Amy

Amy is the English form of the Old French Amee, known today as Aimée, meaning “loved”. It was used both as a nickname and as a form of the Latin name Amata, from the verb amare, to love.

The name has been used in England since the Middle Ages. It got a lift in the nineteenth century from Walter Scott’s novel Kenilworth, which retold the story of Amy Robsart, the ill-fated first wife of Robert Dudley. Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women added another Amy, the youngest of the March sisters.

Amy was a rarity in Ireland in the 1960s but grew fast through the 1970s and 1980s. It was a top-10 girls’ name for much of the 1990s and early 2000s, reaching number 4 in 2004, when 546 girls were named Amy. Northern Ireland took to it just as strongly, with Amy at number 4 there in 1998. It has become far less common since.