General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20265 min read

Chloe

Chloe (Ancient Greek Χλόη) is a feminine given name meaning "green shoot" or "young verdure" in Greek, originally an epithet of the goddess Demeter and later the name of a woman mentioned in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. As an English name it has been in continuous use since the Protestant Reformation, and it was the most popular name for girls in England and Wales from 1997 to 2002.¹

Key fact	Detail
Meaning	Greek χλόη, "a young green shoot", referring to new plant growth in the spring¹
Mythological origin	An epithet of Demeter, "the blooming", protectress of the green fields, with a sanctuary at Athens²
Biblical bearer	A woman of Corinth whose people reported divisions in the church to Paul (1 Corinthians 1:11)³
English adoption	In use as an English name since the Protestant Reformation; popular from the 1980s in the United Kingdom and then the United States¹
Peak popularity	Most popular girls' name in England and Wales 1997–2002¹
US usage, 2025	Chloe given to 6,203 girls; with Khloe (1,149), Cloe (62), and other rarer spellings, 7,501 girls across six spellings, the 18th most-given girls' name of the year⁴
Literary bearers	Heroine of Longus' ancient novel Daphnis and Chloe; a named beloved in Horace, Odes 3.9⁵

Etymology and the epithet of Demeter

The Greek noun χλόη denotes young green growth, the first shoots of plants in spring.¹ Etymologically it relates to khlōros, "greenish-yellow", from the Proto-Indo-European root *ghel-, "to shine", whose derivatives name both green and yellow colors and also gave English words such as chlorine and chlorophyll.⁶

As a cult title, Chloe (Chloê, "the blooming" or "green, first shoots") was a surname of Demeter the protectress of the green fields. She had a sanctuary at Athens, shared with Ge Curotrophos, near the Acropolis, and Sophocles alludes to the title when he calls her "Demeter eu Chloos" in the Oedipus at Colonus.² The goddess received a festival, the Chloeia, connected with the green shoots of grain, though ancient evidence leaves its precise deity and date uncertain.⁷ The word also had ordinary senses in Greek: young verdure of trees, the juice of green shoots, and vegetables or greens generally.⁸

Chloe in the New Testament

The name entered Christian usage through a woman mentioned once, in 1 Corinthians 1:11, whose "people" (household slaves or freedpersons, in the standard lexicon's reading) reported to Paul on the divisions at Corinth among partisans of Cephas, Apollos, and Paul himself.³^•⁵ She is otherwise unknown; the lexicon judges that she probably lived in Corinth or Ephesus and may or may not have been a Christian, while the Encyclopedia of The Bible considers her probably a Christian, noting that bearing a pagan name does not prove non-Christian status.⁵^•³ The name was already in ordinary use: it is attested as a historical female name, and the lexicon cites the 3rd-century BC poet Semos of Delos in connection with the Demeter epithet.⁵

Ancient and early literary use

Chloe appears in Latin poetry as a named beloved: Horace's Odes 3.9 addresses a Chloe, and the name is the heroine's in Longus' Greek romance Daphnis and Chloe.⁵ A study of naming in the Greek romantic novels notes that, like Daphnis, the name evokes the plant world, but that Chloe is a better-attested historical name than Daphnis and is not found in pastoral literature before the novel.⁹

In English, the Wycliffite Bible of 1395 renders the Corinthian woman's name as Cloe or Cloes, an early vernacular appearance.¹⁰

Use as an English name

Chloe was adopted, like most New Testament names, in the 17th century, and in the late 16th and 17th centuries it figured largely in English pastoral and lyric poetry; Dryden's "A Rondelay" pairs a Chloe with the shepherd Amyntas.¹¹ Behind the Name dates English use from the Protestant Reformation.¹

The name's fortunes then declined sharply. Eric Partridge's Name This Child (1959), quoting Charlotte Yonge, records that by about 1850 Chloe was almost confined to Black women in America, and that by 1880 in England it had become a name for spaniels.¹¹

Revival and peak. Chloe grew popular again from the 1980s, first in the United Kingdom and then in the United States, and topped the girls' charts in England and Wales from 1997 to 2002.¹ A 2014 survey of given-name distributions found the name most prevalent in England, with about 75,479 bearers worldwide and the highest density in the Falkland Islands.¹¹

Spelling variants

The name is one of the few English-language names often written with a diaeresis, as Chloë, and French-style Chloé is also common.¹ Established variants include Khloe (English), Cloe (Italian and Spanish), and Cloé (French and Portuguese).¹ In the 2025 United States birth-record data, the spelling Chloe accounted for 6,203 girls, Khloe for 1,149, and Cloe for 62; grouped across six spellings the name totaled 7,501 girls, about 1 in 214 born that year, ranking 18th among girls' names once all spellings are counted.⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Languages and linguistics › Names and onomastics › Individual given names (by language and gender) › Classical and European names

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 18, 2026; Sep 19, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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