Laurel is an English nature name taken from the Latin laurus and means "laurel tree" or "bay laurel", the evergreen whose leaves crowned victors and poets in ancient Greece and Rome. It shares its root with Laura and Lauren but has always been the rarer, more botanical sister. In the United States Laurel ranked number 564 in 2000, dropped out of the top 1000 for a few years and has been back since 2011; it stands at number 734 in 2025.