Here Are the Most Popular Short Girl Names Right Now

When it comes to picking a baby girl name, everything comes in cycles. Sometimes, old-fashioned names are in, sometimes the new and modern takes over. Some years, a pop-culture event inspires a new wave of baby names — we see you, all the Bridgerton babies out there — other years veer toward the traditional, timeless names.

Believe it or not, the length of a baby name changes with the current baby-name trends, too. According to Quartz, a popular news organization, the era of long, flowing girl names like Jessica, Brittany, Amanda, Samantha and Ashley has given way to punchier, shorter names like Cora, Luna, Ava and Mia. Of course, you can always find counter-examples, like Charlotte and Isabella, two stunning, long girl names that have managed to stay in the top 10. But if you look at the data from the Social Security Administration (SSA), which keeps track of baby names, you can see that the top five names each year have been getting shorter since the '90s.

And why not? Short names are easy to remember, easy to spell and roll off the tongue. If you're looking for a quick moniker, we scoured the SSA list of the most popular baby names to find the hottest short baby girl names around, and also offer some suggestions for some up-and coming ones.

Short, Two-Letter Girls' Names

While there are two-letter girls' names out there — like Io of Greek mythology, who gives her name to a moon of Jupiter — none have made it on to the SSA's list of the most popular baby names. (There are two on the list of most popular boys' names if you want to snatch them for your baby girl: Bo and Ty.) Instead, two-letter girl names are most often shortened forms of longer names, like Di, El, Em, Jo, Lu, Mo, Ro, Vi or Yo.

Short, Three-Letter Girls' Names

There aren't as many three-letter girls' names on the SSA list as there are four-letter girls' names, so there's still something unique about them. If three is your magic number, try one of these names, listed in order from most popular to least popular.

Ava
Mia
Zoe
Ivy
Eva
Ada
Amy
Mya
Gia
Lia
Noa
Joy
Ari
Eve
Mae
Nia
Liv
Sky
Lea
Ila
Kai
Bria
Aya

And while these didn't make the SSA's list of top 1,000 most popular names, so these are some to consider if you want something that's still under-the-radar (listed in alphabetical order).

Ann
Bea
Dot
Fay
Gem
Ida
Isa
Jan
Kay
Kit
Lee
Lou
Lux
Max
Nev
Nyx
Pia
Pip
Ray
Ren
Rue
Sam
Sia
Una
Val
Wyn
Zia

a sleeping baby uses a pacifier while wrapped in a pink blanket

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Short, Four-Letter Girls' Names

For many, four letters is the sweet spot: not too short, not too long. These are all the four-letter girl names that made the SSA list — and, as you can see, there's plenty to choose from (listed in order of popularity).