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Names Created by Authors

  1. Titania
    • Origin:

      Greek
    • Meaning:

      "giant, great one"
    • Description:

      This name of the queen of the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream has a delicate, lacy charm similar to Tatiana's, but that first syllable could cause embarrassing problems.
  2. Bartleby
    • Origin:

      English surname, probably related to Bartholomew
    • Meaning:

      "son of the furrow"
    • Description:

      Bartleby (that's his last name) the Scrivener is a famous Herman Melville character whose surprisingly powerful refrain was, "I would prefer not to." Or, in the immortal words of any two-year-old: No.
  3. Clea
    • Origin:

      Latinate variation of Cleo, Greek
    • Meaning:

      "glory"
    • Description:

      An attractive and unusual name that may be a variation of Cleo, Clea was possibly invented by Lawrence Durrell for a character in his Alexandria Quartet.
  4. Astrophel
    • Origin:

      Literary name
    • Meaning:

      "star lover"
    • Description:

      Invented by 16th-century English poet Sir Philip Sidney for the hero of his sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella, this name is derived from the Greek elements aster "star" and philos "lover". Sidney’s heroine, and Astrophel’s love-interest, is Stella — whose name means "star".
  5. Renesmee
    • Origin:

      Literary invention
    • Description:

      Invented by author Stephenie Meyer for the Twilight series for the half-human, half-vampire daughter of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, it's an amalgamtion of the names of Bella's mother Renee and Edward's adoptive mother Esme. Much to our surprise, some people are trying this at home.
  6. Nim
    • Origin:

      Modern invented name
    • Description:

      Australian writer Wendy Orr put this name on the map with her hit Nim's Island" series of children's books, about a smart young girl who lives on an island in the South Pacific. Abigail Breslin played Nim in a 2008 film adaptation of the book.
  7. Celaena
    • Origin:

      Variation of Celaeno, Greek, Literature
    • Meaning:

      "dark one"
    • Description:

      Celaena notably appears in the Throne of Glass book series by popular fantasy writer, Sarah J. Maas. It is borne by one Celaena Sardothien, also known as Aelin Galathynius, a teenaged assassin and one of the main characters.
  8. Katniss
    • Origin:

      Literary and botanical name
    • Description:

      Katniss Everdeen is the heroine of the popular Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, whose name comes from the (very real) edible aquatic plant of the genus Sagittaria. Katniss's father tells her that if she "finds herself," she'll never go hungry. Other unusual botanical names in the series include Primrose, Posy, Rue, and Clove, all for girls. Several of the boys' names come from ancient Rome: Cato, Seneca, Flavius, Caesar. Katniss the name has less appeal than Katniss the heroine, though it's definitely more attractive than Renesmee.
  9. Briana
    • Origin:

      Feminine variation of Brian
    • Meaning:

      "strong, virtuous, honorable"
    • Description:

      Spelled this way, Briana was coined by Edmund Spenser for his great literary work, The Faerie Queene, which gives the now-overexposed name a far classier pedigree than it's usually credited with.
  10. Boz
    • Origin:

      Diminutive of Bozhidar, Bosley, Boaz, or others, Slavic, English, Hebrew
    • Meaning:

      "divine; Bosa's field; swiftness"
    • Description:

      A multicultural nickname with a number of origins and multiple meanings, particular to the bearer. It can be a short form of Bozhidar, or any other name with the Slavic element "božĭjĭ", meaning "divine". It can come from the surname style Bosley, or the Biblical name Boaz. Ambrose and Boris could be alternative long forms.
  11. Perdita
    • Origin:

      Latin
    • Meaning:

      "lost"
    • Description:

      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.
  12. Lucasta
    • Origin:

      English
    • Meaning:

      "pure light"
    • Description:

      Lucasta was invented by seventeenth century poet Richard Lovelace for a collection of poems dedicated to a lover named Lucy, and is familiar through the Eugene O'Neill play and film Anna Lucasta. Lucasta is a distinctive, rarely used choice and a logical extension of the Luke/Luc/Luca names.
  13. Sethe
    • Origin:

      Egyptian mythological name or variation of Seth, Hebrew
    • Meaning:

      "appointed, placed"
    • Description:

      Author Toni Morrison is an acknowledged master of naming, and Sethe, the name of one of the main characters of Beloved, which can be pronounced as Seth or Seth-eh, relates to the male biblical name Seth but is also the name of the Egyptian god of confusion.
  14. Kaladin
    • Origin:

      Literary name
    • Description:

      An archetypal fantasy name with a cool Cal/Kal sound and short form, Kaladin is a character in The Stormlight Archive by Utah resident Brandon Sanderson. Westerners are early adopters: of the 97 baby Kaladins born in 2023, almost half were in the Western States, including 20 in Utah.
  15. Moby
    • Origin:

      Literary and nickname name
    • Description:

      Moby, the nickname of musician Richard Melville Hall, was thanks to his ancestor Herman Melville, creator of the infamous whale. You can imagine calling a child Moby as a cute nickname in honor of a grandfatherly Richard or Dick, but the ghost of a Dick would always follow the name around. In Melville's classic book, Moby was an invented word whose meaning has never been firmly established, though the best scholarship calls it a fictional place name that, in the custom of whaling ships of the time, helped identify the whale called Dick.
  16. Tirian
    • Origin:

      Variation of Tirion or Tyrian, Welsh, Latin, Literature
    • Meaning:

      "kind, gentle, happy; of Tyre; royal purple"
    • Description:

      Used by C.S Lewis in his Narnia novels, Tirian is a variation of the Welsh mythology name, Tirion, or the Latin name, Tyrian. From soft-but-strong Tirion, it means "kind, gentle", while from Tyrian it means "from Tyre", a place name meaning "rock". It is also associated with the natural reddish-purple dye, also known as royal purple.
  17. Mowgli
    • Origin:

      Literary name
    • Description:

      The name of the young hero of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, who was raised by wolves (really) and becomes a genius hunter and trapper, was chosen as a middle name for their son Bronx (really, again) by rockers Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz. Kipling invented the name, whose first syllable rhymes with cow.
  18. Orville
    • Origin:

      French
    • Meaning:

      "gold town"
    • Description:

      Only if you're an aviation buff or seriously addicted to popcorn.
  19. Glinda
    • Origin:

      Literary name
    • Description:

      Glinda is famous as the name of the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz, invented by author L. Frank Baum. but has there ever been a real life, non-fictional Glinda? Not in the US last year.
  20. Ornella
    • Origin:

      Italian
    • Meaning:

      "flowering ash tree"
    • Description:

      Like many a popular name, Ornella is a theatrical creation. Italian playwright Gabriele d'Annunzio created this name for his dramatic heroine in the 1904 play La Figlia di Iorio. Ornella is a feminization of the orno or ornello, which is the Italian word for the Fraxinus Ornus, a type of tree which produces such sweet sap that it was compared to biblical manna.

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