births over its 46-year chart run. Lori last appeared in the SSA top-1000 in 2001, at rank #952, after a gradual decline through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s that mirrors the arc of many names that peaked in the early 1960s.

Lori reads today as a quintessentially 1960s American name — casual, breezy, and unmistakably mid-century in its preference for short informal vowel endings over longer formal forms. Its laurel tree lineage gives it a classical underpinning that its light sound does not advertise. Recorded variants include Laurie, Loria, Lorian, Loriana, Loriann, Lorianne, Loriel, Lorilee, Lorilynn, Lorinda, and Loris.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Lori

5,642

English baby names in our dictionary

2,251

English female names

103

4-letter L-names in our dictionary

530

L-female names total

1955–2001

years of US SSA records (30 total)

314,519

total US births named Lori (all years)

US Popularity History (1955–2001)

📉 Falling fast: Lori dropped 87 places in the US girls ranking over the last 1 years (#865 in 2000 → #952 in 2001).

Annual US births named Lori by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1963 with 23,903 girls named Lori (girl rank #8 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2001, ranked #952 for girls (233 US births). That's 944 places below its 1963 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.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Laurie	The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory. Old Name With Many Variants.	Female	English
Loria	Modern Variant Of Lora And Laurie Referring To The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory.	Male	English
Lorian	Modern Variant Of Lora And Laurie Referring To The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory.	Female	English
Loriana	Modern Variant Of Lora And Laurie Referring To The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory.	Female	English
Loriann	Modern Variant Of Lora And Laurie Referring To The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory.	Female	English
Lorianne	Modern Variant Of Lora And Laurie Referring To The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory.	Female	English
Loriel	Modern Variant Of Lora And Laurie Referring To The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory.	Female	English
Lorilee	Modern Variant Of Lora And Laurie Referring To The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory.	Female	English
Lorilynn	Modern Variant Of Lora And Laurie Referring To The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory.	Female	English
Lorinda	Modern Variant Of Lora And Laurie Referring To The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory.	Female	English
Loris	Modern Variant Of Lora And Laurie Referring To The Laurel Tree Or Sweet Bay Tree Symbolic Of Honor And Victory.	Female	English

Looking for names like Lori?

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Compare Lori to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Lori against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Lori vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Lori vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Lori vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Lori vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Lori vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Lori vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Lori vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Lori vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

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