Dark Academia Names

Theda is most famous as the name of silent film vamp Theda Bara. Today most fashionable little Theodoras and Theodosias are called Thea, but Theda makes an intriguing change.

Ludwig may be out, but Ludovico is very very in, at least in Italy. Undiscovered in the US and other English-speaking countries, Ludovico comes with the short form Ludo. The female form Ludovica is also popular.

The name of the character in Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene" whom the poet intended as a representation of Queen Elizabeth I. While it will no doubt thrill your daughter's English professor, the addition of the "Bel" to already great Phoebe is on the fussy side.

Viridius was a pagan god of ancient Roman Britain. An alternative spelling is Viridios.

A distinctively Welsh name that's feeling more and more usable these days.

Albertine and Alberta are old-fashioned feminizations ala Geraldine and Roberta. This is the kind of name that sounds very dowdy until a hip celebrity chooses it, at which point we don't know how we missed its coolness all this time.

Clarimond is related to the Occitan name Esclarmonde, and is probably the more wearable of the two variations.

Ursula, while beautiful, still carries a whiff of the Disney sea witch. Perhaps Ursuline smells a bit sweeter?

An Ancient Greek name with a huge dose of literary credibility. Laertes was the father of Odysseus in Greek mythology, who therefore pops up in Homer's The Odyssey.

Aramide is a rare name in the US but better-known in Nigeria, where it's a choice from the Yoruba language.

Lighter Latin version of Anselm.

Henriette is to Henri (or Henry) what Charlotte is to Charles. Yet this elegant French name is surprisingly rare in the States.

The name of a beautiful village on the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall, Veryan actually derives from a series of misunderstandings: Sen Veryan ("Saint Veryan") is a Cornish corruption of Severian, which is itself a corrupted form of the saint’s name Symphorian, to whom the village church at Veryan is dedicated.

A subtle nature name which would nevertheless make for a bold choice, saint’s name Corbinian derives from Latin corvus ("crow; raven"). It’s a traditional yet rare choice in parts of southern Germany, where it’s usually spelt Korbinian.

Admirers of the haunting works of esteemed Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats might consider this, especially as a middle name.

Xanthia gets this classic Greek name closer to the modern Cynthia, sometimes used as its Anglo equivalent.

Russian form of Eugene, also spelled Evgeni or Evgeniy in English, and the (anti)hero of Pushkin's famous eponymous novel in verse, Evgeny Onegin.

Proserpine is the Roman equivalent of the goddess Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld in Greek myth.