🔥Ianthe

ee-AN-thee; eye-AN-thee

Greek

"purple flower"

Ianthe Origin and Meaning

The name Ianthe is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "purple flower".

Like Violet, Lavender and Lilac, Ianthe is a purple flower name. Chosen by the poet Shelley for his daughter, Ianthe has a poetic, romantic, almost ethereal quality. In the ancient myth, she was the daughter of Oceanus, supreme ruler of the sea, and also a Cretan woman so beautiful that when she died the Gods made purple flowers grow around her grave.

Iantha is also used.

Ianthe was a favorite of the pastoral poets of the seventeenth century and then again in the early nineteenth. She appears in the works of Shelley, Barbara Pym and Georgette Heyer. Writer Richard Brautigan named his daughter Ianthe.

Ianthe Rank in Nameberry Top 1000

# 490 on Nameberry

Popularity of the name Ianthe

• 490 Nameberry 2025

20 Names Similar to Ianthe

These 20 names were selected by our users that were looking for other names like Ianthe.

• Phaedra
• Araminta
• Eulalia
• Anthea
• Ceridwen
• Alouette
• Leda
• Ione
• Cerelia
• Xanthe
• Artemisia
• Morwenna
• Morrigan
• Eudora
• Corisande
• Alethea
• Evanthe
• Zephyrine
• Aphra
• Cosima

Famous People Named Ianthe

• Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan American writer
• Ianthe Eliza Shelley (1813 1876), daughter of the poet Shelley and his first wife Harriet Westbrook

The name Ianthe in Pop Culture

• Ianthe Thomson character in Rosamond Lehmann's "The Ballad and the Source" (1944)
• Miss Ianthe Broome is a charming refined young woman in a Barbara Pym novel.
• Ianthe character in John Polidori's "The Vampyre" (1819)
• Ianthe (Demon Spawn) character in Sarah J. Maas's series "A Court of Thorns and Roses" (A Court of Mist and Fury)
• Ianthe Violet Sin Ohne character in Sherin Subhan's YA series on Wattpad "The Von Meer Academy"