Laura
Meaning
laurel
The story
Laura comes from the Latin laurus, the laurel tree. In ancient Greece and Rome, laurel wreaths crowned poets, athletes, and victors, so the plant gathered associations with honor and achievement. The name itself appears in medieval Europe and became inseparable from poetry through Petrarch's fourteenth-century verses to a beloved Laura. English speakers have used it since the thirteenth century, and Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, and many other languages share the same spelling. The American curve stays low and steady through the early twentieth century, begins rising in the 1960s, and holds its highest level across the 1980s and 1990s before easing. That broad international life keeps Laura from belonging only to its American peak. It is botanical without sounding newly invented and literary without requiring anyone to know the poem.
Laura around the world
One shared root links 8 names across 3 languages.
Shared root: from Latin laurus "laurel", the victor's crown; Laura is its medieval feminine
The constellation
More branches
Laura in song
Laura
Woody Herman and His Orchestra (1945)
David Raksin's haunted theme from the 1944 film, given words by Johnny Mercer, and it went on to become one of the most recorded songs in the jazz repertoire.
Lady Laura
Roberto Carlos (1978)
Roberto Carlos wrote it for his mother, and grown men in Brazil still cannot get through it dry-eyed.
Laura no está
Nek (1997)
An Italian song whose Spanish version conquered Spain and Latin America, sung by anyone who ever waited for someone who was not there.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Laura peaked in the 1980s and the 1990s in nearly equal measure.
Popularity in Brazil
484,191 people · the #46 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 419 · median age 8
Among people named Laura living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 117,317 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Laura
People given the name Laura in the United States span the generations: the middle half were born anywhere from 1960 to 1989. Age is the one thing the name won't tell you.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Laura deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Laura truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Laura fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Does Laura fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Laura to your family’s tree →