Names That Mean Lost

A Shakespearean invention for an abandoned baby in The Winter's Tale, Perdita's sense of loss has always been off-putting to parents. But her image was somewhat resuscitated by its association with the appealing canine character in Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmations.

This buoyant name has the same bouncy rhythm as Rafferty and Barnaby, but is virtually unused. It has plenty of literary cred, too: characters in The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native have all borne the name.

Digory is the name of a character in a romantic poem from the Middle Ages as well as from The Chronicles of Narnia, also known as The Professor. There's a Harry Potter character named Diggory.

The feminine version, Perdita, is more familiar here.

One of the less common names that came over on the Mayflower, albeit, one with modern potential.