Aurora

Aurora meaning

Aurora is an international girl's name of Latin origin.

Dawn, daybreak; the Roman goddess of the morning

Aurora is the Latin word for the dawn. Lewis and Short's dictionary gives it as daybreak or morning, personified as the goddess of the morning, the mother of Memnon in myth, and by extension the East. The same entry connects aurora with Greek ēōs, "dawn", and with the Sanskrit root uṣ, "to burn", from which comes uṣas, the Vedic dawn goddess Usha, so Aurora and Usha are linguistic cousins. The northern lights are called the aurora borealis. In Tchaikovsky's ballet The Sleeping Beauty the princess is named Aurora. The name is said uh-ROR-uh.

Source: Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary (1879), s.v. aurora · entry aurōra · See the entry · checked 25 Oct 2026

References: Lewis & Short, aurora (alatius.com)

Famous namesakes

• Princess Aurora, heroine of Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty

Popularity abroad

• #15 United States, girls 2025 (up 1 from 16 in 2024)
  US Social Security Administration
• #39 England and Wales, girls 2025
  Office for National Statistics

Official birth registrations. India publishes no national name statistics.

Spellings

Aurora · Aurore

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