Names from Children's Books

Sweet and southern-feeling, maybe thanks to Horton Foote, author of Tender Mercies and The Trip to Bountiful, not to mention the Dr. Seuss connection. 

Horton

Sal is a cute spin on the trend of boyish nicknames for girls, rarer than Sam or Ali.

Looks very much like it lost its first initial.

Tacy

Veruca is a name Roald Dahl made up for the horrid little girl Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A modern rock band adopted the name, though few parents familiar with the original namesake and meaning would choose to pass it on to an innocent child. Verruca is another spelling, but don't use that one either.

Veruca

A rough-and-tumble surname that has seen a small increase in use in recent years. Ten boys received the name in 2024 in the US. 

Rowley

Rosmerta is a Gallo-Roman goddess of fertility, abundance, and prosperity, often depicted holding a cornucopia. In the Harry Potter books, Madame Rosmerta is the landlady of the Three Broomsticks pub in the wizarding village of Hogsmeade.

Rosmerta

Pippi Longstocking author Astrid Lindgren invented the name Ronja for her book Ronja, the Robber's Daughter. She was inspired by the lake Juronjaure, located in Norrbotten, Sweden.
 
Lindgren's creation has been a smash hit since the book was first published in 1981. Ronja was recently a Top 100 name in Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Switzerland.
 
Despite similarities to the Hebrew names Ronia and Roniya, as well as the Russian Ronya, Ronja is unrelated.

Ronja

Pom is a shortened word name that's not much used in France, but cute and familiar here as one of Babar (the Elephant's) triplets. Pom, pommy and pommie are (non-derogatory) terms sometimes used by Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans to denote a person of English heritage.


Pippi may be cute but isn't very practical.  In addition to being forever Pippi Longstocking, there is that variant pee-pee spelling to consider.  Try Pippa instead.

Pippi

Literary heritage: the "Loony Tunes" girlfriend of Porky Pig.  But with the increasing popularity of all kinds of unusual botanical names, Petunia may be a name we start to hear more of.  Perhaps-more-pleasing Petunia alternatives: Petal, Posy, Poppy.

Petunia

A Russian and Bulgarian surname that may sound like a given name to English ears, Petrova means "descendant of Peter" (or of Petar or Pyotr: its Bulgarian and Russian forms) and would be unlikely (or at least very, very rarely) used as a first name in its native countries.
 
It was however used as a given name for one of the Fossil sisters in Noel Streatfield's popular novel, Ballet Shoes and as such, it may be considered a literary name.

Petrova

It's most commonly associated with the French elephant, but Babar ironically means "tiger."

Babar

This fanciful Irish extension of Bridget is known here through the wacky Amelia Bedelia books for kids -- an association your child may or may not like.

Bedelia

This Latin-sounding place-name, created by C. S. Lewis for his Chronicles, will undoubtedly be adopted by a few admiring parents.

Narnia

Morag is one of the quintessential <a href="https://nameberry.com/list/472/scottish-names-for-girls">Scottish names for girls</a>. Actually a diminutive of Mor, it has always been used more than the original. Commonly heard in Scotland, but could lead to pronunciation problems elsewhere, and the second syllable could prove very confusing. Morag is sometimes used as the Gaelic equivalent of Sarah. In the Harry Potter books, Morag MacDougal was a witch who attended Hogwarts in the same year as Harry.

Morag

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.

If you want an extremely rare name with real history, this is an excellent choice. And the nickname Dig is pretty cool.

Digory

Meg, perennially one of the Little Women, is a Margaret short form that manages to be neither quite in nor quite out of style. Meg is sleeker and more sophisticated than Maggie, more contemporary than Peg, more stylish than Megan, and still one of the best diminutives of Margaret. 
Meg Ryan was born Margaret Mary Emily Anne.

Trapped somewhere in the nether region between Haddie and Catie, with the added confusion of sounding like someone who works on a golf course. Caddie Woodlawn was a TV heroine of the Old West in the 1980s. Caddie had its moment, but we don't see it becoming one of the more popular <a href="https://nameberry.com/search/girls-names/c">girl names starting with C</a>.
 
In Colonial times, Caddie was a nickname for Caroline.

Caddie

A name created by author Tamora Pierce for a character in her Protector of the Small series, a quartet of young adult fantasy novels. In the novels, Keladry is the first girl in centuries to seek a knighthood and the novels follow her journey towards this goal. 

Looking at the origins of the other names used in the series, Keladry's name could be linked to the Irish Kelly, the Norse Kelda, the French Landry, or Estonian and Turkish name Kadri — a variant of Katherine — or, it may be entirely made up .

Keladry

Tigger is the bouncing not-a-tiger from Winnie the Pooh, a symbol of buoyancy and resilience. As Tigger says in the books, he's "the only one", and it should probably stay that way when it comes to people names, though Tigger would certainly make a cute name for a cat.

Tigger

Names from children's books are among the most popular 

 right now. Popular names Eloise, Sawyer, and Madeline are among the hottest baby names from beloved children's books.

Favorite books from childhood can be a wonderful source of names with deep personal meaning and worthy 

. From Charlotte of the Web to Harry Potter, Heidi to Huck, and Katniss to Stellaluna, the menu of 

 is a trend that doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Here are 150+ of the most iconic baby names inspired by children's books.

Names from Children's Books, literary names and namesakes, names from children's literature, with origins, meanings, and popularity (Page 8)