Poppy: Meaning of Baby Name Poppy

About the Name Poppy

Poppy descends from the English flower name poppy, ultimately from the Old English popig, referring to the Papaver flowering plant family. The red poppy (Papaver rhoeas) has been continuously associated with World War I remembrance since the 1915 poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, and the red poppy is worn in many Commonwealth countries on Remembrance Day (November 11) to honor war dead.

Notable bearers include American basketball player Poppy Jones; the iconic Poppy (a fictional character from Trolls 2016 Pixar animated film); contemporary American singer Poppy (Moriah Rose Pereira, born 1995, the American singer); and the contemporary American comic-strip character Poppy.

Poppy's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2010 to the US top 300 girls' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by British-American naming and the broader American taste for distinctive floral/nature girls' names alongside Daisy, Lily, and Violet. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the in-built poppy-flower botanical register, the in-built distinctive Trolls and contemporary singer Poppy cultural anchors, and the popular two-syllable -y ending. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal warmth distinctive to floral names. The name reads as distinctly contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Pop and Pops each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Poppy and Poppi have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Pavot (French), Papavero (Italian), Amapola (Spanish), and the original Old English popig.

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

Quick Facts About Poppy

5,642

English baby names in our dictionary

2,251

English female names

86

5-letter P-names in our dictionary

167

P-female names total

2016–2025

years of US SSA records (10 total)

7,448

total US births named Poppy (all years)

US Popularity History (2016–2025)

🔥 Rising fast: Poppy climbed 165 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#457 in 2020 → #292 in 2025).

Annual US births named Poppy by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2023 with 1,076 girls named Poppy (girl rank #289 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #292 for girls (1,054 US births). That's 3 places below its 2023 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 Poppy 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 Poppy the strongest states are Maine, District of Columbia, Utah.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Maine	#146	42
2	District of Columbia	#209	18
3	Utah	#217	206
4	New Hampshire	#226	29
5	Montana	#232	15
6	Connecticut	#297	77
7	Idaho	#298	59
8	Colorado	#303	199
9	Oregon	#317	127
10	Washington	#320	240

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Florida	#635	243
2	Texas	#631	499
3	Georgia	#614	143
4	New Jersey	#577	77
5	Arizona	#577	121
6	Mississippi	#573	28
7	Maryland	#560	86
8	Virginia	#559	142
9	Oklahoma	#559	80
10	Pennsylvania	#556	190

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

Looking for names like Poppy?

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.

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Compare Poppy to Other Popular Names

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

Poppy vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Poppy vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Poppy vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Poppy vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Poppy vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Poppy vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Poppy vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Poppy vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

Compare to a different name →