Scottish2 syllablesOutside the U.S. top 100
Meaning: from the Scottish place and surname Irving, near the River Irvine.
Irving
Irving started as a village in Dumfriesshire and ended up on the sheet music of half the American songbook. Very few names travel that far, and almost none do it by way of two entirely separate communities.
| Origin | Scottish — a place name in Dumfriesshire that became a surname and then a given name |
|---|---|
| Meaning | No word meaning of its own. The settlement takes its name from the River Irvine; the river name is Brythonic and its sense is uncertain, with green water and fresh water among the derivations offered |
| Pronunciation | UR-ving, two syllables, stress on the first |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100 and rare among babies now; widely used in America from the 1890s through the 1930s and in sharp decline since |
| Variants | Irvine, Irvin, Irv; Erwin and Ervin look related but are a separate Germanic name |
| Nicknames | Irv, Irvy |
| Surname source | Washington Irving (1783–1859), whose fame turned the surname into a first name |
History & meaning
Names like this one have no meaning in the way Israel or Ira do. Irving is a location: the parish of Irving in Dumfriesshire, and the burgh of Irvine on the Ayrshire coast, both named from the river that runs past them. The river name is old, pre-English and Brythonic, and philologists have offered readings around green or fresh water without settling the matter. Scottish families who came from there carried the name out as a surname, and by the eighteenth century Irvings and Irvines were established across Scotland, Ulster and the American colonies.
The jump from surname to first name is American, and it has two engines. The first is Washington Irving, whose Sketch Book gave the young republic Rip Van Winkle and the Headless Horseman in 1819 and made his surname a respectable thing to hang on a son. The second is more particular. From the 1880s, Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants arriving in New York routinely took an English given name whose sound matched their Hebrew or Yiddish one, and Irving matched Yisroel, Yitzhak and Yisrael neatly. Israel Beilin from Belarus became Irving Berlin, and wrote God Bless America. For roughly fifty years Irving was one of the most recognisably Jewish American men's names in the country. That is a documented pattern, not a stereotype — and its consequence is that the name now reads, to most American ears, as belonging squarely to a grandfather's generation.
Why parents choose it
Mostly for a person. Irving is a namesake name, chosen by families with a Scottish Irving in the tree or an Irving in living memory, and it comes with the softening nickname Irv already attached. It also has the appeal of an unclaimed vintage: nobody else in the playgroup will have it.
Middle names for Irving
The -ing ending is soft, so a firm middle helps: Irving Samuel, Irving Charles, Irving Nathaniel, Irving Reuben. Steer clear of middles that also end in a nasal. More on pairing in the middle names guide.
Famous Irvings
Irving Berlin wrote something in the region of 1,500 songs, including White Christmas. Irving Thalberg ran production at MGM before he was thirty, and the Academy's Thalberg Award is named for him. Irving Penn photographed for Vogue for six decades. Irving Langmuir won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on surface chemistry. Washington Irving supplied the surname that started it all.
Consider instead
Israel is the name Irving was so often chosen to stand in for, and it has aged better. Walter occupies the same American decades and is further along in its revival. Ira gives you the identical era in three letters instead of six.