Heather
given name · Latin script
Meaning: English name meaning “heather” (the plant)
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Heather is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Canada it is the 75th most common given name.
- CACanada≈1 in 528(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 563
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 586
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #218 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 621 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 528 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,600,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Canada, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
English name meaning “heather” (the plant).
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Heather counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈1,600,000 est. | ≈1 in 879 | — | Heather | 58 |
| US United States | #93 | 473,464 | 1 in 703 | 473K | Heather | 621 |
| GB United Kingdom | #114 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 586 | 9 | Heather | 320 |
| MM Myanmar (Burma) | #219 | ≈97,000 est. | ≈1 in 582 | — | Heather | 13 |
| CA Canada | #75 | ≈71,000 est. | ≈1 in 528 | 2 | Heather | 309 |
| NZ New Zealand | #93 | ≈8,800 est. | ≈1 in 563 | 10 | Heather | 159 |
| IE Ireland | #100 | ≈8,100 est. | ≈1 in 643 | 13 | Heather | 103 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Heather is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Plant name that seems to have originated in the 19th century when botanical names became fashionable.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, for atte hethe; first attested John, Henry le Hether 1327 SRWo, 1332 SRSr; see HEATH
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
From the vocabulary word denoting the hardy, brightly coloured plant (Middle English hather; the spelling was altered in the 18th century as a result of folk etymological association with heath).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, topographic name, a variant of Heath with the addition of the habitational suffix -er. This surname is widespread in southern England, and also well established in Ireland.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, An evergreen plant, Calluna vulgaris, with spiky leaves and small purple, pink, or white flowers.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Heather Angelb. 1909GBBritish actress (1909–1986)
- Beverly D'Angelob. 1951USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1951)
- Heather Locklearb. 1961USAmerican actress (born 1961)
- Heather Langenkampb. 1964USAmerican actress
- Heather Grahamb. 1970USAmerican actress
- Dita Von Teeseb. 1972USnot in their usual nameAmerican Egyptian burlesque dancer and model (born 1972)
- Heather O'Rourkeb. 1975USAmerican actress (1975–1988)
- Heather Burnsb. 1975USAmerican actress
- Heather Matarazzob. 1982USAmerican actress
- Heather Morrisb. 1987USAmerican actress, dancer, singer, and model
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 75 sources across 40 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 473K | #94 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 325 | #94 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 177 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 13 | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2017 | 13 | #324 |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2008 | 10 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 9 | #351 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2007 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2007 | 4 | #351 |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 2 | #1,544 |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Heather mean, and where does it come from?
- English name meaning “heather” (the plant). Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Heather a male or female name?
- Heather is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Heather?
- In the etymology graph, Hether is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Heather have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.6 million people named Heather in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled heather.
- How common is the name Heather?
- In the United States, the national register counted 473,464 people named Heather in 2020, about 1 in 703 residents.
- How common is Heather compared with other names?
- In Canada, Heather is the 75th most common given name of 188,338 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Heather?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/heatherThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Heather” — the 75th most common given name in Canada. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.