Zenobia
About Zenobia
With historical roots as a beautiful and intelligent ancient queen and literary ties to Hawthorne and Edith Wharton novels, this rarity could appeal to adventurous parents seeking the romantically unusual. Tina Fey used it as her daughter Alice's middle name.
Zenobia was the intriguing third-century Queen of Palmyra who for a time ruled the eastern Roman Empire, Ethan Frome's wife Zeena was born Zenobia, and Zenobia Moodie was one of the most colorful characters in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance.
Zenobia reached a high of Number 683 in 1909 but had dropped back out of the Top 1000 by the mid-1920s.
Pronounced zen-OH-bee-ah.
As of October 2026, Zenobia ranked #6541 in US births in 2025 SSA, peaked at #683 in 1909.
Editor's take: The name Zenobia is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "force of Zeus".
Popularity & trends
Data table
| Year | US rank | Births | Per million |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | #3,078 | 55 | 30.8 |
| 2015 | #3,701 | 42 | 23.5 |
| 2016 | #3,376 | 48 | 27.1 |
| 2017 | #3,918 | 39 | 22.6 |
| 2018 | #3,673 | 42 | 24.7 |
| 2019 | #4,005 | 37 | 22 |
| 2020 | #3,398 | 46 | 28.5 |
| 2021 | #4,410 | 32 | 19.5 |
| 2022 | #4,374 | 33 | 20.1 |
| 2023 | #3,757 | 41 | 25.6 |
| 2024 | #4,541 | 31 | 19.1 |
| 2025 | — | 0 | 0 |
Similar names
These 20 names were selected by our users looking for other names like Zenobia.
- Vesta
- Galatea
- Kore
- Hyacinthe
- Caledonia
- Iolanthe
- Cybele
- Vashti
- Margaery
- Clementia
- Galadriel
- Harmonia
- Cardea
- Delphinia
- Nerida
- Eurydice
- Parvati
- Amoret
- Amarantha
- Calixta
Zenobia on lists
Famous Zenobias
- Zenobia (3rd century)
queen of Palmyra
- Zenobia al
Asaad, daughter of late Syrian archaeologist Khaled al,Asaad, who was killed by ISIS
- Zenobia Camprubi
Spanish,American writer
- Zenobia Powell Perry
American composer
- Alice Zenobia Richmond (b. 2005)
daughter of actress/comedian Tina Fey
- Zenobia Jeffries
associate editor at YES! Magazine who covers racial justice
Zenobia in pop culture
- Zenobia
fictional city in Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities"
- Zenobia Forster
character in "The Blithedale Romance" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Zenobia "Zeena" Frome
wife in "Ethan Frome"
- Zenobia
character in G. Bernard Shaw's play "Getting Married"
- Queen Zenobia
a ship the game "Resident Evil: Revelations"
- Psyche Zenobia
narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "A Predicament"
- Zuri Zenobia Ross
from the Disney Channel show "Jessie"
- Zenobia
character in the Conan the Barbarian series
- "Zenobia
" elephant in a 1939 comedy starring Oliver Hardy
- Zenobia
from "The Vampire Chronicles" by Anne Rice
- The second element (
bia) is identical to the name of a personification of Violence, Force; in Greek mythology Bia was the daughter of Pallas and Styx. Together with Hephaestus and her brother Cratos, she chained Prometheus to the rock.
- Alternatively Zenobia may be a Greco
Latin form of some Semitic name (e.g., perhaps one akin to the Arabic Zaynab)
Variations & nicknames
- ZeniaFrench
- ZenoviaRussian
- ZenaidaFrench
- ZinoviaRussian
- ZenobieFrench
- CenobiaSpanish
- SenobiaSpanish
- ZennaFrench