indicate the level to which a name has been verified.
Gender Feminine
Usage Literature, Theatre, German (Rare, Archaic)
Meaning & History
Coined by Scottish poet James Macpherson for his 18th-century Ossian poems where the name is borne by Minona, a singer who sings before the king the song of the unfortunate Colma. Macpherson names the alleged Scottish Gaelic words Min-ónn "gentle air" as an etymological explanation of the name (compare Scottish Gaelic mìn "gentle; soft (of a sound)" and fonn "tune, melody").
The so-called Songs of Selma are the most famous poems of the Ossian cycle because of their lyrical and elegiac character. They were translated into prose form by German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe for Friederike Brion in 1771 and used extensively by him in this form in the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), including a character named Minona.
Minona Maria Theresia Selma Loisa Cornelia von Stackelberg (1813-1897) is alleged to have been an illegitimate daughter of Ludwig van Beethoven. Due to those rumors, folk etymology likes to interpret her name as an anagram of anonim and links it to German anonym "anonymous". In 2020 Estonian composer Jüri Reinvere dedicated the opera Minona to her.
Danish feminist writer Mathilde Fibiger used the name for the main character of her novel Minona. En Fortælling (1854).
The so-called Songs of Selma are the most famous poems of the Ossian cycle because of their lyrical and elegiac character. They were translated into prose form by German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe for Friederike Brion in 1771 and used extensively by him in this form in the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), including a character named Minona.
Minona Maria Theresia Selma Loisa Cornelia von Stackelberg (1813-1897) is alleged to have been an illegitimate daughter of Ludwig van Beethoven. Due to those rumors, folk etymology likes to interpret her name as an anagram of anonim and links it to German anonym "anonymous". In 2020 Estonian composer Jüri Reinvere dedicated the opera Minona to her.
Danish feminist writer Mathilde Fibiger used the name for the main character of her novel Minona. En Fortælling (1854).
