Names that mean love or beloved, in eight languages

Beloved, not love

Almost every name in this group means beloved rather than love. That is a grammatical fact rather than a quibble: languages turn the verb into a participle and use that, so the name says "loved" or "worthy of being loved". A few names genuinely mean the noun. Knowing which is which changes what you are actually giving a child.

Hebrew

David is the clearest case in any language: it means beloved, and the meaning has been stable for three thousand years. It was 35th in the United States in 2025 with 6,794 babies. Jedidiah is the compound, "beloved of Yahweh", given to Solomon in 2 Samuel 12, and Jed is its short form. Davina and Davida are the feminines. Ahava, the Hebrew noun for love itself, is used as a name in modern Israel but rarely elsewhere.

Latin and the Romance languages

Mabel is the one worth pausing on. It is a top-20 name in England and Wales, it rose 21 places in a year, and hardly anybody using it knows that it is a contraction of amabilis. The meaning is completely secure and completely invisible, which for some families is the point.

Arabic

The Arabic root h-b-b gives hubb, love, and habib, beloved. Habib and Habiba are ordinary names across the Arab world and among Muslims elsewhere. Al-Wadud, "the Loving", is one of the divine names, and as with other divine names it is given to a child in the form Abd al-Wadud, "servant of the Loving", rather than on its own. Mahbub is a further form of the same root.

Sanskrit and Indian languages

Sanskrit priya means dear or beloved, and it is one of the most productive elements in Indian naming: Priya, Priyanka, Priyansh and Supriya all contain it. Priya was given to 30 girls in England and Wales in 2025. Preeti and Preet, from priti, mean love or affection, and Preet is the element behind a large family of Punjabi names — Harpreet, Gurpreet, Manpreet — where it is joined to a word for God. Vatsala, "affectionate", is a further option.

Welsh, Irish and Scottish

Welsh caru means to love, and cariad is the noun. Carys and Cerys are built on it, and Cariad itself is used as a name. Irish contributes Gráinne, whose derivation is disputed and often given as grain rather than love, so we would not put it here. Kenneth and its Gaelic original Coinneach mean "handsome" or "born of fire" depending on which of two names it descends from, not love, despite frequent listings.

Japanese, Slavic and Greek

Japanese names depend on which characters are used to write them, and the same sound can be written several ways with different meanings. Ai written with the love character means love; the same syllable written differently does not. This is a real constraint rather than a technicality, and it is why we do not give a flat meaning for a Japanese name without the characters.

Love names for boys

The English-language habit of treating love as a feminine theme is not shared by most of the languages here, and the male options are older and better attested than the female ones.

Amadeus deserves the attention. Every other name on this page describes a child who is loved. Amadeus describes a child who loves — it is a verb plus an object, not a participle. Amadeo and Amadeu are the Italian and Portuguese forms, and Gottlieb is the German calque of the same idea. If the distinction matters to you, this is the only group on the page that makes it.

The one Greek word most lists get wrong

Greek has several words for love, and the distinction between them is not decoration: names built on eros, philia and agape are not interchangeable. Philip and Philippa contain philos, the affectionate or friendly kind, and so do Philemon and Theophilus, "loving God". Erasmus contains the desiring kind. Agape itself is used as a name in Greek Orthodox families. A list that renders all of them as "love" flattens a distinction that the language itself insists on.

Names commonly listed here that do not qualify

Freya means "lady" in Old Norse and is the name of a goddess associated with love; the association is real, the meaning is not. Venus and Aphrodite are goddesses of love whose own names have uncertain etymologies. Amara has three unrelated origins and none of them is love. And Lennon is an Irish surname, from leannan in some accounts, meaning sweetheart, but the derivation is contested and the name reached most families through a musician rather than a meaning.