Coraline

Meaning & origin

Coraline is a modern name that emerged in the late 20th century but remained extremely rare until the early 2000s. The name's first recorded U.S. birth was in 1970, yet it saw little use until after the 2002 publication of Neil Gaiman's dark fantasy novella 'Coraline.' The story's 2009 stop-motion film adaptation propelled the name into wider awareness, and its trajectory in the Social Security data shows a clear rising trend since 2004. By 2018, the name reached its peak rank at 683 in 2025, with 1 in every 3,882 girls born that year receiving it. While never entering the top 100, Coraline has maintained steady growth and is most frequently bestowed in West Virginia, New Mexico, and Kansas. The name combines the simple elegance of Coral with the fashionable -ine suffix, and despite its literary association, it has taken on an independent life as a distinctive choice for girls.

Coraline is a modern coinage formed from the name Coral (derived from the marine invertebrate coral, via Latin corallium) plus the feminine diminutive suffix -ine. The name gained widespread recognition following the 2002 publication of Neil Gaiman's novella 'Coraline' and its 2009 film adaptation, which popularized it as a given name in the English-speaking world. Prior to the 21st century, the name was virtually unused, with the first recorded U.S. occurrence in 1970.