Dark Academia Names

Pleasingly quaint and dainty New Testament possibility; the nickname Dru modernizes it.

Cornish habitational surname turned occasional upper-crusty first name, also belonging to one of the colleges of Durham University in England.

Rousseau gives French flair to other red-haired names like Russell and Rory. It is associated with the influential eighteenth century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as the painter Henri Rousseau.

The spelling Woolf inevitably conjures writer Virginia. If you're a fan of Mrs. Dalloway and the Bloomsbury group, Woolf might be a creative way to combine a trendy animal name with an original honor name. Woolf was the surname of Virginia's husband, Leonard.

Spirited Italian form of Octavius

Zosime is a rare name from Ancient Greece that's a feminization of Zosimus or Zosimos, the name of several early saints, a pope, and an author of the history of the Roman Empire. It's a name that feels at once ancient and futuristic, which gives it enormous potential in the contemporary world.

In Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Marinell is a knight and the son of a water nymph. He is wounded in battle against the valiant female knight Britomart.

While Barthelemy does not garner much attention these days, it has a storied history in French-speaking countries. Notable bearers include geologist and explorer Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, philosopher Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire, and historian and writer Jean-Barthélemy Hauréau, to name a few.

Tatjana is an interesting twist on an already uncommon name, borne by German-born supermodel Tatjana Patitz. Note that as j is pronounced as y in German, the name is spoken just like sisters Tatiana and Tatyana.

An early saint's name with a sharp and weighty sound.

Just one letter off from Corentin, but an entirely different name — the Cornish variation stresses the middle syllable, while the French stresses the last. And in America, where both versions are unknown, people are likely going to guess that the emphasis belongs on the first syllable.

On one hand, Saturnine is a bright and golden French name, ultimately derived from the Roman God Saturn, associating it with agriculture, renewal, time, and abundance, along with the planet. On the other, it is an English word name, referring to a person, a place, or an occasion that is dark, sombre, and gloomy.