Rhiannon
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Myth Name (Daughter Of Hefeydd)
- Origin
- Celtic
About the Name Rhiannon
Rhiannon is one of the great names of Celtic mythology, drawn directly from Welsh tradition where Rhiannon is a powerful and complex figure in the Mabinogion — the medieval collection of Welsh tales — a queen of otherworldly origin, wrongly accused, and ultimately vindicated, associated with horses and sovereignty. The name is thought to derive from the ancient Celtic *Rīgantonā, meaning "great queen" or "divine queen," built from the Proto-Celtic root for queen or ruler. It is one of a handful of genuinely ancient Celtic names whose mythology and beauty have kept them alive through two thousand years of language change.
Rhiannon first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000 — also its peak year at #453 — and remained on the chart through 2007, last appearing at #935 with 289 births, accumulating 3,621 total top-1000 births over its eight-year run. The mid-2000s figures of 378 births at #740 in 2006 and 363 births at #744 in 2005 show a fairly steady presence before the final exit. American familiarity with the name owes much to the enduring influence of the Fleetwood Mac song of the same name, which introduced the Welsh mythological name to a mass English-speaking audience.
Rhiannon's appeal is the rarity of a name with genuine ancient Celtic mythology behind it — not a Romanized borrowing or a modern invention, but a name that appears in medieval Welsh manuscripts and connects directly to pre-Christian British tradition. Recorded variants include Rhianna and Rianne, offering shorter, more accessible forms of the same mythological root for families drawn to the Welsh heritage but seeking a lighter sound.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Rhiannon
US Popularity History (2000–2007)
Annual US births named Rhiannon by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2000 with 612 girls named Rhiannon (girl rank #453 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2007, ranked #935 for girls (289 US births). That's 482 places below its 2000 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 Rhiannon 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 Rhiannon the strongest states are Colorado, Arizona, Missouri.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colorado | #680 | 33 |
| 2 | Arizona | #793 | 25 |
| 3 | Missouri | #815 | 35 |
| 4 | Washington | #849 | 23 |
| 5 | Wisconsin | #887 | 22 |
| 6 | Pennsylvania | #900 | 31 |
| 7 | Ohio | #928 | 45 |
| 8 | North Carolina | #1,073 | 25 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Carolina | #1,073 | 25 |
| 2 | Ohio | #928 | 45 |
| 3 | Pennsylvania | #900 | 31 |
| 4 | Wisconsin | #887 | 22 |
| 5 | Washington | #849 | 23 |
| 6 | Missouri | #815 | 35 |
| 7 | Arizona | #793 | 25 |
| 8 | Colorado | #680 | 33 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Rhiannon in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rhianna | Goddess. | Female | Welsh |
Looking for names like Rhiannon?
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 Rhiannon to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Rhiannon against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).