Entry № 7766 · Latin origin

Olive Olive — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ OL-iv /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Latin
Meaning
"The olive tree"
Syllables
2
First recorded
19th c.

A name that means "the olive tree".

Olive comes from the Latin oliva — the name of the tree central to Mediterranean civilisation for thousands of years. The olive branch has been a symbol of peace since at least Greek antiquity; in Genesis the dove returned to Noah's ark with an olive leaf.

Olive is part of the broader return of botanical names. It was popular in the late Victorian era, faded for a century, and came back strongly in the 2010s. Today it sits in the U.S. top 200 and is rising.

The olive tree — a Latin name.

The name in its native script.

Olive
Transliteration
Olive
Pronunciation
/ ˈɒl.ɪv /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Olive stands.

Olive 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.

Olives before her.

Real people
Olive Oyl
Popeye's beloved.
Olivia Newton-John
British-Australian singer and actress (formal name Olive).
1948 – 2022
In fiction
Olive Hoover
Heroine of the film Little Miss Sunshine.
2006 film

Names connected to Olive.

The number behind Olive.

9

The Giver

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Olive reduce to 9, The Giver. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.