Meaning & History
This name was used (possibly invented) by Jacobean-era dramatist John Fletcher for characters in his plays The Honest Man's Fortune (c.1613) and The Little French Lawyer (1647). It does not appear to have been used in England; it came into use in the early United States, occurring as early as the 1780s in New York, perhaps influenced by the similar-sounding name Almira 1.