Iris
- Pronunciation
- [I-ris]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Rainbow
- Origin
- Greek
About the Name Iris
Iris descends from the Greek Iris, the name of the Greek goddess of the rainbow — depicted in Greek mythology as the messenger of the gods (especially Zeus and Hera), who traveled along rainbow-paths between Olympus and earth. The Greek word iris means "rainbow," and the iris of the human eye (the colored ring around the pupil) takes its name from the same Greek word, as does the iris flower (a genus of nearly 300 species, valued in classical and modern gardens for their distinctive multicolored petals).
The name has been continuously used in Greek and Greek-influenced naming traditions for over 2,500 years. Notable bearers include British novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch (1919–1999, author of 26 novels including The Sea, The Sea which won the 1978 Booker Prize), Australian opera singer Iris Manton, and 19th-century American astronomer Iris Vivian Hubbard.
The contemporary American Iris surge is part of the broader vintage-revival wave alongside Hazel and Ivy. The name climbed from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the US top 100 girls' rank by 2018 and the top 75 by 2022. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the in-built rainbow-and-flower imagery, the classical Greek mythological depth, and the compact two-syllable structure with the distinctive opening I-vowel. The name reads as both elegant and approachable — a quality shared with similar nature-and-mythology names. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Iri and the rare Ris each occasionally appear; the longer formal forms Irisa and the rare Irisette are not common. International forms include Iris (Italian/Spanish/German, identical), Iride (Italian, the alternate goddess form), and the original Greek Iris.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Iris
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Iris by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 3,729 girls named Iris (girl rank #61 that year).
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 Iris 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 Iris the strongest states are Vermont, Alaska, Maine.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vermont | #35 | 95 |
| 2 | Alaska | #68 | 99 |
| 3 | Maine | #72 | 130 |
| 4 | Oregon | #73 | 375 |
| 5 | Washington | #78 | 701 |
| 6 | New Mexico | #84 | 171 |
| 7 | Iowa | #84 | 316 |
| 8 | Indiana | #87 | 661 |
| 9 | Rhode Island | #91 | 53 |
| 10 | Montana | #94 | 93 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #296 | 285 |
| 2 | Mississippi | #235 | 115 |
| 3 | Connecticut | #203 | 151 |
| 4 | South Carolina | #202 | 229 |
| 5 | Alabama | #199 | 256 |
| 6 | Florida | #193 | 895 |
| 7 | Georgia | #190 | 562 |
| 8 | Louisiana | #189 | 247 |
| 9 | Maryland | #169 | 303 |
| 10 | District of Columbia | #163 | 49 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Iris in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Iris?
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 Iris to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Iris against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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