Ava (given name)


Ava is a feminine given name in English and in other languages. Its recent popularity may be linked to a number of celebrity babies of the 1990s, some of whom were ultimately named after American actress Ava Gardner.

Origin

The medieval name Ava is an abbreviation of a Germanic name containing the first element aw-, of uncertain meaning. Old High German feminine dithematic names with this element include Avagisa, Avuldis, Awanpurc, Auwanildis.
As evidence for the name is lacking between the later medieval and the modern period, the Oxford Dictionary of First Names supposes that it was coined anew as a modern innovation, presumably as a variant of Eva, or used as an anglicization of the Irish name Aoife.
Āvā is also a feminine given name in the Persian language, meaning "voice, melody, music, sound".
In the Russian language, Ava may be a diminutive form of either the female names Avelina, Avenira, Aventina, Avgusta/Avgustina, Aviafa, Aviya, Avreliya, Avreya, and Avrora, or the male names Avdey, Avel, Avenir, Aventin, Avgust, Avim, Avram, Avrelian, and Avrely.

Modern use

The name was popularized in the United States by socialite Ava Lowle Willing, who married John Jacob Astor IV, and their daughter, socialite and heiress Ava Alice Muriel Astor.

Ava Gardner signed a contract with MGM Studios in 1941 and gained Hollywood stardom with her performance in The Killers. She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses from the 1950s to the 1970s and is the ultimate reason for the given name's continued popularity.

Recent popularity

The name is popular in the United States, where it has ranked among the top 10 most popular names given to baby girls since 2005 and among the top 200 names given to girls since 2000.
The name has been rising in popularity in the United States since the mid-1990s, but had its most dramatic jump in popularity in 1998, when it was the 350th most popular name for baby girls, jumping 268 places up the chart from 618th place in 1997. Ava was among the five most popular names for Black newborn girls in the American state of Virginia in 2022 and again in 2023. It was also among the top five names given to girls born to Asian mothers in Virginia in 2023. One factor in its increase in popularity in English-speaking countries may have been the naming of the daughters of actress Heather Locklear and musician Richie Sambora, in 1997, and of actors Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe in 1999.
Phillippe said in a magazine interview that he and Witherspoon named their child after actress Ava Gardner.
It was the ninth most popular name for girls in Australia and eighth in New Zealand in 2013.
In 2022, it was the eighth most popular name given to girls in Canada.

Notable people

Fiction characters