Ivy: the evergreen name that climbed back from Victorian England

Where the name Ivy comes from

Ivy comes straight from the English word for the climbing plant, Hedera helix. The word itself is very old: Old English had ifig, and the plant was part of English life long before anyone thought of it as a name. It belongs to the wider family of botanical names that became popular in the second half of the nineteenth century, when Victorian parents fell in love with flowers, gemstones and plants as names for their daughters.

The plant carried a lot of meaning for them. Because ivy clings and never lets go, it stood for faithfulness and lasting affection, and it turned up on wedding stationery, mourning jewellery and Christmas decorations. Its place in the season is still familiar from the old carol The Holly and the Ivy, sung in British churches and schools every December – so many families with an Ivy find that her name comes up naturally in winter.

As a given name Ivy was widely used in England in the late Victorian and Edwardian years, then gradually fell out of fashion in the middle of the twentieth century, when it began to sound like a grandmother's name. That is precisely what brought it back. From the 2010s onwards, parents looking for something short, old-fashioned and nature-linked rediscovered it, and Ivy climbed quickly up the official lists for England and Wales, reaching the upper part of the top ten in recent years. It is now one of the clearest examples of a great-grandmother name that feels completely modern again.

Ivy has no fixed name day in the calendar we use, so there is no particular date to celebrate – but a winter birthday, with ivy on the mantelpiece, has an obvious charm.

Pet names and ways to say Ivy

• Ivy — The full name is already so short that most families simply use it as it is, at school, at home and on the cover of a book.
• Ives — A playful, slightly cheeky form that siblings and dads tend to invent; it works well when calling across a garden or a playground.
• Vee — Taken from the second syllable, it is the kind of nickname close friends use, and it pops up as a child gets older.
• Ivybug — A tender baby and toddler name, usually reserved for bedtime and cuddles rather than the school gate.
• Ivy Leaf — A nature-flavoured nickname that plays on the plant itself; grandparents in particular like it, and it suits a story set outdoors.
• Miss Ivy — Used half-jokingly when she is being very grown-up, or very bossy – and a nice form for a narrator to slip in at an exciting moment.