Opal: Meaning of Baby Name Opal

About the Name Opal

Opal is a gemstone name derived from the Sanskrit upala, meaning "jewel" or "precious stone" — a root that passed through Greek opállios and Latin opalus into English as the word for the iridescent silica gemstone prized for its shifting play of color. Its Indian origin connects it to the Sanskrit padma tradition, though in English the primary naming tradition is the gemstone itself: Opal as a name belongs to the late-Victorian fashion for jewel names alongside Pearl, Ruby, and Beryl. The name carries connotations of luminosity, rarity, and beauty that shift with the light.

Opal first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1904 and peaked in 1911 at rank #81, its high point during the Edwardian-era vogue for gemstone names. After disappearing from the charts for most of the twentieth century, it has made a striking modern comeback: currently sitting at rank #450 in 2024 with 694 births — its strongest recent performance in decades — accumulating more than 29,000 top-1000 births across its full tracked span. The revival places Opal among the most successfully rehabilitated vintage jewel names of the current generation.

Opal's two-syllable structure, distinctive sound, and shimmering meaning make it a name that rewards close attention — appropriate for a gemstone that changes appearance depending on the angle of light. Its sole recorded variant is Opaline, a longer, more elaborate form that has remained rare but underscores the name's connection to the stone and its distinctive optical quality.

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

Quick Facts About Opal

286

Indian baby names in our dictionary

216

Indian female names

58

4-letter O-names in our dictionary

159

O-female names total

1904–2025

years of US SSA records (25 total)

30,048

total US births named Opal (all years)

US Popularity History (1904–2025)

🔥 Rising fast: Opal climbed 226 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#649 in 2020 → #423 in 2025).

Annual US births named Opal by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1918 with 2,847 girls named Opal (girl rank #94 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #423 for girls (740 US births). That's 329 places below its 1918 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.

Where in the US Is Opal 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 Opal the strongest states are Montana, Oregon, Idaho.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Montana	#133	35
2	Oregon	#167	206
3	Idaho	#217	73
4	Arkansas	#259	80
5	Utah	#370	121
6	Washington	#371	191
7	Tennessee	#401	126
8	Alabama	#430	52
9	Iowa	#436	71
10	Minnesota	#438	123

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Florida	#818	123
2	Texas	#802	233
3	California	#763	303
4	Georgia	#743	92
5	Illinois	#723	43
6	North Carolina	#698	128
7	Louisiana	#674	22
8	South Carolina	#668	50
9	Pennsylvania	#666	81
10	Virginia	#646	91

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Opal in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Looking for names like Opal?

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.

See all names like Opal →

Compare Opal to Other Popular Names

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

Opal vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Opal vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Opal vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Opal vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Opal vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Opal vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Opal vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Opal vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

Compare to a different name →