Scarlett: Bold, Beautiful, and Backed by Real History

The moment I landed on Scarlett, I was standing in our kitchen at 11pm with a mug of chamomile tea, scrolling through names on my phone while my wife Maya slept. We’d been going in circles for weeks — Eloise felt precious, Clara felt borrowed from someone else’s grandmother, and every name I loved seemed to already belong to someone in our friend group. Then I stopped on Scarlett. I said it out loud, quietly, to the dark kitchen and the rain hitting the window. It landed differently than the others. It felt like something with weight to it.

We live in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, where everything is green and slightly damp for nine months of the year. The idea of a name meaning red — vivid, warm, the color of something burning — felt like it held its own against the Pacific Northwest grey. Maya laughed when I texted her from the other room. “You’d pick a name that fights the weather,” she said. But then she said it too. Scarlett. And we both knew we were thinking about it seriously.

What followed was two weeks of research. I needed to know where it came from, who had carried it, whether it was so popular it had lost its edges. Here’s everything I found.

What Scarlett Actually Means

Scarlett comes from the Old French escarlate, referring to a specific type of richly dyed cloth — deep red, the color of wealth and status. The root traces back through Medieval Latin scarlatum and possibly further to Persian saqirlāt, a word for a fine woolen textile. At its core, this name carries the color red in its bones: vivid, saturated, impossible to ignore.

But the word meant more than just a color. Scarlet cloth was expensive. It was what kings and cardinals wore. Wearing scarlet meant something. When the name Scarlett entered use as a given name, it carried all of that — not just redness, but boldness, a willingness to be seen. It is the opposite of a name that blends in.

The emotional register matters too. Red is passion, courage, vitality. It’s the color of first roses and warning lights — things that demand your attention. For a daughter’s name, Scarlett says: she will not be overlooked. I find that quietly thrilling.

Where the Name Comes From

Scarlett is an English surname-turned-given-name, a pattern that became common in the 19th and early 20th centuries as parents began pulling family surnames into the first-name slot. [Link: English surname-origin baby names] It was historically a trade name — people who dyed or sold scarlet cloth were called Scarlett or Scarletti across various European contexts. Families took the name, passed it down, and eventually it moved forward into given-name territory.

The turning point in American consciousness came in 1936, when Margaret Mitchell published Gone With the Wind and introduced Scarlett O’Hara — one of the most indelible characters in American fiction. Mitchell reportedly chose the name to reflect her protagonist’s fiery nature: willful, passionate, impossible to tame. Before that novel, Scarlett as a first name was rare. After it, the name had a story attached to it, a mythology, a face. It would take decades for that association to fully unlock the name’s popularity, but the foundation was laid there, in the red Georgia clay of Mitchell’s imagination.

How Popular Is Scarlett Right Now

Scarlett is currently ranked #27 for girls in the United States — which puts it firmly in the mainstream without being oversaturated. To understand how remarkable that is, you need to see the trajectory.

In the 1980s, roughly 1,208 babies were named Scarlett across the entire decade. In the 1990s, that crept up to 2,258 — the name was known but quiet, more literary reference than live option. Then the 2000s arrived and something shifted: 8,601 babies in that decade. The name was gaining momentum, pulled forward by celebrity culture and a growing appetite for bold, vintage-flavored names.

The 2010s were the explosion: 58,296 babies named Scarlett, a leap of nearly sevenfold from the decade prior. This is when Scarlett Johansson became one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, when Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds named their daughter Scarlett in 2014, when the name hit its cultural tipping point. By the time the 2020s arrived, 32,623 babies had already received the name with years still left in the decade. [Link: most popular girl names in the 2020s]

What this tells me: Scarlett arrived at popularity through genuine cultural weight, not trend-chasing. It has earned its place on the list. And at #27, it’s recognizable without being the name shared by four kids in every kindergarten class.

Famous Scarletts Worth Knowing

Scarlett Johansson is the most recognizable bearer of the name — Academy Award-nominated actress, one of the highest-grossing film stars of all time, and the face of Black Widow across the Marvel universe. Her career has made Scarlett feel both glamorous and formidably tough.

Scarlett O’Hara, the fictional heroine of Gone With the Wind, is arguably the name’s most influential carrier — a complex, survival-driven woman whose name became inseparable from her character’s fire and refusal to quit.

Scarlett Thomas, British novelist and author of The End of Mr. Y, gives the name a literary, intellectual edge — a reminder that Scarletts can live just as fully in the world of ideas as on red carpets.

Scarlett Moffatt, British television presenter and Gogglebox star, brought the name into UK pop-culture with warmth and humor, showing its range beyond the dramatic.

Scarlett Pomers, American actress and country singer known for Star Trek: Voyager, was carrying the name in mainstream television before it became a household choice, giving it early visibility.

Scarlett Byrne, British actress known for playing Pansy Parkinson in the Harry Potter films, adds another dimension — the name works even in roles that call for presence and cool authority.

Variants and Nicknames

Scarlett doesn’t have a sprawling international family the way some names do — its specificity is part of its character. But there are a few variants worth knowing:

• Scarlet (one T) — a simplified spelling, increasingly used, feels marginally softer on the page
• Scarlette — an embellished, French-influenced form that reads as more ornate
• Escarlata — the Spanish rendering, beautiful in its own right and worth considering for bilingual families
• Scarletti — the Italian surname form, rarely used as a first name but striking when it is

Nicknames are where things get playful. The most natural short form is Scar, which has a little edge to it — not for everyone, but some kids will own it completely. Lettie is the sweeter diminutive, old-fashioned in a way that feels right beside the boldness of the full name. Carlie or Carly can also emerge naturally from the back half of the name. And many Scarletts simply go by their full name, because at two syllables with strong consonants, it’s already short enough that nicknames can feel unnecessary.

The full name does all the work.

Why This Name Stayed With Us

Maya and I came back to Scarlett because it passed every test we had. It sounds like itself — you hear it once and you know how it’s spelled. It has history without being dusty. It carries meaning that feels aspirational without being aggressive. Red: vivid, warm, brave. We want our daughter to walk into rooms and hold them. We want her name to be something she grows into, not something she grows past.

There’s also something I keep coming back to: Scarlett O’Hara, for all her contradictions, survives. She digs her hands into the soil and decides she’ll never be beaten again. That’s not a character you forget. I don’t need my daughter to be fictional, obviously — but I want her name to have backbone. I want it to have been through something. Scarlett has.

We haven’t signed the birth certificate yet. But when I picture calling her name across a rainy Seattle park, or watching her write it for the first time in crooked crayon letters, Scarlett is the name I picture. It fits in the space where her life is supposed to go.