The baby name Arden blends the natural world, literary status, and a tailored, surname style.
Thanks to Christina for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.
THE FOREST OF ARDEN
If this name sounds familiar, it might be thanks to William Shakespeare.
The author set his pastoral comedy As You Like It in a forest by the name.
Fair Rosalind ventures into the woods disguised as a youth. Hijinks ensue, but all ends happily.
The Bard borrowed his fantastic forest from the real world. Two actual places answer to the name.
Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden, was born in the first, a town in Warwickshire. Like many, she took her surname from her hometown. Mary married John Shakespeare, and they made their family’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon.
The English forest was already in decline during the author’s youth. He was also influenced by the Ardennes, a forest stretching from Belgium and Luxembourg to France and Germany. An earlier writer, Thomas Lodge, set a story there. Lodge named his heroine Rosalynde. Shakespeare clearly borrowed liberally.
THE MEANING OF THE NAME ARDEN
Both forests take their names from the Celtic word ardu – high land.
The latter was known as Arduenna Silva by the Romans.
So while the meaning of Arden might be described as famous forest, it’s clear that the origin of the name Arden is that descriptive Celtic term.
Some sites list a second meaning: eagle valley. This tracks with other known names. Ari, for example, means eagle in Old Norse. And some surnames, like Ogden, derive the -den from an older word for valley, the Old English denu.
Either way, Arden is a place name linked to real and imaginary forests, tied to the natural world.
LITERARY SURNAME CHOICE
As a surname, Arden continues to appear in writing, including:
- The 1592 play Arden of Feversham, about couple named Thomas and Alice Arden. It was based on real life events, and the names were not changed. It was first performed in 1592, many years before As You Like It.
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson penned “Enoch Arden” in 1864. Shipwrecked sailor Enoch struggles to return home, only to find his beloved wife has remarried. (Shades of a classic story line, including Tom Hanks’ tale in Castaway.)
ARDENT
It helps, too, that Arden looks like ardent – an unrelated word meaning enthusiastic or passionate.
Ardent comes from an Old French word, ardant, that meant burning – or zealous. It’s ultimate from a Latin word used to describe anything burning, be it an actual fire or something more figurative.
If fiery names like Blaze and Ember can appeal for our children, then Arden’s similarity to the word ardent is a plus, too. It’s almost a modern virtue name, a sibling for Haven or True.
Arden
stylish rarity
Shakespeare borrowed the name of his magical forest from the map – and an earlier work. With ties to nature and literature, this surname has potential.
Popularity
unranked; given to 239 girls and 155 boys in 2022ity goes here
Trend
holding steady
Origin
Place name from a Celtic root meaning “high land.”
HOW POPULAR IS ARDEN?
Like many surnames, Arden has always been used in small numbers. It’s more common as a boy’s name initially, just like many family surnames.
It helps that Arden fits with names like Arthur, Arlo, and Archer, too. As of 2022, 155 boys received the name.
But today, it’s more popular as a girl’s name. 239 girls received the name in 2022, putting it just outside of the US Top 1000.
While it’s always hard to say exactly what makes an apparently unisex name trend in favor of boys or girls, it’s worth noting that the twentieth century gave us reason to hear this name a feminine.
- Our Miss Brooks started out on radio and crossed to television and eventually the big screen, running for nearly a decade and becoming a major hit. ActressEve Arden played Miss Brooks, a high school English teacher. She passed away in 1990 after a six decades-long career, definitely enough to leave a lasting impression.
- Florence Graham founded her beauty empire, Elizabeth Arden, in 1910. It remains a major cosmetics and fragrance company today. Graham chose her surname from the Tennyson poem.
It’s been enough to help put Arden into the girls’ Top 1000 in the US as recently as 2019, even though it regularly appeared in the most popular baby boy names from the 1880s through the 1950s.
STYLISH RARITY
All of this makes the baby name Arden a stylish rarity, and a good choice for parents seeking name that stands out and fits in.
The name’s image mixes so many things: the great forest of Shakespeare’s imagination, as well as the real forests and places across the English-speaking world; the tailored surname; and the burning, sound-alike ardent.
When it comes to baby naming now, never count out an A-name, from Ava to Amelia, our favorite first initial for a daughter by a lot. (And second only to the letter J for a son.)
It’s a subsitute for Harper or Aria, Parker or Arlo.
What do you think of the baby name Arden?
This post was published on August 3, 2011. It was revised and re-posted on June 27, 2016 and again on May 9, 2024.
Huh. My grandpa, Walter, had a brother named Arden (who died as a child). Growing up , I always thought it was the weirdest name, and not very masculine. For some reason I thought my great-grandma made it up, but now I know it’s a real name.
Arden’s real first name was Samuel, because they didn’t want the initials of Arden Samuel S-lastname. I could see myself using it as a middle name, but not my style for 1st name.
I have a relative who named her daughter Ardyn (ugh) so I’m not a big fan already. My grandmother named Nedra (she hates her name) told me that every time she meets an Arden, she tells him that they have the same name since Nedra is Arden backward. I’m sure she gets some funny looks but it’s nice to have another name nerd in the family!
There’s an apartment complex near where I live called Arden Woods, so I’m a little turned off of that association. But I ran across the sort-of smoosh Ardith in my name searches, which I love! I think its history is more from the “ardent” root word, but it carries the Arden connotation without being an apartment name, and sounds like another favorite, Edith.
Lovely name. If I were to use it, it would go to the boys.
I have considered using Arden as my stage surname (my first name is Angela) because of my love of Shakespeare… but then I saw the movie “Die, Mommy, Die!”, in which one of the main characters is named Angela Arden, and it is not a flattering comparison. So now I might steer clear.
I quite like Arden, and to me it feels feminine. That might be because it reminds me of the name of a girl in a book I once read. Her name was Ardith, and I wonder now whether the author made it up or not.
Some people say Ardith is a variant of the Hebrew name also spelled Ardeth or Ardath; it’s a place name in the Bible (in one of the books of Esdras I think, in the Apocrypha) meaning “blooming fields, flowering meadows”. I’ve also seen it listed as a Swedish name meaning “spiritual prosperity”. There seem to lots of women with this name, and not sure which one their names have been taken from. A lot of them do seem to have Scandinavian surnames though.
I don’t have time to look up references/sources right now [super busy!], but I know for sure that if Ardith/Ardath/Ardeth have Hebrew origins, the meaning has nothing to do with
I got scammed by those baby name sites that just give a description of whatever is called X; in this case, Ardath (the place) is a meadow filled with flowers. It’s like those sites that say, Artemis means “goddess of the moon”. Grrr.
The fact there’s no proper meaning given might mean that nobody knows what the meaning is. Thanks for setting the record straight!
Thank you for featuring Arden today. It’s a name I’ve started liking recently.
My dad has a lifelong friend named Ardell and as a result the Ard- syllable feels masculine to me. On the other hand, I know an Arden Jane and her double-barreled name really softens the heaviness of Ard-. I’d put Arden in the same category as Rowan, Morgan and Linden. I prefer them on boys, but I think they’re perfectly suitable choices for girls.
I like this name a lot, although for various reasons couldn’t use it except as a middle name.
To me, it sounds masculine, because I connect it with the Irish name Ardal, which comes from the same Celtic root. (Mind you, someone else might see Arden as a feminine form of Ardal).
Another literary namesake is “The House of Arden” by Edith Nesbit – a time-travelling children’s fantasy novel in which the Arden children, Edred and Elfrida, seek to find their family’s lost fortune.
kind of lovely.