This was a common name in classical Greece, and, due to both the saints who carried it and the favourable meaning, it came into general use in the Christian world, being especially popular among Eastern Christians. It was however rare in Britain before the 19th century. Famous bearers include three tsars of Russia (in the Russian form Fyodor) and American president Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919).
This name has never been overly common in the Christian world, and it is considered typically Jewish. It was however borne by an 11th-century Hungarian king.
While the main character Shasta in the 1954 C. S. Lewis novel The Horse and His Boy was male, this is now generally considered a feminine name in the English-speaking world.
A notable bearer was the American musician Miles Davis (1926-1991). In Scotland this name was historically used to Anglicize Maoilios.
As an English name, Jonathan did not become common until after the Protestant Reformation. A famous bearer was the Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), who wrote Gulliver's Travels and other works.
This name was initially more common among Eastern Christians in the Byzantine Empire, but it flourished in Western Europe after the First Crusade. In England it became extremely popular, typically being the most common male name from the 13th to the 20th century (but sometimes outpaced by William). During the later Middle Ages it was given to approximately a fifth of all English boys. In the United States it was the most common name for boys until 1923.
The name (in various spellings) has been borne by 21 popes and eight Byzantine emperors, as well as rulers of England, France, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria, Russia and Hungary. It was also borne by the poet John Milton (1608-1674), philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), American founding father and president John Adams (1735-1826), and poet John Keats (1795-1821). Famous bearers of the 20th century include author John Steinbeck (1902-1968), assassinated American president John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), and musician John Lennon (1940-1980).
The forms Ian (Scottish), Sean (Irish) and Evan (Welsh) have also been frequently used in the English-speaking world, as has the medieval diminutive Jack.
According to tales first recorded in Old French in the 12th century, Yseut or Ysolt was an Irish princess betrothed to King Mark of Cornwall. After accidentally drinking a love potion, she became the lover of his nephew Tristan. Their tragic story, which was set in the Arthurian world, was popular during the Middle Ages and the name became relatively common in England at that time. It was rare by the 19th century, though some interest was generated by Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde (1865).
This name has traditionally been more popular among Eastern Christians. In the English-speaking world it was not regularly used until the 19th century.
This name was not regularly given to people until the 19th century [4][3]. It was used by George Eliot for a character in her novel Daniel Deronda (1876).
During the 20th century, Graham was more common in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada than it was in the United States. However, it has been rising on the American charts since around 2006.
A known bearer of this given name was the Austrian-Hungarian (but of Polish descent) flying ace Godwin von Brumowski (1889-1936).
This is also an alternate transcription of Russian Ева (see Yeva).
This name has been used in the English-speaking world since the Protestant Reformation. In America it received a boost in popularity after the birth of Esther Cleveland (1893-1980), the daughter of President Grover Cleveland [1].
Famous bearers of the name include the English poet Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), the German-Czech philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), the first person to climb Mount Everest.
It has never been very common as a given name in the English-speaking world, though it rose in popularity after the middle of the 20th century. In the United States it is frequently an African-American name. In Lithuania it may be given in honour of the Lithuanian-American aviator Steponas Darius (1896-1933), who died attempting to fly nonstop from New York to Lithuania. His surname was an Americanized form of the original Darašius.
Due to the popularity of the biblical character, the name came into use in England during the Middle Ages. Though it became rare by the 15th century, it was revived after the Protestant Reformation. Famous bearers of this name include English author Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782), and American frontiersman Daniel Boone (1734-1820).
This name is sometimes listed as a medieval French form of the Germanic name Ansfried, but that should technically be incorrect, as names starting with Ans- typically do not become Au- in medieval French. Only names that start with Al- do, such as Albert (which becomes Aubert) and Albin (which becomes Aubin). Also compare Avery.
The name was borne by a 17th-century English queen and also by the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn (the mother of Queen Elizabeth I), who was eventually beheaded in the Tower of London. Another notable bearer was the German-Jewish diarist Anne (Annelies) Frank, a young victim of the Holocaust in 1945. This is also the name of the heroine in the 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables by Canadian author L. M. Montgomery.
Alberich is a sorcerer dwarf who guards the treasure of the Nibelungen in the medieval German epic the Nibelungenlied. The dwarf also appears in Ortnit as a helper to the hero.
Adelasia of Torres (1207-1259) was the Judge of Logudoro from 1236 and Judge of Gallura from 1238, while Adelasia del Vasto (c. 1075 – 16 April 1118) was the third wife of Roger I of Sicily and mother of Roger II of Sicily, as well as Queen consort of Jerusalem due to her later marriage to Baldwin I of Jerusalem, as his third wife.
Adelasia ed Aleramo (1806) is an opera composed by Johann Simon Mayr.