LexytheDragon's Personal Name List

Used by William Congreve for a character in his tragedy The Mourning Bride (1697), where it belongs to a captive North African queen. Congreve may have based it on the Arabic name Zahra 1. In 1736 the English writer Aaron Hill used it to translate Zaïre for his popular adaptation of Voltaire's French play Zaïre (1732).

In England the name was popularized when Princess Anne gave it to her daughter in 1981. Use of the name may also be influenced by the trendy Spanish clothing retailer Zara.

From the name of huge trees that grow in California. The tree got its name from the 19th-century Cherokee scholar Sequoyah (also known as George Guess), the inventor of the Cherokee writing system.

Combination of Maria and Anna. It can also be regarded as a variant of the Roman name Mariana, or as a Latinized form of Mariamne.

From the English word for the type of tree, derived ultimately from Latin iuniperus.

Possibly derived from Sumerian nin-an-a(k) meaning "lady of the heavens", from 𒎏 (nin) meaning "lady" and the genitive form of 𒀭 (an) meaning "heaven, sky". Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility and war. She descended into the underworld where the ruler of that place, her sister Ereshkigal, had her killed. The god Enki interceded, and Inanna was allowed to leave the underworld as long as her husband Dumuzi took her place.

Inanna was later conflated with the Semitic (Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian) deity Ishtar.

Latinized form of Ὧρος (Horos), the Greek form of Egyptian ḥrw (reconstructed as Heru and other forms) possibly from ḥr "above, over" or ḥrj "distant". In Egyptian mythology Horus was a god of the sky and light, often depicted as a man with the head of a falcon. In some versions of the mythology he was the son of Osiris and Isis, and avenged his father's murder by killing his uncle Seth.

Means "divine, goddesslike", a derivative of Latin dia or diva meaning "goddess". It is ultimately related to the same Indo-European root *dyew- found in Zeus. Diana was a Roman goddess of the moon, hunting, forests and childbirth, often identified with the Greek goddess Artemis.

As a given name, Diana has been regularly used since the Renaissance. It became more common in the English-speaking world following Walter Scott's novel Rob Roy (1817), which featured a character named Diana Vernon. It also appeared in George Meredith's novel Diana of the Crossways (1885). A notable bearer was the British royal Diana Spencer (1961-1997), the Princess of Wales.

From the Greek name Κύριλλος (Kyrillos), which was derived from Greek κύριος (kyrios) meaning "lord", a word used frequently in the Greek Bible to refer to God or Jesus.

This name was borne by a number of important saints, including Cyril of Jerusalem, a 4th-century bishop and Doctor of the Church, and Cyril of Alexandria, a 5th-century theologian. Another Saint Cyril was a 9th-century Greek missionary to the Slavs, who is credited with creating the Glagolitic alphabet with his brother Methodius in order to translate the Bible into Slavic. The Cyrillic alphabet, named after him, is descended from Glagolitic.

This name has been especially well-used in Eastern Europe and other places where Orthodox Christianity is prevalent. It came into general use in England in the 19th century.

English form of the Greek name Ἀνδρέας (Andreas), which was derived from ἀνδρεῖος (andreios) meaning "manly, masculine", a derivative of ἀνήρ (aner) meaning "man". In the New Testament the apostle Andrew, the first disciple to join Jesus, is the brother of Simon Peter. According to tradition, he later preached in the Black Sea region, with some legends saying he was crucified on an X-shaped cross. Andrew, being a Greek name, was probably only a nickname or a translation of his real Hebrew name, which is not known.

This name has been common (in various spellings) throughout the Christian world, and it became very popular in the Middle Ages. Saint Andrew is regarded as the patron of Scotland, Russia, Greece and Romania. The name has been borne by three kings of Hungary, American president Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), and, more recently, English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948-).

Variant of Alana.