Though in use elsewhere in Europe, the name was very rare in the English-speaking world until the 19th century, when Queen Victoria began her long rule of Britain. She was named after her mother, who was of German royalty. Many geographic areas are named after the queen, including an Australian state and a Canadian city.
This is also an alternate transcription of Russian Ева (see Yeva).
In the United States it became more common for girls in the early 1980s, shortly after the debut of the television sitcom The Facts of Life (1979-1988), which featured a character named Blair Warner. The name left the American top 1000 rankings two decades later, but was resurrected by another television character, this time Blair Waldorf from the series Gossip Girl (2007-2012).
The daughter of Zeus, she was said to have sprung from his head fully grown after he impregnated and swallowed her mother Metis. Athena is associated with the olive tree and the owl.
A famous bearer was the Cuban-French writer Anaïs Nin (1903-1977), known for her diaries.