Magnolia
The story
Magnolia is a tree named for a person, the French botanist Pierre Magnol, which means every Magnolia carries a hidden second name from seventeenth-century Montpellier. As an American baby name it is a genuine antique: over 1,100 babies a decade in the 1910s and 1920s, then a long fade to a floor of about 130 in the 1980s. What happened next is one of the sharpest revivals in our records: about 270 in the 1990s, 900 in the 2000s, 5,400 in the 2010s, and 11,800 so far this decade, more than double the full 2010s with years still to run. Whether the engine is the flower, the South, or the home-renovation empire that put the word on television weekly, a decade bucket cannot say. All girls, essentially: 23,300 to zero. Maggie and Nola wait inside it.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Magnolia peaked in the 2020s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
8,624 people · the #1,895 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 23,810 · median age 54
Among people named Magnolia living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1960s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 43 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Magnolia
Most people given the name Magnolia in the United States are children or teenagers today. The name belongs to this generation.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Magnolia deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Magnolia 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 Magnolia fits with your family’s names and surname.
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