Entry № 3349 · Scottish Gaelic origin

Fiona Fiona — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ fee-OH-nah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Scottish Gaelic
Meaning
"Fair, white"
Syllables
2
First recorded
19th c. (literary)

A name that means "fair, white".

Fiona is a Scottish name from the Gaelic fionn, meaning "fair" or "white" — the same root that gives the masculine Finn and the Irish Fionnuala. The name was popularised by the 19th-century Scottish poet William Sharp, who wrote under the pseudonym "Fiona Macleod."

Fiona entered the U.S. top 1000 in 1990 and has been climbing. Today it sits in the U.S. top 250.

Fair, white — a Scottish Gaelic name.

The name in its native script.

Fiona
Transliteration
Fiona
Pronunciation
/ fiˈoʊ.nə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Fiona stands.

Fiona 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.

Fionas before her.

Real people
Fiona Apple
American singer-songwriter.
born 1977
Fiona Shaw
Irish actress.
born 1958
In fiction
Princess Fiona
Heroine of Shrek.
2001 film

Names connected to Fiona.

The number behind Fiona.

9

The Giver

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