Literary Names

Names invented or popularised by a book or play. Several of the most ordinary-looking names in English use were coined by a single author and have been in circulation ever since.

Rankings for

80 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Olivia Olivia is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "olive tree," used as the feminine form of Oliver.
Girl Latin #1 in US
Emma Emma is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "whole" or "universal," from the element ermen, found in older names such as Ermintrude.
Girl Germanic #3 in US
Oliver Oliver is a boy's name that entered England with the Normans and has a genuinely disputed origin.
Boy Norman French #3 in US
Camila Camila is a girl's name of Latin origin, the Spanish and Portuguese form of Camilla.
Girl Latin #19 in US
Scarlett Scarlett is a girl's name of English origin, taken from an occupational surname for someone who sold or dyed scarlet cloth.
Girl English #32 in US
Emily Emily is a girl's name of Latin origin, from the Roman family name Aemilius.
Girl Latin #34 in US
Layla Layla is a girl's name of Arabic origin meaning "night."
Girl Arabic #36 in US
Emilia Emilia is a girl's name of Latin origin, from the Roman family name Aemilius.
Girl Latin #45 in US
Eloise Eloise is a girl's name of French origin, from the medieval Héloïse.
Girl French #49 in US
Stella Stella is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "star."
Girl Latin #52 in US
Alice Alice is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble," arrived at by a long contraction of Adelaide.
Girl Germanic #65 in US
Juliette Juliette is a girl's name of Latin origin, the French diminutive of Julie and so of Julia, from the Roman family name Julius.
Girl Latin #110 in US
Eliza Eliza is a girl's name that began as a short form of Elizabeth, and so means "God is my oath," from the Hebrew Elisheva.
Girl Hebrew #115 in US
Beckett Beckett is a boy's name of Old English origin, most likely meaning "bee cottage" or "stream."
Boy English #141 in US
Evangeline Evangeline is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "bearer of good news."
Girl Greek #147 in US
Arya Arya is a name of Sanskrit origin meaning "noble."
Girl Sanskrit #159 in US
Daphne Daphne is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "laurel tree."
Girl Greek #178 in US
Rhett Rhett is a boy's name of Dutch origin meaning "advice" or "counsel."
Boy Dutch #188 in US
Oscar Oscar is a boy's name with two competing origins: the Irish os, deer, plus cara, friend, giving "deer lover," or the Old Norse Ásgeirr, meaning "god's spear."
Boy Irish #223 in US
Ophelia Ophelia is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "help" or "benefit."
Girl Greek #264 in US
Juliet Juliet is thirteen in the play, and Shakespeare says so twice — the Nurse gives her age precisely, which most productions quietly ignore and most readers never notice.
Girl English #274 in US
Atticus Atticus is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "from Attica", the region of Greece around Athens.
Boy Latin #281 in US
Holden Holden is a boy's name of English origin meaning "deep valley".
Boy English #297 in US
Romeo Romeo is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "pilgrim to Rome."
Boy Latin #301 in US
Dante Dante means enduring, and it is a nickname that outlived its full form — the poet was christened Durante, and almost nobody has used that name since, while the short version became international.
Boy Italian #308 in US
Sabrina Sabrina is the Latin name of the River Severn, and the legend behind it is a drowning — a princess thrown into the river became its spirit.
Girl Latin #321 in US
Lorelai Lorelai is a girl's name of German origin naming a rock on the Rhine, where a siren was said to lure boatmen to their deaths.
Girl German #333 in US
Heidi Heidi is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble one."
Girl Germanic #341 in US
Matilda Matilda is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "mighty in battle."
Girl Germanic #364 in US
Esmeralda Esmeralda is not the character's name in the novel — Hugo's girl is christened Agnès and called Esmeralda for the green amulet she wears, so the name most readers know her by is a nickname.
Girl Spanish #373 in US
Vanessa Vanessa was invented by Jonathan Swift around 1713, built from the name of a woman he was writing to — and it later became the name of a genus of butterflies.
Girl English #377 in US
Laura Laura is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "laurel," the tree whose leaves crowned Roman victors and poets.
Girl Latin #379 in US
Lyra Lyra is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "lyre," the stringed instrument of classical antiquity.
Girl Greek #435 in US
Fiona Fiona was invented by a Scottish poet, and then used as a pen name by a man — William Sharp published as Fiona Macleod for a decade and denied being her until his death.
Girl Scottish #470 in US
Amanda Amanda is a girl's name from the Latin for she who must be loved, and one of the few names on this site that can be dated to a specific literary invention — Colley Cibber used it for a character in his 1696 play Love's Last Shift.
Girl Latin #493 in US
Beatrice Beatrice is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "she who brings happiness."
Girl Latin #508 in US
Estella Estella means star, and Dickens chose the name deliberately — Great Expectations gives it to a girl raised to be beautiful and unreachable, which is what a star is.
Girl Spanish #510 in US
Dorian Dorian names a Greek people rather than a quality, and Oscar Wilde put it into use — The Picture of Dorian Gray appeared in 1890 and the name has never been separable from it since.
Boy Greek #539 in US
Roland Roland is a boy's name meaning famous land, and its bearer is the hero of France's national epic — a knight who dies at Roncevaux because he is too proud to blow his horn for help.
Boy Germanic #609 in US
Miranda Miranda was coined by Shakespeare for The Tempest around 1611, from the Latin for to be wondered at.
Girl Latin #655 in US
Briana Briana is a feminine of Brian, and it first appears in Spenser's Faerie Queene in 1590 — which makes it one of very few names whose earliest recorded use is a specific poem.
Girl Irish #661 in US
Myra Myra was invented by a poet — Fulke Greville coined it around 1580, probably by rearranging Mary, and every later meaning attached to it was supplied after the fact.
Girl English #662 in US
Jessica Jessica is a girl's name invented by Shakespeare for The Merchant of Venice in 1596.
Girl Hebrew #665 in US
Lara Lara is a girl's name of Russian origin, a short form of Larisa, and its meaning is unresolved — most often given as "citadel," after the Greek city of Larissa.
Girl Russian #691 in US
Louisa Louisa is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior," a Latinate form of Louise.
Girl Germanic #694 in US
Angelica Angelica is both a name and a plant, and the plant is named for the angel — a medieval legend has one reveal it as a cure during plague, which is why it was grown in monastery gardens.
Girl Latin #708 in US
Ramona Ramona means protecting counsel, and a novel made it — Helen Hunt Jackson wrote Ramona in 1884 to expose the treatment of Native Californians, and readers took the romance and ignored the argument.
Girl Spanish #733 in US
Celia Celia is a girl's name of Latin origin from the Roman family name Caelius, whose meaning is disputed between "heaven" and a much older Etruscan word.
Girl Latin #775 in US

Or Browse by Decade

A style is our reading of a name. A decade is the register — the names children were actually given, in order, with the counts.

Search Names

Literary Names

Or Browse by Decade

Related Styles