Literary Girl Names

Names invented or popularized 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

69 names, most popular first in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Lucinda Lucinda was invented by Cervantes — the name appears in Don Quixote in 1605 and has no record before it, which makes it one of the few names on this site with a datable author.
Spanish #1,747 in US
Tess Tess is a girl's name of Greek origin, a short form of Theresa whose meaning has never been established despite centuries of attempts.
English #1,783 in US
Belinda Belinda is a literary invention with a snake in it — the Germanic element behind it is usually read as a serpent, and Pope's Rape of the Lock made the name fashionable in 1712.
English #1,826 in US
Melinda Melinda is an invented name rather than an inherited one — an eighteenth-century literary coinage joining the Greek word for honey to the ending of Belinda and Lucinda.
English #1,984 in US
Pamela Pamela is a girl's name invented by a poet: Sir Philip Sidney coined it for his Arcadia around 1580, apparently from Greek elements meaning all sweetness.
English #2,248 in US
Geraldine Geraldine was invented in a 1537 love poem — the Earl of Surrey coined it for Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald, calling her the Fair Geraldine.
Germanic #2,438 in US
Janice Janice is a girl's name usually credited to a 1899 novel, though it is on record from 1894 — five years before the book.
English #2,520 in US
Lynette Lynette entered English through Tennyson, who reshaped a Welsh name for the Idylls of the King — Luned became Lynette, and the spelling he used is the one that survived.
Welsh #2,608 in US
Selma Selma may have been invented by a forger — the name appears in Macpherson's Ossian poems of the 1760s, which he presented as ancient Gaelic epic and largely wrote himself.
German #2,810 in US
Coralie Coralie names a skeleton — coral is the calcium structure built by colonies of tiny animals, so the name describes an object made by living things rather than a plant or a stone.
French #2,986 in US
Darcie Darcie is a girl's name of Norman French origin meaning "from Arcy."
French #3,563 in US
Aisling Aisling is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "dream" or "vision," and it names a whole genre of Irish political poetry.
Irish #3,783 in US
Gretchen Gretchen means little pearl, and German uses her name for a kind of question — a Gretchenfrage is the awkward essential one you cannot dodge, after the question she puts to Faust about religion.
German #4,322 in US
Thelma Thelma is a girl's name invented for a novel in 1887, and the Greek word it was probably built from means "will" or "volition."
English #4,695 in US
Viviane Viviane means alive, and in Arthurian romance she is the Lady of the Lake — the figure who gives Arthur his sword and then seals Merlin in a tree or a rock, depending on which version you read.
French #5,534 in US
Héloïse Héloïse is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "healthy" and "wide," carried by the twelfth-century scholar whose letters to Abelard are among the most famous correspondence in Europe.
French #6,369 in US
Mireille Mireille was invented by a poet.
French #8,713 in US
Manon Manon is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a French diminutive of Marie whose meaning has never been settled.
French #9,953 in US
Roxane Roxane is a girl's name of Persian origin meaning "bright" or "dawn," borne by the Bactrian noblewoman who married Alexander the Great.
French #13,935 in US
Claudine Claudine is a French girl's name meaning lame, from a Roman family name.
French 170,774 births
Utopia Utopia is a rare girl's name from the word coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book about an ideal island.
Greek, English 44 births

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