Meaning and history
From an English surname for someone who sold or made clothes of scarlet, a type of cloth possibly derived from Persian سقرلاط (saqrelāṭ), Scarlett was used by Margaret Mitchell for the heroine Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1936), where the name is said to have come from her grandmother. Although the novel was adapted into a popular film in 1939, the name did not become common until the 21st century and began rising around 2003, about the time American actress Scarlett Johansson (1984–) began to rise to prominence.
20062006: 1,116 births, rank #297
2007: 1,583 births, rank #218
2008: 1,621 births, rank #211
2009: 1,923 births, rank #170
2010: 2,717 births, rank #115
20112011: 3,564 births, rank #80
2012: 4,045 births, rank #61
2013: 5,054 births, rank #42
2014: 6,011 births, rank #30
2015: 7,143 births, rank #22
20162016: 7,720 births, rank #18
2017: 7,721 births, rank #18
2018: 7,226 births, rank #20
2019: 7,086 births, rank #21
2020: 6,521 births, rank #21
20212021: 6,631 births, rank #20
2022: 7,258 births, rank #14
2023: 6,318 births, rank #17
2024: 5,912 births, rank #27
20252025: 5,644 births, rank #32
Scarlett has made a dramatic comeback. After first appearing in the US records in 1940, it fell to #996 by 1963, before climbing to #32 in 2025. Its highest annual birth count came in 2017, with 7,721 births.