Scarlett

Scarlett began as an English surname for someone who dyed or sold scarlet, a fine and costly cloth. It became a girls’ name almost entirely thanks to one character: Scarlett O’Hara, the heroine of Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and the famous film that followed. In the story her father is an Irish emigrant, which gives the name a small Irish thread.

It has been well used in Britain and the United States in recent decades, helped along by the actor Scarlett Johansson.

In Ireland Scarlett first reached three babies a year in 2004. Its best year was 2015, with 30 girls and a rank of number 185, and 12 girls were named Scarlett in 2025. It has been far more popular in Northern Ireland, where it reached number 30 in 2014. The CSO counts Scarlet with one t as a separate name.