From Old English 'blis' meaning joy, happiness, or supreme delight.
Bliss traces its lineage to the Old English word "bliths" or "blis," meaning joy, gladness, and a state of perfect happiness. It belongs to the tradition of virtue and abstract-noun names — alongside Grace, Hope, and Joy — that were beloved by Puritan settlers in seventeenth-century New England, who gave their children names as moral aspirations and daily reminders of spiritual goals. Bliss was both a prayer and a promise, a name that declared what its parents wished most for a child's inner life.
The concept of bliss carries extraordinary philosophical and spiritual weight across multiple traditions. In Sanskrit, "ananda" (bliss) represents the highest state of divine consciousness; in Buddhist thought, nirvana is sometimes translated as a form of bliss beyond ordinary pleasure and pain. The Romantic poet William Blake wrote of "the lineaments of Gratified Desire" and states of spiritual bliss with almost dangerous intensity.
Joseph Campbell's famous injunction to "follow your bliss" — drawn from the Upanishads — gave the word a secular, self-actualization meaning that resonated deeply through late twentieth-century culture. As a given name, Bliss has remained rare, which only adds to its unusual luster. It skews slightly feminine but sits comfortably as a gender-neutral choice, unburdened by heavy associations with specific historical figures. There is something radical about naming a child Bliss — a refusal of irony, a declaration that pure happiness is still a worthy aspiration.