Entry № 4274 · Latin origin

Hillary Hillary — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ HIL-ah-ree /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Latin
Meaning
"Cheerful (Hillary Clinton, first woman major-party US presidential nominee)"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Medieval (Latin)

A name that means "cheerful (hillary clinton, first woman major-party us presidential nominee)".

Hillary is from the Latin hilaris ("cheerful, joyful") — same root as "hilarious." Originally a male name (Saint Hilary of Poitiers, 4th c.); used for women from the 1960s. Yale Law-educated lawyer who graduated 1973.

Cheerful (Hillary Clinton, first woman major-party US presidential nominee) — a Latin name.

The name in its native script.

Hillary
Transliteration
Hillary
Pronunciation
/ ˈhɪl.ə.ri /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Hillary stands.

Hillary does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Hillarys before her.

Real people
Hillary Clinton
67th US Secretary of State.
born 1947
Hilary Mantel
British Booker novelist.
1952 – 2022
In fiction
Hillary
Living History.
2003

Names connected to Hillary.

The number behind Hillary.

4

The Builder

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Hillary reduce to 4, The Builder. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.