Scarlet
Meaning
from the color name/dye-trade surname
The story
Scarlet is the color at full saturation worn as a name, and the couple's arithmetic is one-sided: Scarlett, the double-t spelling the 1939 heroine made famous, runs about 111,700 with its own story here, and Scarlet, the dictionary spelling, about 17,700, every one a girl. The record keeps the chronology honest: barely a flicker before the 1930s, then about 220 in the 1940s, the first full decade after the film, and a long middle of a few hundred a decade before the modern rise, 2,600 in the 2000s, cresting at 8,200 in the 2010s, with 4,000 so far this decade. The single t reads as the color first and the heroine second, which is precisely its offer: the same fire on the certificate, one letter less borrowed, and the record charting both spellings on their own lines.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Scarlet peaked in the 2010s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
2,248 people · the #4,729 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 90,909 · median age 25
Among people named Scarlet living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1990s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 177 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Scarlet
Most people given the name Scarlet 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 Scarlet deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Scarlet 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 Scarlet fits with your family’s names and surname.
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