Hotaru
Hotaru is a girl name of Japanese origin, meaning Firefly.
What Hotaru means
Firefly.
Hotaru sits at 6 letters, and ends on a vowel, which tends to make a name sound open and carry well when called across a room.
Where Hotaru comes from
Japanese given names are written in kanji, and the characters chosen carry the meaning as much as the sound does. The same pronunciation can be written several different ways, each shading the sense differently, so parents pick characters as deliberately as they pick the name itself.
Hotaru is recorded as Japanese in origin. Browse other Japanese names.
How popular is Hotaru?
In the girl name rankings we track, Hotaru falls outside the top 100. That puts it in the broad middle ground where most names live: familiar to those who know it, uncommon enough to still feel like a choice.
The character of Hotaru
Two ideas meet in Hotaru: light and brightness and the natural world. Names carrying more than one theme tend to be the ones that suit a wider range of siblings.
Names like Hotaru
These share Hotaru's themes, origin, or both — closest first.
- Mei — Sprout; bright.
- Haru — Spring; sunlight.
- Aurora — Dawn; goddess of sunrise.
- Daisy — The day's-eye flower.
- Summer — The warm, bright season.
- Hana — Flower, blossom.
- Haruka — Distant; spring.
- Himari — Facing the sun; sunflower.
- Hina — Sun, light.
- Akari — Light, brightness.
- Hinoki — Tree.
- Kaede — Maple leaf.