Menodora's Personal Name List

Beatrix
Gender: Feminine
Usage: German, Hungarian, Dutch, English, Late Roman
Pronounced: beh-A-triks(German) BEH-a-triks(German) BEH-aw-treeks(Hungarian) BEH-ya-triks(Dutch) BEE-ə-triks(English) BEE-triks(English)
Rating: 58% based on 10 votes
Probably from Viatrix, a feminine form of the Late Latin name Viator meaning "voyager, traveller". It was a common name amongst early Christians, and the spelling was altered by association with Latin beatus "blessed, happy". Viatrix or Beatrix was a 4th-century saint who was strangled to death during the persecutions of Diocletian.

In England the name became rare after the Middle Ages, but it was revived in the 19th century, more commonly in the spelling Beatrice. Famous bearers include the British author and illustrator Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), the creator of Peter Rabbit, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands (1938-).

Bryony
Gender: Feminine
Usage: English (Rare)
Pronounced: BRIE-ə-nee
Rating: 34% based on 10 votes
From the name of a type of Eurasian vine, formerly used as medicine. It ultimately derives from Greek βρύω (bryo) meaning "to swell".
Cora
Gender: Feminine
Usage: English, German, Greek Mythology (Latinized)
Other Scripts: Κόρη(Ancient Greek)
Pronounced: KAWR-ə(English) KO-ra(German)
Rating: 47% based on 7 votes
Latinized form of Kore. It was not used as a given name in the English-speaking world until after it was employed by James Fenimore Cooper for a character in his novel The Last of the Mohicans (1826). In some cases it may be a short form of Cordula, Corinna and other names beginning with a similar sound.
Cordelia
Gender: Feminine
Usage: Literature, English
Pronounced: kawr-DEE-lee-ə(English) kawr-DEEL-yə(English)
Rating: 54% based on 7 votes
From Cordeilla, a name appearing in the 12th-century chronicles [1] of Geoffrey of Monmouth, borne by the youngest of the three daughters of King Leir and the only one to remain loyal to her father. Geoffrey possibly based her name on that of Creiddylad, a character from Welsh legend.

The spelling was later altered to Cordelia when Geoffrey's story was adapted by others, including Edmund Spenser in his poem The Faerie Queene (1590) and Shakespeare in his tragedy King Lear (1606).

Élodie
Gender: Feminine
Usage: French
Pronounced: EH-LAW-DEE
Rating: 68% based on 9 votes
French form of Alodia.
Elowen
Gender: Feminine
Usage: Cornish
Rating: 46% based on 9 votes
Means "elm tree" in Cornish. This is a recently coined Cornish name.
Felicity
Gender: Feminine
Usage: English
Pronounced: fə-LIS-i-tee
Rating: 69% based on 11 votes
From the English word felicity meaning "happiness", which ultimately derives from Latin felicitas "good luck". This was one of the virtue names adopted by the Puritans around the 17th century. It can sometimes be used as an English form of the Latin name Felicitas. This name jumped in popularity in the United States after the premiere of the television series Felicity in 1998. It is more common in the United Kingdom.
Heliabel
Gender: Feminine
Usage: Arthurian Romance
Pronounced: HEL-ee-ə-bel
Rating: 8% based on 6 votes
The Grail heroine and the sister of Perceval.

Often in the Grail romances, Perceval's sister doesn't appear to have any name, nor does she appear in every tale with her brother. Her name could be Dindraine or Dindrane as found in Le Haut Livre du Graal also known as Perlesvaus (c. 1210). In the Italian romance, Tavola ritonda, her name was Agrestizia.

In the beginning of pre-cycle Prose Lancelot (non-Vulgate, c. 1220), she was possibly named Heliabel, where her beauty was compared to Guinevere; Heliabel surpassed Guinevere. In this romance, Perceval was still identified as the Grail hero.

This identity of Heliabel with Perceval is found in the notes of Lancelot of the Lake, translated by Corin Corley.

Hesper
Gender: Feminine
Usage: English (Rare), Dutch (Rare)
Pronounced: HES-pər(English)
Rating: 19% based on 8 votes
Variant of Hesperia.
Iris
Gender: Feminine
Usage: Greek Mythology, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, French, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Slovene, Croatian, Greek
Other Scripts: Ἶρις(Ancient Greek) Ίρις(Greek)
Pronounced: IE-ris(English) EE-ris(German, Dutch) EE-rees(Finnish, Spanish, Catalan, Italian) EE-REES(French)
Rating: 62% based on 6 votes
Means "rainbow" in Greek. Iris was the name of the Greek goddess of the rainbow, also serving as a messenger to the gods. This name can also be given in reference to the word (which derives from the same Greek source) for the iris flower or the coloured part of the eye.
Jacinth
Gender: Feminine
Usage: English (Rare)
Pronounced: JAY-sinth, JAS-inth
Rating: 24% based on 5 votes
From the English word for the orange precious stone, originating from the same source as Hyacinth.
Lavinia
Gender: Feminine
Usage: Roman Mythology, Romanian, Italian
Pronounced: la-WEE-nee-a(Latin) lə-VIN-ee-ə(English) la-VEE-nya(Italian)
Rating: 38% based on 8 votes
Meaning unknown, probably of Etruscan origin. In Roman legend Lavinia was the daughter of King Latinus, the wife of Aeneas, and the ancestor of the Roman people. According to the legend Aeneas named the town of Lavinium in honour of his wife.
Lucasta
Gender: Feminine
Usage: Literature
Rating: 28% based on 8 votes
This name was first used by the poet Richard Lovelace for a collection of poems called Lucasta (1649). The poems were dedicated to Lucasta, a nickname for the woman he loved Lucy Sacheverel, whom he called lux casta "pure light".
Mairéad
Gender: Feminine
Usage: Irish
Pronounced: MA-ryehd, ma-RYEHD
Rating: 22% based on 5 votes
Irish form of Margaret.
Marielle
Gender: Feminine
Usage: French
Pronounced: MA-RYEHL
Rating: 35% based on 8 votes
French diminutive of Marie.
Ondine
Gender: Feminine
Usage: French (Rare), French (Belgian, Rare)
Rating: 18% based on 8 votes
French form of Undine.
Petra
Gender: Feminine
Usage: German, Dutch, Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Croatian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Swedish, Finnish, English
Other Scripts: Петра(Bulgarian) Πέτρα(Greek)
Pronounced: PEH-tra(German, Dutch, Czech, Slovak) PEH-traw(Hungarian) PEHT-rah(Finnish) PEHT-rə(English)
Rating: 38% based on 10 votes
Feminine form of Peter. This was also the name of an ancient city in the region that is now Jordan.
Phoebe
Gender: Feminine
Usage: English, Greek Mythology (Latinized), Biblical, Biblical Latin
Other Scripts: Φοίβη(Ancient Greek)
Pronounced: FEE-bee(English)
Rating: 64% based on 7 votes
Latinized form of the Greek name Φοίβη (Phoibe), which meant "bright, pure" from Greek φοῖβος (phoibos). In Greek mythology Phoibe was a Titan associated with the moon. This was also an epithet of her granddaughter, the moon goddess Artemis. The name appears in Paul's epistle to the Romans in the New Testament, where it belongs to a female minister in the church at Cenchreae.

In England, it began to be used as a given name after the Protestant Reformation. It was moderately common in the 19th century. It began to rise in popularity again in the late 1980s, probably helped along by characters on the American television shows Friends (1994-2004) and Charmed (1998-2006). It is currently much more common in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand than the United States.

A moon of Saturn bears this name, in honour of the Titan.

Sandrine
Gender: Feminine
Usage: French
Pronounced: SAHN-DREEN
Rating: 33% based on 6 votes
French diminutive of Sandra.
Seren
Gender: Feminine
Usage: Welsh
Pronounced: SEH-rehn
Rating: 37% based on 9 votes
Means "star" in Welsh. This is a recently created Welsh name.
Thisbe
Gender: Feminine
Usage: Greek Mythology, Roman Mythology
Other Scripts: Θίσβη(Ancient Greek)
Pronounced: TEEZ-BEH(Classical Greek) THIZ-bee(English) TEES-beh(Latin)
Rating: 23% based on 9 votes
From the name of an ancient Greek town in Boeotia, itself supposedly named after a nymph. In a Greek legend (the oldest surviving version appearing in Latin in Ovid's Metamorphoses) this is the name of a young woman from Babylon. Believing her to be dead, her lover Pyramus kills himself, after which she does the same to herself. The splashes of blood from their suicides is the reason mulberry fruit are red.
Zoraida
Gender: Feminine
Usage: Spanish
Pronounced: tho-RIE-dha(European Spanish) so-RIE-dha(Latin American Spanish)
Rating: 18% based on 5 votes
Perhaps means "enchanting" or "dawn" in Arabic. This was the name of a minor 12th-century Spanish saint, a convert from Islam. The name was used by Cervantes for a character in his novel Don Quixote (1606), in which Zoraida is a beautiful Moorish woman of Algiers who converts to Christianity and elopes with a Spanish officer.
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