The season word and the month names

The most direct summer names are the plainest: the season itself and the months. All are English or Latin word names with no hidden etymology, which makes them easy to verify and easy to spell. Counts are from the Office for National Statistics 2025 lists for England and Wales, released on 9 July 2026.

Name	Meaning and origin	Babies in 2025
Summer	From the English word for the season, from Old English sumor; in use as a name since the 1970s	429 girls
August	Form of Augustus; as an English name it can also come from the month	145 boys
Augustus	Roman name, the source of the month's name	26 boys
Julia	Feminine form of the Roman family name Julius, which gave July its name	190 girls
June	From the month; associated with the goddess Juno, whose own name is of unknown meaning	53 girls
Juno	Roman goddess; Behind the Name records the meaning as unknown, possibly linked to a root meaning "young"	104 girls
May	From the month, named for the Roman goddess Maia; also a diminutive of Mary, Margaret and Mabel	64 girls

Sun names, and the ones that are not

The sun words that are genuinely sun words

Sol means "sun" in Spanish and Portuguese and went to 49 boys in 2025. Soleil means "sun" in French, though Behind the Name notes it is not commonly used as a name in France itself. Helios means "sun" in Greek and is the name of the Greek sun god. Shams means "sun" in Arabic. Ravi and Surya both mean "sun" in Sanskrit, and Arev means "sun" in Armenian. Samson comes from Hebrew Shimshon, derived from shemesh meaning "sun"; 41 boys received it in 2025.

Cyrus does not mean sun

Cyrus is routinely listed as a Persian sun name. Behind the Name gives the Old Persian Kuruš as possibly meaning "young" or "humiliator of the enemy", and notes it may be of Elamite origin instead. It has also been associated with Greek kyrios, "lord". None of those is the sun. It was given to 91 boys in 2025 and it is a fine name; it is simply not a sun name.

Apollo does not have a known meaning at all

Apollo was a Greek god associated with the sun in later tradition, but the name itself is of unknown meaning. Behind the Name records theories linking it to an Indo-European root meaning "strength" and to an Anatolian god whose name may mean "father lion" or "father light", and notes that the Greeks themselves associated it with a verb meaning "to destroy". Presenting Apollo as "sun" states as settled something that is not.

Elio is connected by tradition rather than by descent

Elio is the Italian and Spanish form of Aelius, and also the Italian form of Helios. Aelius itself is a Roman family name of unknown meaning that has been traditionally connected to the Greek word for sun. That traditional connection is worth stating as a tradition. Elio was given to 147 boys in 2025.

Dawn names, which are a different thing

Aurora means "dawn" in Latin and was the Roman goddess of the morning; at 1,030 girls it is the most used name on this page by a wide margin. Eos means "dawn" in Greek. Zora means "dawn, aurora" in the South Slavic languages, Czech and Slovak. Dawn is not summer, but these names are so often folded into sun lists that it is worth separating them: they describe a time of day, not a season, and the meanings are secure.

What the ONS data shows about summer babies

The ONS publishes a top 10 for each month of birth. In 2025 Isla topped July and Lily topped August for girls, the only months either led; Muhammad topped every month for boys. None of the summer names on this page appears in a monthly top 10. The ONS did report the effect directly in its 2023 bulletin, noting that Summer and Autumn were more popular in their respective seasons. That is official confirmation that the pattern exists, and also confirmation that it operates well below the top of the rankings.

Names for heat, light and the outdoors

A wider group gets folded into summer lists and deserves separating. Names meaning bright or light — Roshan, "light, bright" in Persian, and Uri, "my light" in Hebrew — describe light rather than the sun or the season. Kiran is often listed as "sunbeam" in Sanskrit; Behind the Name gives the word as able to mean "dust" or "thread" or "sunbeam", so the solar reading is one of three rather than the meaning. And Mithra is frequently offered as a sun name: the Avestan word means "oath, covenant, agreement", and Mithra was a god of light and friendship, not of the sun itself.

Sunniva is the one name here that combines both ideas honestly. It is the Scandinavian form of the Old English Sunngifu, from sunne "sun" and giefu "gift" — literally a sun gift. Fewer than three babies in England and Wales received it in 2025, so it is genuinely uncommon rather than merely presented that way.

How to use this list

Summer names have an advantage most seasonal categories lack: the strongest options are English words or Latin months, so nobody will misspell them and nobody will mispronounce them. Summer, June, May and August all pass the dictation test without effort.

If you want a sun name rather than a season name, take one whose meaning is attested — Sol, Shams, Ravi, Surya, Arev, Helios or Samson — rather than one that has acquired a solar reputation. And if you are choosing a name for a summer baby, remember the due date is an estimate: a name tied tightly to one month is a small hostage to give to an obstetric prediction.

Summer Baby Names: Sun, Season and Month Names That Check Out