Entry № 6031 · Germanic origin

Lorelei Lorelei — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ LOR-eh-lie /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Germanic
Meaning
"Lurking cliff; the Rhine siren"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Medieval (German)

A name that means "lurking cliff; the rhine siren".

Lorelei is the name of the famous rock cliff on the river Rhine in Germany — and of the legendary siren who supposedly sat atop the cliff, combing her hair, and lured sailors to their deaths on the rocks below. The name comes from lureln (to murmur) and ley (rock).

Today Lorelei sits in the U.S. top 500 and is rising.

Lurking cliff; the Rhine siren — a Germanic name.

The name in its native script.

Lorelei
Transliteration
Lorelei
Pronunciation
/ ˈlɔːr.ə.laɪ /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Lorelei stands.

Lorelei 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.

Loreleis before her.

Real people
Lorelei King
American actress.
born 1957
In fiction
Lorelei Gilmore
Heroine of Gilmore Girls.
WB/CW, 2000–2007
Die Lorelei
Siren of Heinrich Heine's 1824 poem.
1824 poem

Names connected to Lorelei.

The number behind Lorelei.

4

The Builder

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