<a href="https://nameberry.com/list/248/old-lady-names">Old lady names</a> are cool by virtue of their very disdain for fashion. These kind of old school <a href="https://nameberry.com/girls-names">girls' names</a> are connected to tradition rather than modernity and gloss. What gets confusing is whether stylish vintage names like Adeline or Clara really qualify as Old Lady Names anymore, or if a name needs to be a bit dusty and unfashionable to be considered an Old Lady Name. 

Along with Adeline and Clara, other old lady names in the US Top 500 include Cora, Elsie, Evelyn, Iris, Mabel, Miriam, Ruth, and Vera. If you prefer the clunky-cool variety of old lady names, consider adding Cornelia, Dorothea, Geraldine, or Henrietta to your list.

Unique Old Lady Names that might inspire you include Eulalia, Lavinia, and Millicent.

We've tried to make this list inclusive, pulling in all types of Old Lady Names. These range from sweet vintage names for girls such as Beatrice and Clara to so-clunky-they're-cool names such as Esther and Olive to old-fashioned names that have not yet made their comeback, such as Myrtle and Phyllis. 

<h2>Old Lady Names</h2>

Old Lady Names

Maude, also spelled Maud, is a lacy, mauve-tinted name that was wildly popular a hundred years ago, but has been rarely heard in the past fifty. Some stylish parents are starting to choose it again, especially as a middle. 
 
Maude's early popularity was influenced by the Tennyson poem that included the oft-quoted line, "Come into the garden, Maude." Then, in the 1970s, along came the sitcom Maude, featuring the vociferous and opinionated character Maude Finlay, putting a very different spin on the name. But enough decades have now passed for the name to have settled back into its soft, sweet pastel image.
 
Parents today are more likely to associate the name with young actress Maude Apatow, who rose to fame in HBO's Euphoria. She may be the catalyst needed to finally popularize her name again.
 
The Maud spelling has British royal associations via the daughter of Edward VII, who later became Queen of Norway; Maud Gonne was a famous Irish political activist.

Maude

May is a sweet old-fashioned name that hasn't been on the national charts in several decades, but is definitely sounding fresh and springlike. Parents are beginning to see it once more as one of the prettiest middle name options. May was as high on the list as Number 57 in the 1880s; it's now 228 on Nameberry.
 May started as one of the innumerable pet forms of Mary and Margaret, as well as a springtime month name along with April and June. She's represented in literature by May Bartram in Henry James's The Beast in the Jungle and May Welland in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. 
 Actresses Emily Morton and Madeline Stowe named their daughters May, and Eric Clapton and Jodie Sweetin used it in middle place for theirs.

Combining the mild and the innocent, this sweet and feminine name is worthy of a comeback, in the mode of Madeline and Cecilia. Its original, also attractive form is Melisende, which came from Germany to France and was borne by a daughter of Charlemagne.
 Millicent has been in use since the Middle Ages, and was in the Top 500 in the 1920's. Off the list since the early sixties, it's Number 361 on Nameberry.
 Millicent Hargrave is a character in Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Millicent Henning is found in Henry James's The Princess Casamassima, and she appears not once but twice in Harry Potter; she is is also Barbie's middle name. And of course Milly is one of the cutest of the nostalgic nickname names.

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Millicent

Minerva is the long-neglected name of the Roman goddess of wisdom and invention, the arts and martial strength, one of the <a href="https://nameberry.com/list/325/mythological-baby-names-for-girls">mythology names for girls</a> that might appeal to adventurous feminist parents. With Juno and Jupiter, she made the Capitoline triad, whose worship was at the very center of Roman religion.
 
Minerva Pott is a character in Dickens's novel Pickwick Papers. In Harry Potter, Minerva McGonagall is a Witch and Deputy Headmistress of Hogswarts, and in the Artemis Fowl books, Minerva Paradizo is equally intellectual. There's also a series of kids' mystery books centering around a Minerva Clark.
 
Minerva was a Top 500 name through the early 1920s, last appearing on the list in 1973. It's well liked on Nameberry though—currently at Number 417. Nickname Minnie fits right in with the other currently stylish vintage nickname names. Curiously, though, actress Minnie Driver was not born Minerva, but Amelia.

Minerva

Minnie was wildly popular at the turn of the last century — it was the fifth or sixth most popular name throughout the 1880s — but is completely obscure in the US today. Blame Mickey's girlfriend. Regardless, it's possible that the up and coming trend toward old-fashioned nickname-names — think Maisie, Mamie, Millie — may give Minnie (all on its own, not as a short form of anything) a new moment in the sun. 
 
In fact, Minnie has already broken in to the England and Wales Top 1000 and as of 2023, it ranked at #444. Traditionally used as a short form of Wilhelmina, Minnie could also be used as a nickname for a variety of names, including Minerva, Martina, Marin, Mary, Hermione, Jasmine, and Araminta.
 
Minnie Driver (born Amelia) has given it some modern celeb cred and there have been characters named Minnie in Dickens's Little Dorrit and Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra. Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz classic, while "Minnie the Minx" (full name Hermione Makepeace) appears in the long-running British comic, The Beano.

Minnie

old lady names

Old lady names like Adeline and Clara sound new and cool again, vintage and old fashioned names back in style, with meanings, origins, and popularity. This list includes clunky names, vintage names, old names, grandma names, family names, classic names  (Page 6)

Old Lady Names That Sound New Again

Maude

May

Millicent

Minerva

Minnie