Yarrow is an English nature name taken from the flowering herb and river name.
Yarrow takes its name from the plant Achillea millefolium, a hardy flowering herb with flat-topped white or pale pink flower clusters that has grown wild across Europe, Asia, and North America for millennia. The Old English word "gearwe" evolved into "yarrow" over centuries, and the plant itself was so deeply woven into folk medicine, mythology, and ritual that naming a child after it carries an entire pharmacopoeia of symbolism. Yarrow was used to stanch wounds in battle — the genus name Achillea comes from the legend that Achilles used it to treat his soldiers' injuries at Troy — and it was also employed in divination, love charms, and protective magic across Germanic and Celtic traditions.
As a given name, Yarrow is part of the English botanical naming tradition that also produced names like Rowan, Sage, Briar, and Wren — nature names that feel simultaneously ancient and contemporary. It has a particularly strong association with the British Isles: the River Yarrow in Scotland flows through landscape that Walter Scott immortalized in his ballads, and "The Braes of Yarrow" is one of the most melancholy and beautiful strands of Scottish Border poetry. This geographical and literary layering gives the name a romantic, windswept quality.
In twenty-first century naming, Yarrow has emerged as a quietly adventurous choice among parents drawn to herbalism, folk traditions, and names that feel rooted in the natural world without being obvious. It is gender-neutral in practice, leaning slightly masculine in current usage. Its three syllables (YAR-oh) give it a confident rhythm, and its rarity — still genuinely uncommon — means a child named Yarrow will likely carry the name alone in almost any room they enter.