Grace, Hope and Mercy: the long life of virtue names

In the late 1500s and 1600s, English Puritans wanted names that pointed toward a good life rather than toward saints or kings. So they reached for words: Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Patience, Mercy. A few went further, with long phrase names that read like short prayers. Those didn’t last. The single-word virtues did.

Given to anyone

Many virtue names were first given to boys and girls alike. A quality like patience or constancy wasn’t thought to belong to one sex. Over time most of them settled as girls’ names, and in the U.S. today Grace, Hope, Faith and Mercy are given almost entirely to girls.

Four virtues, four stories

Grace is the most enduring. It peaked in 2003, when 12,801 girls were named Grace, and was still in the top 40 for girls in 2025.

Hope and Faith rose together in the late twentieth century. Hope was given to 11,013 girls during the 1970s; Faith to 6,356. Both peaked at the start of the 2000s and have eased since. Faith is down about 40 percent in the last five years, a reminder that even beloved names move.

Mercy is quieter: it peaked in 2019 with 461 girls and ranked around 870th in 2025. For parents who love the virtue names but want something less common, it sits in a sweet spot.

The rest of the list

Constance and Prudence carry an old-fashioned formality (both peaked in the U.S. in the 1940s and 1950s); Verity (truth) is better known in England but growing here, with its busiest U.S. year so far in 2025; Honor is short, strong and given about equally to boys and girls. Each carries a clear meaning in plain English, which is part of the appeal: a child named Verity never has to look up what her name means.

A virtue name is a hope spoken out loud, every time someone calls the child in for dinner.