Olivia - Origin and Meaning of the name

The girl name Olivia [ 4 syll. o-li-via, ol-iv-ia ] is pronounced as owLIHViyah ^KEY. Olivia is an English, German, and Italian name of Latin origin. Derived from the word 'olivarius' which has the meaning olive tree. The form Olivia was first used by Shakespeare as the name of the countess in his comedy Twelfth Night (1601). Other than basing the name on the Latin 'olivarius', he could also have directly coined the name as a feminine form of Oliver, or else from the medieval name Oliva, which was borne by Saint Oliva (-138), who was martyred under Hadrian.

Alivia (English), Oliva (Italian), Olive (English and French), and Olivet (English) are variants of Olivia. Livia (pet form in English) is another variant of the name. See also the related form, Oliver (English and German).

Olivia is very popular as a baby girl name, and it is also regarded as fairly trendy. The name's popularity has been rising since the 1970s. At the recent peak of its usage in 2003, 0.806% of baby girls were named Olivia. It had a ranking of #5 then. In 2007, its usage was 0.783% and its ranking #7, and it was the most popular out of all girl names in its family. In 2007, Olivia was 10 times more widely used than the next most popular name, Alivia (English).

A baby name that sounds like Olivia is the name Oliva (Italian).

^KEY: Pronunciation for Olivia: OW as in "oat (OW.T)" ; L as in "lee (L.IY)" ; IH as in "it (IH.T)" ; V as in "vee (V.IY)" ; IY as in "eat (IY.T)" ; AH as in "hut (HH.AH.T)"

A famous person named Olivia is Olivia De Havilland, Actress, born 1 July 1916, Tokyo, Japan.

Popularity Trend
for Olivia
from 1900 to 2007

Variant Popularity Chart
for Olivia
in 2007