Heidi is a Swiss German short form of Adelheid, the name behind Adelaide, and means "noble kind" or "of noble birth". Johanna Spyri's 1880 children's novel about the orphan girl in the Alps carried it around the world, and the 1937 Shirley Temple film brought it to American audiences. In the United States Heidi has been in the top 1000 continuously since 2000 and has held remarkably steady, ranking number 351 that year and number 340 in 2025.