Virvo's Personal Name List

Means "whirlwind" in Greek. In Greek myth this was the name of an Amazon warrior killed by Herakles during his quest for Hippolyta's girdle.

Means "daybreak, morning" in Albanian, from afër "nearby, close" and ditë "day". It is also used as an Albanian form of Aphrodite.

Possibly means "my moon" in Kazakh, from ай (ay) meaning "moon" and the Persian possessive من (man) meaning "my". Aiman and Sholpan are sisters in a 19th-century Kazakh epic poem, later adapted into the 1934 play Aiman-Sholpan by Mukhtar Auezov.

French form of Eleanor.

Probably from Viatrix, a feminine form of the Late Latin name Viator meaning "voyager, traveller". It was a common name amongst early Christians, and the spelling was altered by association with Latin beatus "blessed, happy". Viatrix or Beatrix was a 4th-century saint who was strangled to death during the persecutions of Diocletian.

In England the name became rare after the Middle Ages, but it was revived in the 19th century, more commonly in the spelling Beatrice. Famous bearers include the British author and illustrator Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), the creator of Peter Rabbit, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands (1938-).

Means "green shoot" in Greek, referring to new plant growth in the spring. This was an epithet of the Greek goddess Demeter. The name is also mentioned by Paul in one of his epistles in the New Testament.

As an English name, Chloe has been in use since the Protestant Reformation. It started getting more popular in the 1980s in the United Kingdom and then the United States. It was the most popular name for girls in England and Wales from 1997 to 2002. This is one of the few English-language names that is often written with a diaeresis, as Chloë.

Short form of Cleopatra, Cleon or Cleopas.

Bulgarian and Macedonian form of Katherine, and an alternate transcription of Russian Екатерина (see Yekaterina).

Means "snowdrop (flower)" in Georgian (genus Galanthus).

Polish, Slovak, Romanian and Lithuanian form of Esther.

Spanish form of Stella 1, coinciding with the Spanish word meaning "star".

Means "flower" in French. Saint Fleur of Issendolus (Flor in Gascon) was a 14th-century nun from Maurs, France. This was also the name of a character in John Galsworthy's novels The Forsyte Saga (1922).

From the medieval name Genovefa, which is of uncertain origin. It could be derived from the Germanic elements *kunją "clan, family, lineage" and *wībą "wife, woman". Alternatively it could be of Gaulish origin, from the related Celtic element *genos "kin, family" combined with a second element of unknown meaning. This name was borne by Saint Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, who inspired the city to resist the Huns in the 5th century.

German form of Iseult, appearing in the 13th-century German poem Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg. In 1865 the German composer Richard Wagner debuted his popular opera Tristan und Isolde and also used the name for his first daughter.

Means "the moon" in Latin (as well as Italian, Spanish and other Romance languages). Luna was the Roman goddess of the moon, frequently depicted driving a white chariot through the sky.

Means "poetry" in Estonian.

Means "related to the moon" in Persian.

Meaning unknown. According to the 19th-century Polish-Lithuanian historian Teodor Narbutt, this was the name of a Lithuanian goddess of love.

Means "victory" in Greek. Nike was the Greek goddess of victory.

Variant of Sacnicte.

From the Greek name Σαπφείρη (Sappheire), which was from Greek σάπφειρος (sappheiros) meaning "sapphire" or "lapis lazuli" (ultimately derived from the Hebrew word סַפִּיר (sappir)). Sapphira is a character in Acts in the New Testament who is killed by God for lying.

Form of Sonya in various languages.

Russian and Ukrainian feminine form of Valerius, as well as an alternate transcription of Belarusian Валерыя (see Valeryia).

Earlier form of Beatrix.

Possibly a variant of Fiona influenced by Viola.