Literary Names: How To Find One You Love In A Book

I think Meridian is an adorable name!

I’ll second Meridian being an awesome name! It has been one of my favorite “guilty pleasure” odd word names for a girl — I had no idea it was actually used as a given name in a book. How neat!

I love the Les Miserables names, especially Marius and Cosette. I do wonder why they haven’t caught on. They’re attractive, and they are tied to likable characters.

But, really, there are quite a lot of good names here. I had forgotten Camden was in Middlemarch (and that is one of my favorite novels). I’m also loving Abra and Clemency and Arkady. Great list!

I love Abra! I just don’t like the character, and if it was just “some book” I might be able to look past that, but East of Eden is one of my top 5 faves.

I know a young girl named Cosette, her nickname is Cosie

DH and I are reading the Sword of Truth series in our spare time, and are considering using the name Erilyn as a middle name for one of the girls we are adopting from Ethiopia. It doesn’t mean anything and she (so far) isn’t a big character in the books, but it’s a name we both like and we can tell our daughter that the books helped passed the time while we waited for her.

What about Aglaia from the Idiot?

I’m so happy to see some fantasy books on here. People think that fantasy is full of made-up, unpronouncable names, but there are some real gems. Lyra from His Dark Materials is the first thing that comes to mind. But even from an epic fantasy, like Lord of the Rings, that people are afraid of, you have names like Sam (short for Samwise, but still) and Peregrin. Hopefully, we’ll see more names from fantasy catching on in the future. (Science fiction, too…hello, Valentine.)

Funny, I just watched National Velvet and was thinking how lovely that name was. Too bad the nicknames include Velvetta Cheese and “Is your sister’s name Silk or Leather?” The better name from that movie is Mi. The name given to her co-star Mickey Rooney. Or the siblings Edwina and Malvolia.

interesting choice to pick thomasin

I also love Thomasina from Arcadia.

My name is Waverly! I have never met another, but have heard they exist. Didn’t like it when I was little, but fine with it now. My nickname is Wave.

I really like Clea…although that’s the soap company that supplies my work.

Joss is really cool too.

This is really a cool list! I love it!! I remember the first time I read the Joy Look club and how much Waverly liked me, it’s a very original name.

I also love Cosette, I find it pretty and elegant like Cosima. Hero is also an original choice if you love Shakespeare and it’s not common.

I always like Thayer from F Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise

Dulcinea. From Don Quixote.
Finnegan. From Finnegan’s Wake.
…

Velvet is really cute!

I think Jem from To Kill a Mockingbird is super sweet for a boy.

Also in Journey to the Center of the Earth is Grauben. Interesting name. I don’t really love it, but it’s sorta cool. There’s Brett, too, from a Hemingway book.

Keziah, from Hariette Arnow’s The Dollmaker (nn Cassie) and Rumer Godden’s The Diddakoi (nn Kizzy). I too like Joss from Jamaica Inn. Also another DuMaurier name is Honour from The King’s General. And Dafna from Exodus. And Emrys from Mary Stewart’s Arthur trilogy.

My daughter is named Waverly. The fictional daughter of Buttercup and Prince Westley from Princess Bride. Prettiest name

I love Joss! My other favourite du Maurier name I love is Maxim from Rebecca (and if Waverly, why not Manderley. For literary girls, I LOVE Phillipa (nn Pippa) from the Browning poem and Lucasta/Lucy. Lucasta is from the Cavalier poet Robert Lovelace (To Lucasta On Going To The Wars) and Wordsworth wrote several poems about a Lucy (also Narnia reference!). Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen is ripe for mining too.

I like a lot of names from VC Andrews books lol….From My Sweet Audrina…Audrina, Arden (for a boy), Lucrietta (nn Lucky), Jory and Julian from the Flowers in the Attic series

The book is called ‘Prince Caspian’ not ‘Return to Narnia…