anais82's Personal Name List

Short form of Alexandra.

Elaborated form of Alexandra. This was the first name of Queen Victoria; her middle name was Victoria.

Estonian form of Andrew.

Derived from the Greek elements ἀρχός (archos) meaning "master" and μήδεα (medea) meaning "plans, counsel, cunning". This was the name of a 3rd-century BC Greek mathematician, astronomer and inventor.

Medieval diminutive of Æðelþryð. This was the name of a 7th-century saint, a princess of East Anglia who founded a monastery at Ely. It was also used by William Shakespeare for a character in his comedy As You Like It (1599). At the end of the Middle Ages the name became rare due to association with the word tawdry (which was derived from St. Audrey, the name of a fair where cheap lace was sold), but it was revived in the 19th century. A famous bearer was British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).

Greek form of an Aramaic name. In Acts in the New Testament the byname Barnabas was given to a man named Joseph, a Jew from Cyprus who was a companion of Paul on his missionary journeys. The original Aramaic form is unattested, but it may be from בּר נביא (bar navi) meaning "son of the prophet", though in Acts 4:36 it is claimed that the name means "son of encouragement".

As an English name, Barnabas came into occasional use after the 12th century. It is now rare, though the variant Barnaby is still moderately common in Britain.

French form of Barnabas.

Diminutive of Benjamin or Benedict.

From Old Welsh Catell, derived from cat "battle" and a diminutive suffix. This was the name of two early kings of Powys in Wales.

Meaning unknown, though the first element is likely connected to Brythonic kad meaning "battle". Saint Caedmon was a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon poet who supposedly received his poetic inspiration from a dream. Our only knowledge of him is through the 8th-century writings of the historian Bede.

Means "charity" in Spanish. It is taken from the title of the Virgin Mary, Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, meaning "Our Lady of Charity". This is the name of the patron saint of Cuba, with a shrine located in the town of El Cobre.

Latinate feminine form of Carolus. This is the name of two American states: North and South Carolina. They were named for Charles I, king of England.

Used by author C. S. Lewis for a character in his Chronicles of Narnia series, first appearing in 1950. Prince Caspian first appears in the fourth book, where he is the rightful king of Narnia driven into exile by his evil uncle Miraz. Lewis probably based the name on the Caspian Sea, which was named for the city of Qazvin, which was itself named for the ancient Cas tribe.

Derived from the Hebrew word חַיִּים (chayim) meaning "life". It has been used since medieval times.

Diminutive of Cian. This was the name of a 5th-century Irish saint.

French form of the Breton name Kaourintin, possibly from korventenn meaning "hurricane, storm". Alternatively, it could be connected to the Brythonic root *karid meaning "love" (modern Breton karout). This was the name of a 5th-century bishop of Quimper in Brittany.

From Latin dulcis meaning "sweet". It was used in the Middle Ages in the spellings Dowse and Duce, and was recoined in the 19th century.

Scandinavian and Finnish form of Elizabeth. It is also used in Spain alongside the traditional form Isabel.

Basque form of Elizabeth.

Diminutive of Elizabeth. It was popularized in the early 1980s by a character from the television comedy Family Ties.

Feminine form of Fionn. This name was (first?) used by the Scottish poet James Macpherson in his poem Fingal (1761), in which it is spelled as Fióna.

Bulgarian, Macedonian and Romanian form of Gabriel.

Possibly a shortened form of Genevieve. It could also be inspired by the name of the city in Switzerland. It has been used as a given name in the English-speaking world since the 19th century.

English form of Geneviève.

Combination of Gianni and Carlo.

Combination of Gianni and Marco.

From the Hebrew name גִּדְעוֹן (Giḏʿon) meaning "feller, hewer", derived from גָּדַע (gaḏaʿ) meaning "to cut, to hew" [1]. Gideon is a hero and judge of the Old Testament. He led the vastly outnumbered Israelites against the Midianites, defeated them, and killed their two kings. In the English-speaking world, Gideon has been used as a given name since the Protestant Reformation, and it was popular among the Puritans.

Derived from the name of the Greek messenger god Hermes. In Greek myth Hermione was the daughter of Menelaus and Helen. This is also the name of the wife of Leontes in Shakespeare's play The Winter's Tale (1610). It is now closely associated with the character Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series of books, first released in 1997.

Basque form of Ignatius.

Variant of Jeannine.

Contracted form of Jehoiachin or Jehoiakim. According to the apocryphal Gospel of James, Saint Joachim was the husband of Saint Anne and the father of the Virgin Mary. Due to his popularity in the Middle Ages, the name came into general use in Christian Europe (though it was never common in England).

Spanish form of Joachim.

From the Hebrew name יוֹאֵל (Yoʾel) meaning "Yahweh is God", from the elements יוֹ (yo) and אֵל (ʾel), both referring to the Hebrew God. Joel is one of the twelve minor prophets of the Old Testament, the author of the Book of Joel, which describes a plague of locusts. In England, it was first used as a Christian name after the Protestant Reformation.

Formed from Jo and the common name suffix lene. This name was created in the early 20th century. It received a boost in popularity after the release of Dolly Parton's 1973 song Jolene.

Form of Katya in various languages.

Italian, Spanish and Portuguese form of Leonard. A notable bearer was Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), an Italian artist and scientist of the Renaissance. He is known as the inventor of several contraptions, including flying machines, as well as the painter of the Mona Lisa. Another famous bearer was Leonardo Fibonacci, a 13th-century Italian mathematician. A more recent bearer is American actor Leonardo DiCaprio (1974-).

French diminutive of Léon. It appears in Arthurian legend in the 13th-century Lancelot-Grail Cycle, belonging to a knight who was the brother of Sir Bors. A notable modern bearer is the Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi (1987-).

Latinate feminine form of Louis. A famous bearer was the American novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), the author of Little Women.

English form of Madeleine. This is the name of the heroine in a series of children's books by the Austrian-American author Ludwig Bemelmans, first published 1939.

Combination of Marie and Anne 1, though it could also be considered a variant of Mariana or Mariamne. Shortly after the formation of the French Republic in 1792, a female figure by this name was adopted as the symbol of the state.

French and Czech form of Maria. It has been very common in France since the 13th century. At the opening of the 20th century it was given to approximately 20 percent of French girls. This percentage has declined steadily over the course of the century, and it dropped from the top rank in 1958.

A notable bearer of this name was Marie Antoinette, a queen of France who was executed by guillotine during the French Revolution. Another was Marie Curie (1867-1934), a physicist and chemist who studied radioactivity with her husband Pierre.

In France it is occasionally used as a masculine name in pairings such as Jean-Marie.

Form of Mary used in the Old Testament, where it belongs to the elder sister of Moses and Aaron. She watched over the infant Moses as the pharaoh's daughter drew him from the Nile. The name has long been popular among Jews, and it has been used as an English Christian name (alongside Mary) since the Protestant Reformation.

Spanish form of Solomon.

Means "Saint James", derived from Spanish santo "saint" combined with Yago, an old Spanish form of James, the patron saint of Spain. It is the name of the main character in the novella The Old Man and the Sea (1951) by Ernest Hemingway. This also is the name of the capital city of Chile, as well as several other cities in the Spanish-speaking world.

Italian, Spanish and Portuguese form of Seraphina.

Means "wisdom" in Greek. This was the name of an early, probably mythical, saint who died of grief after her three daughters were martyred during the reign of the emperor Hadrian. Legends about her probably arose as a result of a medieval misunderstanding of the phrase Hagia Sophia "Holy Wisdom", which is the name of a large basilica in Constantinople.

This name was common among continental European royalty during the Middle Ages, and it was popularized in Britain by the German House of Hanover when they inherited the British throne in the 18th century. It was the name of characters in the novels Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding and The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) by Oliver Goldsmith.

In the United States this name was only moderately common until the 1990s when it began rising in popularity, eventually becoming the most popular for girls from 2011 to 2013. A famous bearer is the Italian actress Sophia Loren (1934-).

English variant of Susanna. This has been most common spelling since the 18th century. It was especially popular both in the United States and the United Kingdom from the 1940s to the 1960s. A notable bearer was the American feminist Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906).

Italian form of Thaddeus.

Polish form of Thaddeus. This name is borne by Tadeusz Soplica, the title character in Adam Mickiewicz's epic poem Pan Tadeusz (1834), which is considered to be the national epic of Poland.

Italian, Spanish and Portuguese form of Theodoros (see Theodore).

From Θαδδαῖος (Thaddaios), the Greek form of the Aramaic name תַדַּי (Ṯaddai). It is possibly derived from Aramaic תַּד (taḏ) meaning "heart, breast", but it may in fact be an Aramaic form of a Greek name such as Θεόδωρος (see Theodore). In the Gospel of Matthew, Thaddaeus is listed as one of the twelve apostles, though elsewhere in the New Testament his name is omitted and Jude's appears instead. It is likely that the two names refer to the same person.

From the English word Trinity, given in honour of the Christian belief that God has one essence, but three distinct expressions of being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It has only been in use as a given name since the 20th century.

From the name of the city in Italy, which is itself of unknown meaning.

Latin alteration of Berenice, the spelling influenced by the ecclesiastical Latin phrase vera icon meaning "true image". This was the name of a legendary saint who wiped Jesus' face with a towel and then found his image imprinted upon it. Due to popular stories about her, the name was occasionally used in the Christian world in the Middle Ages. It was borne by the Italian saint and mystic Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727). As an English name, it was not common until the 19th century, when it was imported from France and Scotland.

Italian form of Victorinus.

French form of Viviana.