erb816's Personal Name List

Means "horseman, knight" in Arabic.

Means "beautifier, improver" in Arabic. Hassan ibn Thabit was a 7th-century poet who was a companion of the Prophet Muhammad. This name is sometimes transcribed as Hasan, though the two names are spelled distinctly in Arabic.

Anglicized variant of Liora.
In some cases, however, it might have been given as a contracted form of Leonora.

French form of Amelia.

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-).

Means "new" in Sanskrit.

Means "wisdom, distinction, discrimination" in Sanskrit.

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

Anglicized form of Eithne.

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

Derived from Russian 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.

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

Latinate form of Greek Ioanna (see Joanna).

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).

Catalan form of Raymond.

Means "knowledge" in Sanskrit.

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

Anglicized form of Zéphyrine.

Variant of Yasmin.

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

Russian variant of Dmitriy, using the Church Slavic spelling, as well as the Georgian form.

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

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 Gypsy girl who is loved by Quasimodo. It has occasionally been used in the English-speaking world since that time.

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.

Spanish and Icelandic form of Andrew.

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 Arabic ياسمين (see Yasmin).

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

Means "angel" in Maori.

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

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) and composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).

Means "love" in Cornish.

Feminine variant of Aviv.

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

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.

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).

Bosnian feminine form of Al-Amir.

Spanish form of Xavier.

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".

Amharic form of John.

Means "snow" in Finnish.

Dutch and French diminutive of Anna.

Swedish form of Vibeke.

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

Possibly a French variant of Anahita. A famous bearer was the French writer Anaïs Nin (1903-1977), known for her diaries.

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.

Italian form of Aelius or Helios.

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

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

Combination of Francesca and Pia.

Polish form of Sophia.

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).

Variant of Fayruz.

Occitan (Mistralian) form of Mireille.

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

Feminine form of Ziv.

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.

Means "full moon" in Sanskrit.

Form of Sonya in various languages.

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

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

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).

Possibly means "noble lineage" from Persian چهر (chehr) meaning "lineage, origin" and آزاد (azad) meaning "free, noble" [1]. Alternatively, it might mean "child of the city" from شهر (shahr) meaning "city, land" combined with the suffix زاد (zad) 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.

Feminine form of Pius.

Greek form of Aura.

Cornish form of Iseult.

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

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.

Diminutive of Ecaterina.

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).