Literary 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

12 names, rare — 25 to 99 a year, in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

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.
Girl English 97 in 2025
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.
Girl English 82 in 2025
Geraldine Geraldine was invented in a 1537 love poem — the Earl of Surrey coined it for Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald, calling her the Fair Geraldine.
Girl Germanic 73 in 2025
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.
Girl English 70 in 2025
Olivier Olivier is a boy's name usually taken as olive tree, though the character who made it famous — Roland's companion in the Song of Roland — may carry a Norse name meaning elf army instead.
Boy French 52 in 2025
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.
Girl Welsh 66 in 2025
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.
Girl German 61 in 2025
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.
Girl French 56 in 2025
Darcie Darcie is a girl's name of Norman French origin meaning "from Arcy."
Girl French 43 in 2025
Aisling Aisling is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "dream" or "vision," and it names a whole genre of Irish political poetry.
Girl Irish 39 in 2025
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.
Girl German 33 in 2025
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."
Girl English 29 in 2025

Or Browse by Decade

A decade page lists the names children were given in those years, in order, with the counts.

Search Names

Literary Names

Or Browse by Decade

Related Styles