Is Victoria a Biblical Name? No, It Is Latin for “Victory”

Victoria is not a biblical name. It is the Latin word for “victory,” and the Romans gave it to their goddess of victory. No one in the Bible is called Victoria, but the word appears in the Latin Bible, as in 1 Corinthians 15:57: “thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Is Victoria in the Bible?

No person in the Old or New Testament is named Victoria. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic and the New Testament in Greek, and Victoria is a Latin name, so it has no form in the original text of Scripture.

The word victoria does occur in the Vulgate, the Latin Bible that goes back largely to the work of Jerome at the end of the fourth century and was the Bible most used in the Western church for more than a thousand years. In 1 Corinthians 15:54–55 Paul quotes the prophets: “Death is swallowed up in victory” (in Latin, absorpta est mors in victoria) and “O death, where is your victory?” In 1 John 5:4 the Vulgate reads haec est victoria, quae vincit mundum, fides nostra: “this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”

What Victoria means

Victoria means “victory.” The Latin noun comes from the verb vincere, “to conquer” or “to overcome.” The Romans worshipped Victoria as the goddess of victory, their equivalent of the Greek Nike, and she was usually shown with wings. As a personal name, Victoria is also the feminine form of Victor, a name early Christians used often: several early saints and three popes were called Victor.

Most European languages have their own form of the name: Vittoria in Italian, Vitória in Portuguese, Victoire in French, Viktoria in German and the Scandinavian languages, and Wiktoria in Polish. Spanish, Romanian and English all use Victoria.

Victoria in Hebrew and Greek

The Old Testament has no single word that matches the Latin victoria, and English Bibles use “victory” for several Hebrew words. One is teshuah, “deliverance” or “salvation,” which the King James Version translates “victory” in 2 Samuel 23:10: “the LORD wrought a great victory that day.” Another is netsach, which usually means “forever.” It appears in David’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:11, “Thine, O LORD is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty,” and in Isaiah 25:8, which the King James Version renders “He will swallow up death in victory” and the English Standard Version “He will swallow up death forever.” That is the line Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 15:54. Modern Hebrew uses nitzachon for “victory,” a word from the same root as netsach.

The Greek word for victory is nike, the name of the Greek goddess. It appears only once in the New Testament, in 1 John 5:4, and Paul uses a later form, nikos, in 1 Corinthians 15:54–57. The verb nikao, “to conquer” or “to overcome,” is much more common. Jesus uses it in John 16:33: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Paul adds a prefix to it in Romans 8:37: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Each of the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 includes a promise to “the one who conquers,” such as the promise of Revelation 2:7 to “eat of the tree of life.”

Is Victoria a Christian name?

Victoria has been used by Christians since the early church, when it was the name of martyrs. The best documented is Victoria of Abitina, a town in the Roman province of Africa. In 304, under the emperor Diocletian, she was one of forty-nine Christians arrested for holding Sunday worship against the emperor’s orders. At their trial her brother Fortunatianus, an advocate, claimed that she had been persuaded to attend, and Victoria answered that she had gone entirely of her own accord. The Roman Martyrology lists the forty-nine on 12 February. Another Victoria, said to have been killed in Italy under the emperor Decius around 250, is known only from legend.

In the English-speaking world the name was rare until the 19th century. It spread after Princess Alexandrina Victoria, who was named after her mother, a German princess, became Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom in 1837. She reigned until her death in 1901, and many places were named after her, including the Australian state of Victoria and the Canadian city of Victoria.

In the United States Victoria has been among the 1,000 most common names for girls in every year since records began in 1880. It reached its highest rank, 16th, in 1998 and 1999, and ranked 54th in 2025. It is also common in Spanish-speaking countries; in Mexico it ranked ninth in 2021.

Related reading

• Bible verses about victory
• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of Names