erb816's Personal Name List

Possibly means "forever, always" in Zapotec. It appears in the novel Aztec (1980) by the American author Gary Jennings.

Polish form of Sophia.

Feminine form of Ziv.

Alternate transcription of Arabic زينب (see Zaynab) chiefly used in North Africa.

Anglicized form of Zéphyrine.

Persian form of Yusuf, as well as an alternate Arabic transcription.

Amharic form of John.

Alternate transcription of Arabic ياسمين (see Yasmin).

Variant of Yasmin.

Derived from the Old German elements wolf meaning "wolf" and gang meaning "path, way". Saint Wolfgang was a 10th-century bishop of Regensburg. Two other famous bearers of this name were Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) and German novelist and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).

Variant of Gwenneg.

From Sanskrit विवेक (viveka) meaning "wisdom, distinction, discrimination".

Swedish form of Vibeke.

Sardinian feminine form of Vincent.

Possibly derived from Finnish virvatuli meaning "will o' the wisp". In folklore, will o' the wisp is a floating ball of light that appears over water.

French form of Verena.

Possibly related to Latin verus "true". This might also be a Coptic form of the Ptolemaic name Berenice. Saint Verena was a 3rd-century Egyptian-born nurse who went with the Theban Legion to Switzerland. After the legion was massacred she settled near Zurich.

Shortened form of Verdiana

French form of Venantius.

Means "knowledge" in Sanskrit.

Feminine form of Vanderley.

French form of Tatiana.

Means "white fire" from Welsh tan "fire" (compare Tanguy) combined with gwen "white, fair, blessed". This is a modern Welsh name, first used in the 1960s.

Means "shining brow", derived from Welsh tal "brow, head" and iesin "shining, radiant". This was the name of a semi-legendary 6th-century Welsh poet and bard, supposedly the author of the collection of poems the Book of Taliesin. He appears briefly in the Welsh legend Culhwch and Olwen and the Second Branch of the Mabinogi. He is the central character in the Tale of Taliesin, a medieval legend recorded in the 16th century, which tells how Ceridwen's servant Gwion Bach was reborn to her as Taliesin; how he becomes the bard for Elffin; and how Taliesin defends Elffin from the machinations of the king Maelgwn Gwynedd.

Derived from Russian свет (svet) meaning "light, world". It was popularized by the poem Svetlana (1813) by the poet Vasily Zhukovsky. It is sometimes used as a translation of Photine.

Scandinavian form of the Old English name Sunngifu, which meant "sun gift" from the Old English elements sunne "sun" and giefu "gift". This was the name of a legendary English saint who was shipwrecked in Norway and killed by the inhabitants.

Meaning unknown, perhaps related to Old Norse stilling "calm", or perhaps of German origin.

Form of Stephen used in several languages. Famous bearers include the Serbian rulers Stefan Nemanja, Stefan Nemanjić, and Stefan Lazarević, who are all considered saints in the Orthodox Church.

Italian cognate of Esperanza. Edmund Spenser used it in his epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590) for the sister of Fidelia. It was also assumed as a pen name by the Irish poet Lady Wilde (1821-1896), the mother of Oscar Wilde.

English form of Søren.

Form of Sonya in various languages.

From an Old Norse name, which was derived from the elements sól "sun" and veig "strength". This is the name of the heroine in Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt (1876).

Spanish and Italian feminine form of Syrus.

Italian and Galician feminine form of Silverio.

Means "singing" in Hebrew.

Possibly means "noble lineage" from Persian چهر (chehr) meaning "lineage, origin" and آزاد (āzād) meaning "free, noble" [1]. Alternatively, it might mean "child of the city" from شهر (shahr) meaning "city, land" combined with the suffix زاد (zād) meaning "child of". This is the name of the fictional storyteller in The 1001 Nights. She tells a story to her husband the king every night for 1001 nights in order to delay her execution.

From the Old German element sahso meaning "a Saxon". The Saxons were a Germanic tribe, their name ultimately deriving from the Germanic word *sahsą meaning "knife". Saskia van Uylenburgh (1612-1642) was the wife of the Dutch painter Rembrandt.

Means "freedom" in Irish Gaelic. It was first used as a given name in the 20th century.

Feminine form of Said.

Feminine form of Sadi.

Possibly a variant of Romana.

Diminutive of Rivka.

Means "one that moves" in Sanskrit. This is another name of the Hindu goddess Rati.

Means "sun" in Sanskrit. Ravi is a Hindu god of the sun, sometimes equated with Surya. A famous bearer was the musician Ravi Shankar (1920-2012).

Spanish and Portuguese form of Rachel.

Alternate transcription of Arabic رانية (see Raniya).

Catalan form of Raymond.

From Sanskrit पूर्णिमा (pūrṇimā) meaning "full moon".

Means "pillar" in Spanish. It is taken from the title of the Virgin Mary, María del Pilar, meaning "Mary of the Pillar". According to legend, when Saint James the Greater was in Saragossa in Spain, the Virgin Mary appeared on a pillar.

Feminine form of Pius.

Variant of Piran.

Italian and Spanish cognate of Pearl.

Anglicized form of Úna, as well as a Finnish form.

French form of Octavia.

Means "heavenly mist" from Hawaiian noe "mist" and lani "heaven, sky, royal, majesty".

Meaning unknown. In Arthurian legends this is the name of a sorceress, also known as the Lady of the Lake, Vivien, or Niniane. Various versions of the tales have Merlin falling in love with her and becoming imprisoned by her magic. She first appears in the medieval French Lancelot-Grail Cycle.

Alternate transcription of Russian/Bulgarian Николай (see Nikolay).

Means "bright" in Irish. She was the daughter of the sea god Manannán mac Lir in Irish legends. She fell in love with the poet Oisín, the son of Fionn mac Cumhaill. It has been used as a given name for people only since the early 20th century.

Possibly from Zapotec nadxiie lii meaning "I love you" or nayele' meaning "open".

From Sanskrit नव (nava) meaning "new, fresh".

Means "wild rose" in Persian.

Occitan (Mistralian) form of Mireille.

From the Occitan name Mirèio, which was first used by the poet Frédéric Mistral for the main character in his poem Mirèio (1859). He probably derived it from the Occitan word mirar meaning "to admire". It is spelled Mirèlha in classical Occitan orthography. A notable bearer is the French singer Mireille Mathieu (1946-).

Spanish, Portuguese and Galician form of Michael. A notable bearer of this name was Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616), the Spanish novelist and poet who wrote Don Quixote.

Means "marjoram" in French, from Latin maiorana. Marjoram is a minty herb.

Form of Maria used in the Greek Old Testament. In the Greek New Testament both this spelling and Μαρία (Maria) are used. It is also the Georgian, Armenian and Malay form, as well as an alternate transcription of Arabic مريم (see Maryam).

From the Ottoman Turkish مهارت, from Arabic مَهَارَة (mahāra) & means, "skill (capacity to do something well)".

Means "snow" in Finnish.

Possibly from a feminine form of Leutwin. It was popularized in the 1970s by a character from the French miniseries Les Gens de Mogador.

From the name of a French town. It became a popular center of pilgrimage after a young girl from the town had visions of the Virgin Mary in a nearby grotto.

Armenian form of Leon. This was the name of several kings of Cilician Armenia, including the first king Levon I the Magnificent.

Means "heavenly flowers" or "royal child" from Hawaiian lei "flowers, lei, child" and lani "heaven, sky, royal, majesty".

French form of Lauriana.

Means "love" in Cornish.

Russian diminutive of Yekaterina.

Dutch form of Katherine, used especially in Flanders.

Polish form of Katherine.

Form of Khadija used in parts of French-influenced West Africa.

Breton form of Iudocus (see Joyce).

Latin form of Greek Ioannes (see John). Notable bearers include the inventor of the printing press Johannes Gutenberg (1398-1468), astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), and composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).

Latinate form of Greek Ioanna (see Joanna).

Unaccented form of Joaquín used mainly in America.

Spanish form of Xavier.

Spanish variant of Isidore.

Spanish variant of Isidora.

Means "beauty" in Sanskrit. This is another name of Lakshmi, the wife of the Hindu god Vishnu. A notable bearer was India's first female prime minister, Indira Gandhi (1917-1984).

Most commonly this is a variant of the Arabic name حسن, which is typically transcribed Hasan.

Alternatively, this spelling can represent the distinct but related Arabic name حسّان (having a doubled middle consonant and a final long vowel) meaning "beautifier, improver". Hassan ibn Thabit was a 7th-century poet who was a companion of the Prophet Muhammad.

Feminine form of Hadi.

French form of Gustav. This name was borne by the French artist Gustave Doré (1832-1883) and the French engineer Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923).

Breton feminine form of Franciscus (see Francis).

Combination of Francesca and Pia.

Means "flower" in French. Saint Fleur of Issendolus (Flor in Gascon) was a 14th-century nun from Maurs, France. This was also the name of a character in John Galsworthy's novels The Forsyte Saga (1922).

Means "horseman, knight" in Arabic.

Variant of Fayruz.

Anglicized form of Eòghann.

Spanish form of the Late Latin name Sperantia, which was derived from sperare "to hope".

French cognate of Esperanza, currently most common in Francophone Africa.

Derived from Turkish esmer "dark" and ay "moon".

Means "emerald" in Spanish and Portuguese. Victor Hugo used this name in his novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), in which Esmeralda is the Romani girl who is loved by Quasimodo. It has occasionally been used in the English-speaking world since that time.

Cornish form of Iseult.

Anglicized form of Eithne.

Probably derived from Welsh enaid meaning "soul, spirit, life". In Arthurian tales she first appears in the 12th-century French poem Erec and Enide by Chrétien de Troyes, where she is the wife of Erec. In later adaptations she is typically the wife of Geraint. The name became more commonly used after the publication of Alfred Tennyson's Arthurian poem Enid in 1859, and it was fairly popular in Britain in the first half of the 20th century.

Anglicized form of Endelienta, the Latin form of a Welsh or Cornish name. It was borne by a 5th or 6th-century Cornish saint whose birth name is lost. According to some traditions she was a daughter of Brychan Brycheiniog (identifying her with Cynheiddon).

French feminine form of Emmanuel.

Scottish form of Elizabeth.

Means "elm tree" in Cornish. This is a recently coined Cornish name.

Italian form of Eloise.

Diminutive of Eilionoir, also taken to be a Gaelic form of Helen.

Latinized form of Étaín. This was the name of an early Irish saint.

Russian variant of Dmitriy, as well as the Georgian form.

Means "of the snows" in French, taken from the title of the Virgin Mary Notre Dame des Neiges meaning "Our Lady of the Snows" (see Nieves).

Medieval short form of Durante. The most notable bearer of this name was Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), the Italian poet who wrote the Divine Comedy.

From a French surname that was derived from a place name meaning "stony". It was originally given in honour of Saint Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal, the founder of the Visitation Order in the 17th century. It has become associated with French chant "song".

Possibly from cyrrid "bent, crooked" (a derivative of Old Welsh cwrr "corner") combined with ben "woman" or gwen "white, blessed". According to the medieval Welsh legend the Tale of Taliesin (recorded by Elis Gruffyd in the 16th century) this was the name of a sorceress who created a potion that would grant wisdom to her son Morfan. The potion was instead consumed by her servant Gwion Bach, who was subsequently reborn as the renowned bard Taliesin.

This name appears briefly in a poem in the Black Book of Carmarthen in the form Kyrridven [1] and in a poem in the Book of Taliesin in the form Kerrituen [2]. Some theories connect her to an otherwise unattested Celtic goddess of inspiration, and suppose her name is related to Welsh cerdd "poetry".

Anglicized form of Caitríona (Irish) or Caitrìona (Scottish Gaelic).

Variant of Cassiopeia.

Perhaps a form of Azalaïs. It was borne by Saint Marie-Azélie Guérin (1831-1877), also called Zélie, the mother of Thérèse of Lisieux.

From an element of uncertain meaning combined with Kazakh жан (zhan) meaning "soul" (of Persian origin).

French form of April. A famous bearer is the Canadian musician Avril Lavigne (1984-).

Greek form of Aura.

Feminine variant of Aviv.

Means "reddish brown, dawn" in Sanskrit. The Hindu god Aruna (अरुण) is the charioteer who drives the sun god Surya across the sky. The modern feminine form अरुणा (spelled with a final long vowel) is also transcribed as Aruna, however the modern masculine form is Arun.

Feminine form of Arsenios.

Modern Persian form of Ardashir.

Means "altar of the sky" from Latin ara "altar" and coeli "sky". This is an epithet of the Virgin Mary in her role as the patron saint of Lucena, Spain.

Russian diminutive of Anna.

Spanish and Icelandic form of Andrew.

Ancient Greek and Latin form of Andrew. It is also the form used in Modern Greek, German and Welsh.

From Kazakh and Kyrgyz анар (anar) meaning "pomegranate", a word ultimately derived from Persian.

Meaning uncertain, possibly a derivative of Anne 1 or Agnès. It was used in Jean-Henri Guy's opera Anacréon chez Polycrate (1798), where it is borne by the daughter (otherwise unnamed in history) of the 6th-century BC tyrant Polycrates of Samos. Guy could have adapted it from a classical name such as Anaitis or Athénaïs.

A famous bearer was the Cuban-French writer Anaïs Nin (1903-1977), known for her diaries.

Means "angel" in Maori.

Form of Amina 1 used in West Africa.

French form of Amelia.

Italian cognate of Amber.

Means "hope, aspiration" in Arabic, from the root أمل (ʾamala) meaning "to hope for".

From French alizé meaning "trade wind".

Italian feminine form of Alexius.

Form of Aisha used in parts of French-influenced West Africa.

Means "eldest daughter of her father" in Igbo.