Bonnie: Meaning of Baby Name Bonnie

About the Name Bonnie

Bonnie descends from the Scottish-English term of endearment "bonnie" — ultimately from the Old French bonne meaning "good" — used continuously in Scotland to mean "pretty" or "lovely" (e.g., in the iconic Scottish phrase "bonnie lass"). The name has been used in English-speaking countries since the 19th century, transitioning from term of endearment to standalone first name.

The name's overwhelming modern cultural anchor is the iconic American outlaw Bonnie Parker (1910–1934, of the iconic Bonnie and Clyde criminal duo who terrorized the Central United States during the Great Depression — anchored in 20th-century American memory through the 1967 Arthur Penn film Bonnie and Clyde) and the iconic Scottish folk song My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.

Notable other bearers include American singer Bonnie Raitt (born 1949, the iconic American singer-songwriter whose career through the late 1970s through the 2020s made her one of the foundational figures of American blues-rock); American actress Bonnie Hunt (born 1961); and the iconic American writer Bonnie Tyler (Welsh singer of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" 1983). Bonnie held a US top-100 girls' rank from 1928 through 1965 — about four decades of consistent American popularity. After a long quiet period, the name has been climbing back through the 2010s and 2020s as part of the broader vintage-revival wave alongside Hattie, Sadie, and Maisie. Bonnie climbed back into the US top 300 girls' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal is its compact warm classical-Scottish register — two short syllables, soft consonants, instantly readable, and the in-built pretty/lovely etymological register. The strong Bonnie Parker American outlaw cultural anchor and Bonnie Raitt American music anchor maintain the name's relevance. The name reads as both classical-vintage and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since Bonnie is itself a nickname-shape — Bon (the dominant short form, casual and warm) and the rare Nie each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Bonnie, Bonny, and Bonne have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Bonne (French original).

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

Quick Facts About Bonnie

1,414

French baby names in our dictionary

843

French female names

264

6-letter B-names in our dictionary

402

B-female names total

1927–2025

years of US SSA records (55 total)

257,255

total US births named Bonnie (all years)

US Popularity History (1927–2025)

🔥 Rising fast: Bonnie climbed 209 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#605 in 2020 → #396 in 2025).

Annual US births named Bonnie by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1947 with 10,215 girls named Bonnie (girl rank #35 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #396 for girls (785 US births). That's 361 places below its 1947 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 Bonnie 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 Bonnie the strongest states are Idaho, Nebraska, Oklahoma.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Idaho	#266	47
2	Nebraska	#304	23
3	Oklahoma	#337	103
4	Utah	#344	111
5	Kansas	#348	41
6	Oregon	#376	70
7	Mississippi	#379	68
8	Arkansas	#389	74
9	Tennessee	#393	192
10	Nevada	#399	45

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Pennsylvania	#895	40
2	New Jersey	#892	38
3	New York	#891	107
4	Florida	#778	105
5	Virginia	#741	83
6	Illinois	#729	100
7	Maryland	#720	37
8	Ohio	#662	125
9	Wisconsin	#629	46
10	Michigan	#628	110

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

Looking for names like Bonnie?

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 Bonnie to Other Popular Names

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

Bonnie vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Bonnie vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Bonnie vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Bonnie vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Bonnie vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Bonnie vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Bonnie vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Bonnie vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

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