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

64 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

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 our records carry it 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

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

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