Celebrity parents have a way of surprising us — especially when it comes to their baby name ideas.
Baby name inspiration is all around us — especially on a day as meaningful as Women’s Equality Day.
Women's Equality Day is an annual observance on Aug. 26 to commemorate the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and the women’s rights activists that made it possible.
For context, the 19th Amendment was officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920.
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It was the culmination of decades of work by countless individuals and organizations in the women's suffrage movement, primarily that of the NWSA and AWSA.
The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), originally formed in 1869, was led by activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, according to the National Archives.
Meanwhile, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), also founded in 1869, was led by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
The organizations eventually merged in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and were integral to the passing of the 19th amendment three decades later.
And just like that, we’ve already uncovered some of the most powerful girl names inspired by women’s rights activists: Elizabeth, Susan, Lucy and Julia.
According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), Elizabeth was the 17th most popular girl’s name in the United States in 2024, while Lucy ranked 34th and Julia ranked 116th.
Susan, the 7th most popular girl name over the past 100 years, failed to crack the top-1,000 in 2024, per the SSA.
Whether your baby girl is due on Aug. 26 or you simply love the idea of strong girl names inspired by women’s rights activists, we figured there’s no better time to fortify your baby names list than right now.
So, follow along as we highlight some of the best baby girl names from past and recent history.
Elizabeth (Elizabeth Cady Stanton)
Origin: Greek; Hebrew
Meaning: God’s oath; Oath to God
Elizabeth Cady Stanton helped organize the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848, where she delivered her groundbreaking "Declaration of Sentiments" demanding equal rights for women. She was also a co-founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association.
Susan (Susan B. Anthony)
Origin: Greek; Hebrew
Meaning: Lily; Rose
Susan B. Anthony co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association and was famously arrested, indicted, tried, and convicted for voting illegally in the 1872 Presidential election. The 19th Amendment is nicknamed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.
Lucy (Lucy Stone)
Origin: Latin; English
Meaning: Light
Lucy Stone co-founded the American Woman Suffrage Association and was famous for keeping her maiden name after marriage, earning her followers the nickname "Lucy Stoners." She also advocated for the abolition of slavery.
Julia (Julia Ward Howe)
Origin: Roman; Greek
Meaning: Downy-bearded; Youthful
Julia Ward Howe was one of the co-founders of the American Woman Suffrage Association and is best known for writing the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic” during the Civil War. She also founded Mother's Day for Peace, the original intention of the holiday.
Carrie (Carrie Chapman Catt)
Origin: English; Germanic
Meaning: Free woman
Carrie Chapman Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and developed the "Winning Plan" strategy that helped secure passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. She also founded the League of Women Voters.
Jane (Jane Addams)
Origin: English, Hebrew
Meaning: God is Gracious
Jane Addams co-founded Hull House, one of America's most famous settlement houses, in Chicago and became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 for her work in social reform and international peace activism.
Septima (Septima Poinsette Clark)
Origin: Roman
Meaning: Seventh; 7th
Septima Poinsette Clark, also known as the “Grandmother” or “Mother” of the civil rights movement, developed citizenship education programs that taught literacy and voting rights to African Americans across the South.
Helen (Helen Keller)
Origin: English; Greek
Meaning: Torch; Corposant
Helen Keller was a disability rights pioneer and women's suffrage advocate who, despite being deaf and blind, became a powerful speaker and writer for social justice causes. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree.
Dolores (Dolores Huerta)
Origin: Spanish
Meaning: Sorrows
Dolores Huerta is a labor leader and civil rights activist who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with César Chávez and fought for the rights of agricultural workers, particularly women and minorities. She also coined the famous rallying cry "Sí, se puede" (Yes, we can).
Matilda (Matilda Joslyn Gage)
Origin: Germanic
Meaning: Strength in Battle
Matilda Joslyn Gage co-founded the NWSA with Stanton and Anthony, co-authored the "History of Woman Suffrage,” and led a protest at the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty because it was hypocritical to depict “liberty” as a woman when women in the U.S. didn’t have equal rights.
Abby (Abby Kelley Foster)
Origin: English; Hebrew
Meaning: My father is joy; Father’s joy
Abby Kelley Foster was known for her tireless work as a lecturer and educator, traveling extensively to promote equality for African Americans and women. She also broke barriers as one of the first women to give public speeches to mixed-gender audiences.
Amelia (Amelia Jenks Bloomer)
Origin: Germanic
Meaning: Vigorous; Brave; Unceasing
Amelia Jenks Bloomer advocated for dress reform and women's suffrage through her newspaper "The Lily," one of the first publications by and for women. She also popularized "bloomers,” a knee-length skirt worn over loose trousers, and helped introduce Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Ida (Ida B. Wells)
Origin: Germanic
Meaning: Hard-working; Laborer
Ida B. Wells was a civil rights activist who documented and exposed the horrors of lynching in the South through her investigative reporting and pamphlets like "Southern Horrors." She also co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Alice (Alice Paul)
Origin: Old French; Germanic
Meaning: Nobleness; Nobility
Alice Paul was a militant suffragist who founded the National Woman's Party and authored the Equal Rights Amendment, which aimed to guarantee equal rights for women under the law. She also organized the "Silent Sentinels" who protested outside the White House during World War I.
Betty (Betty Friedan)
Origin: English; Hebrew; Greek
Meaning: My God is an oath; Oath to God; God’s oath
Betty Friedan was a feminist author and activist whose 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique" sparked the modern women's liberation movement. She also co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966 and served as the organization’s first president.
Coretta (Coretta Scott King)
Origin: English; Latin; Greek
Meaning: Maiden
Coretta Scott King was a civil rights leader and women's rights advocate who continued her husband Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy following his assassination. She founded The King Center to do just that and helped establish the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday, which we still celebrate today.
Gloria (Gloria Steinem)
Origin: Portuguese; Spanish
Meaning: Glory
Gloria Steinem is a feminist icon and journalist who co-founded Ms. Magazine in 1972 and became one of the most recognizable leaders of the women's liberation movement. She co-founded organizations like the National Women's Political Caucus and the Women's Media Center.
Sojourner (Sojourner Truth)
Origin: English; Latin
Meaning: Traveler; Temporary resident
Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in New York before escaping by walking away from her enslaver's farm with her infant daughter in the fall of 1826. She went on to deliver one of the most famous abolitionist and women's rights speeches in American history, “Ain't I a Woman?”
Frida (Frida Kahlo)
Origin: Germanic; Old Norse
Meaning: Peace; Beautiful; Beloved
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist whose deeply personal and political paintings challenged traditional gender roles and celebrated female experience, making her an influential figure in feminist art. Her portraits often depicted pain, sexuality and identity.
Ruth (Ruth Bader Ginsburg)
Origin: Hebrew
Meaning: Female friend; Compassionate friend
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a Supreme Court Justice and legal pioneer who spent her career dismantling gender-based discrimination through groundbreaking litigation and judicial opinions. As a lawyer, she argued six (and won five) landmark cases before the Supreme Court.
Audre (Audre Lorde)
Origin: Old English
Meaning: Noble strength
Audre Lorde was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet" and a leading voice for intersectional feminism, often challenging white feminists to recognize the complexities of oppression. She coined the phrase “the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.”
Mary (Mary Church Terrell)
Origin: Hebrew; Latin
Meaning: Sea of bitterness; Rebellious; Wished for child
Mary Church Terrell was one of the first African American women to earn a degree. She co-founded the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), served as a charter member of the NAACP and led the charge to desegregate restaurants in Washington, D.C.
Fannie (Fannie Lou Hamer)
Origin: Multicultural
Meaning: From France; Of French origin; Crown; Wreath
Fannie Lou Hamer -founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, became an organizer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was arrested for sitting in a “whites only” bus station restaurant. She was later brutally beaten while at the Winona jailhouse.
Ella (Ella Baker)
Origin: Spanish; Germanic
Meaning: She; Other
Ella Baker was a key behind-the-scenes organizer and activist in the American Civil Rights Movement. She was most notably involved in the founding of both the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Shirley (Shirley Chisholm)
Origin: Old English
Meaning: Bright clearing
Shirley Chisholm was a trailblazing politician who became the first African American woman elected to Congress in 1968 and the first to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. She was widely nown for her motto "Unbought and Unbossed.”
Malala (Malala Yousafzai)
Origin: Pashto
Meaning: Sad; Grieved
Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani education activist who became the youngest Nobel Prize laureate at age 17 for her advocacy of girls' education rights. After surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban for speaking out about girls' education, she continued her activism globally through the Malala Fund.
Jeannette (Jeannette Rankin)
Origin: French; Hebrew
Meaning: God is gracious
Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress, serving as a Representative from Montana, and the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. entry into both World War I and World War II. She used her historic position to advocate for women's voting rights.
Lucretia (Lucretia Mott)
Origin: Roman; Latin
Meaning: Profit; Wealth
Lucretia Mott was a Quaker minister and pioneering women's rights activist who co-organized the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, co-founded Swarthmore College, supported the Underground Railroad and advocated for nonviolent resistance to social injustices.
Frances (Frances Willard)
Origin: English; Latin
Meaning: Frenchman; Type of spear
Frances Willard was a temperance leader and women's rights activist who served as president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and transformed it into a powerful force for women's suffrage and social reform. She also played a pivotal role in Prohibition.
Crystal (Crystal Eastman)
Origin: English; Greek
Meaning: Ice; Clear gemstone; Colorless glass
Crystal Eastman was a key figure in the suffrage movement who co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She also helped draft New York's first workers' compensation law and was a key figure in the suffrage movement.
Rosa (Rosa Parks)
Origin: Latin
Meaning: Rose
Rosa Parks was a trained activist and NAACP secretary whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and became a catalyst for the modern civil rights movement.
Dorothy (Dorothy Height)
Origin: English; Greek
Meaning: God’s gift; Gift of God
Dorothy Height was known for her 40-year tenure as president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and her instrumental role in organizing the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 — being the only one of the “Big Six” to do so.
Constance (Constance Baker Motley)
Origin: English; Late Latin
Meaning: Constant; Steadfast
Constance Baker Motley was a pioneering civil rights lawyer who won 9 of the 10 cases she argued before the Supreme Court. She was a co-writer of the complaint for Brown v. Board of Education and later became the first Black woman federal judge.
Olympe (Olympe de Gouges)
Origin: French; Greek
Meaning: Home of the gods
Olympe de Gouges was a French playwright and political activist who wrote the "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen" in 1791, challenging the French Revolution's exclusion of women from its promise of equality. She was eventually imprisoned and beheaded by guillotine in 1793.
Abigail (Abigail Adams)
Origin: Hebrew
Meaning: My father is joy; Father’s joy
Abigail Adams was the wife of President John Adams and an early advocate for women's rights who famously urged her husband and other Founding Fathers to "remember the ladies" when drafting new laws for the emerging United States.
Sarah (Sarah Grimké)
Origin: Hebrew
Meaning: Lady; Princess; Noblewoman
Sarah Grimké was an abolitionist and women's rights pioneer who, along with her sister Angelina, became one of the first women to speak publicly against slavery to mixed audiences. She was best known for her "Letters on the Equality of the Sexes” in 1838.
Angelina (Angelina Grimké)
Origin: Latin; Greek
Meaning: Angel; Messenger
Born into a South Carolina slaveholding family with her sister Sarah, Angelina Grimké became a powerful orator for abolition and women's rights, arguing that women had a moral duty to speak out against injustice and that their exclusion from public life hindered social reform efforts.
Paulina (Paulina Wright Davis)
Origin: Spanish; Portuguese; Roman; Latin
Meaning: Small; Humble
Paulina Wright Davis was a women's rights activist and health reformer who organized the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1850 and founded "The Una," one of the first women's rights periodicals in America.
Emmeline (Emmeline Pankhurst)
Origin: French; Germanic
Meaning: Unceasing; Brave; Vigorous
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British suffragette who founded the Women's Social and Political Union and led the militant campaign for women's voting rights in the United Kingdom. Though her tactics were controversial and radical, her efforts helped achieve women’s suffrage in the UK.
Eleanor (Eleanor Roosevelt)
Origin: Old French
Meaning: The other Aenor; Shining light
Eleanor Roosevelt was a diplomat, human rights advocate, and First Lady who transformed the role of presidential spouses by championing women's rights, civil rights, and social justice causes. She chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Angela (Angela Davis)
Origin: Latin; Greek
Meaning: Angel; Messenger
Angela Davis is a revolutionary activist, scholar, and author who became a prominent figure in the Black Panther Party and Communist Party. Her 1970 arrest and trial for allegedly supplying weapons used in a courthouse escape attempt made her an international symbol of resistance.
Bell (bell hooks)
Origin: English; French
Meaning: Bell; Beautiful
bell hooks was a feminist theorist, author, and educator who challenged mainstream feminism to address issues of race, class, and intersectionality through influential works like "Ain't I a Woman?" and "Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center."
Clarina (Clarina Howard Nichols)
Origin: Latin
Meaning: Clear; Bright; Famous
Clarina Howard Nichols was a women's rights activist and journalist who used her position as editor of the Windham County Democrat in Vermont to advocate for married women's property rights and legal equality. She became a prominent speaker at women's rights conventions and later moved to Kansas.
Harriet (Harriet Beecher Stowe)
Origin: English; Germanic
Meaning: Home ruler
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an abolitionist author whose 1852 novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" galvanized anti-slavery sentiment in the North and is credited with helping precipitate the Civil War. Beyond her literary impact, she used her fame to advocate for women's rights and social reform.
Leymah (Leymah Gbowee)
Origin: Liberian
Meaning: The one who protects; Protector
Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist who mobilized thousands of women to help end Liberia's brutal civil war through nonviolent protests, including organizing Christian and Muslim women to demand peace negotiations. She shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in securing women's safety.
Judith (Judith Winsor Smith)
Origin: Hebrew
Meaning: Jewish woman
Judith Winsor Smith founded the Home Club of East Boston, the second women's club in Massachusetts, and served as its president for ten years. Known by younger suffragists as "Aunt Judith," she attended suffrage meetings and joined the 1915 suffrage parade.
Melnea (Dr. Melnea Agnes Jones Cass)
Origin: French; Greek; Latin
Meaning: Black; Dark
Known as the "First Lady of Roxbury," Dr. Melnea Agnes Jones Cass helped desegregate Boston schools, organized voter registration drives, and served on numerous boards advocating for housing, healthcare, and educational opportunities for African Americans and women.
Leonora (Leonora O'Reilly)
Origin: Italian; Old French
Meaning: The other Aenor; Shining light
Leonora O'Reilly was a labor organizer and women's rights activist who fought for working-class women's rights through her leadership in the Women's Trade Union League and her work organizing garment workers. A factory worker herself from age 11, she combined labor activism with suffrage work.
Billie (Billie Jean King)
Origin: English; Germanic
Meaning: Desire to protect; Will to protect
Billie Jean King is a tennis champion and women's rights activist whose victory over Bobby Riggs in the 1973 "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match became a cultural moment for women's liberation. She founded the Women's Tennis Association and Women's Sports Foundation to advance equal pay and opportunities for female athletes.
Bessie (Bessie Coleman)
Origin: English; Greek; Hebrew
Meaning: God’s oath; Oath to God
Bessie Coleman was the first African American woman to earn a pilot's license, breaking both racial and gender barriers in aviation during the 1920s. Since no American flight schools would accept her due to racism and sexism, she learned French and traveled to France for training, then returned to perform as a barnstormer and advocate for African Americans and women in aviation.
Other ways to honor women’s rights activists on Women’s Equality Day
While naming your daughter after a pioneering woman is a beautiful tribute that lasts a lifetime, there are many other meaningful ways to commemorate these trailblazers on Women's Equality Day and beyond.
For example, you can support organizations like the National Organization for Women (NOW), National Women's Law Center, the ACLU Women's Rights Project and Planned Parenthood.
Here are some other ways to celebrate Women’s Equality Day:
- Start conversations with your children about the women who fought for women’s rights
- Visit historical sites and museums dedicated to women's history
- Read books by and about women's rights pioneers with your family
- Practice civic engagement in ways these activists would have encouraged
- Share stories on social media to educate others who don’t know about these influential figures
- Attend or organize community events that celebrate women's achievements
While women’s rights — and equality, as a whole — have come a long way since the ratification of the 19th amendment, there’s still so much work to do and it can only be achieved by coming together.
Whether that means celebrating history or giving babies strong girl names, a little goes a long way.
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And if you need extra inspiration for baby girl names, don’t worry — we can help with that, too. At Mod Moms Club, our baby name generator is helping families everywhere pick the perfect name for their baby.
