Spiritual Baby Names and Meanings

Tulsi is more than a simple nature name: The holy basil plant is sacred in the Hindu religion, used to honor the god Vishnu and representative of his consort, the goddess Tulsi. The Tulsi plant is often planted in Hindu houses and is used for medicinal as well as ritualistic purposes.

A whimsical and serene feeling word name, bestowed to reflect the joy and perfection parents might find in their children and the ambitions they have for them. Once a fantastical and celebrity-only feeling option, Dream came into popular usage after Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna chose it for their daughter in 2016.

Galilee is a highly unusual place name, Galilee being a large region in northern Israel, the home of Jesus during at least thirty years of his life, and also where he cured a blind man. The Sea of Galilee gets its name from the area.

Being a modern word, Halo didn’t become used as a name until around the nineteenth century. Halo is now mostly given to girls, and has become more common since the Halo video game series was released in 2001, in which Halo rings are huge structures used as weapons, but do have a religious connection. A space age virtue name and possible honour name for Gloria.

Promise is one of those word names with an uplifting meaning that is making inroads as a girls' name, like sisters Dream and Serenity. How promising is Promise as a first name? Our try at cleverness illustrates perhaps the biggest problem with naming your baby girl Promise: It will be difficult for people to resist making bad puns on the name. We promise (argh) you'll be tired of hearing them well before your baby Promise's first birthday.

True has become an accepted first and middle name; Truth makes an even stronger statement. And with nearly 150 baby boys named Truth in the US in the most recent year counted, as many as were named Ross, the word name is edging up on the Top 1000.

A handful of years ago, a judge in Tennessee ruled that parents could not name their son Messiah, "because there's only one." That decision has since been overturned and the name no longer looks out of place besides the growing number of Saints and Chosens.

One of the rarest of virtue names, Clemency could come back along with the more familiar Puritan virtue names such as Hope and Faith. It has a rhythmic three-syllable sound, and offers a more virtuous alternative to the more popular Clementine.

A joyous (if a little rowdy) word name that's still relatively undiscovered by parents, being given to about 10 babies of each sex per year. Glee actor Matthew Morrison named his son Revel in 2017.

Journey is one of the hot new spiritual names. Although Journey was given in 2015 to over 1100 baby girls and fewer than 100 baby boys, it's more visible on the celebrity baby scene as a boys' name: Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green just chose the name for their third son, who also has the unisex middle name River.

In Buddhism, Dharma embodies the basic principles of cosmic existence--making it a fitting name for the hippyish character on the sitcom Dharma and Greg, whose middle name was Freedom.

So sweet it makes our teeth hurt. It has appeared in the US Top 1000 every year since 2006, though it dropped a significant 136 places from 2014 to 2015, and kept dropping to Number 974 in 2016.

Paz, currently represented by actresses Paz Vega and Paz de la Huerts, would make a sparkling middle name choice. It originated as a title of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Peace, and is one of the names that mean peace, derived from the Latin word "pax".

Spiritual word names are a hot trend and ever-expanding category of baby names. Chapel was notably used in 2020 by Josh Brolin for his daughter. He said of her name, "Chapel Grace is, to us, a manifestation of that celestial feeling that was always felt as we meandered and knelt."

Tenzin (sometimes also written as Tenzing or Stanzin) is a unisex Tibetan name which is one of the given names of the current Dalai Lama, Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso.

A recently popular spiritual name that entered the Top 500 in 2003.

A shimmering day name, with a bit of hippie residue.

Among the children named Heaven are the daughters of TV personality Brooke Burke and rap singer Lil' Mo, who also has a daughter named God'iss Love. Some parents have taken to using Nevaeh instead—Heaven spelled backwards.

Some parents, including rapper Ludacris, are literally bestowing good karma on their children; it could just join the new spiritual name congregation.

An implied spiritual meaning makes this a plausible new name.