Literary Names for Girls

Mamie is back. Having finally shorn her Mamie Eisenhower bangs, this insouciant and adorable nickname name is perfect if you want a zestier way to honor a beloved aunt Mary. Meryl Streep's actress daughter, properly named Mary Willa, is called Mamie Gummer. You might think of Mamie as a sister of the stylish Maisie.

Created by Sarah J. Maas for the heroine of her Court of Thorns and Roses series of YA novels. The name was based on the Old English word for "fair" or "beautiful" and has an ethereal charm.

Kya, a variation of the popular Kaia, the feminine form of the also-popular gender-neutral name Kai, was one of the fastest-rising girls' names of 2023.

Still evokes the spunky image of the character in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.

Charity is one of the Big Three abstract virtue names, along with Hope and Faith, though far less widely used than the others. But as Faith, Grace and Hope grow more common, some parents are beginning to look at the more unusual three-syllable choices like Verity, Amity, Clarity and Charity, which sound much fresher and also have that pleasingly rhythmic 'y'-ending sound.

Velvet is a name that couldn't possibly be softer or more luxuriant. Many people have fond memories of it via the character of Velvet Brown, played by the young Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet, an intrepid young woman willing to masquerade as a boy to race her horse in a dangerous steeplechase.

Fig was the unlikely name of a beautiful character in Curtis Sittenfeld's Man of My Dreams. Better bets: Plum, Quince, or even Apple. Still, you might consider Fig as an unusual nickname for any more formal F-starting name, from Frances to Fiona.

Calista Flockhart may have made her variation of this beautiful Greek name familiar to modern Americans, but the even-edgier x version was the name of an earlier feminist heroine: a character in Kate Chopin's The Storm.

Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin is a master namer, and this unusual choice from India is beginning to be heard in nurseries as well as on television. Sansa was perhaps slower to catch on than other names such as Arya and Khaleesi as Sansa Stark was in the first seasons of the show a weak and compromised character.

Popular with the Puritans, this name of the shrewd and beautiful wife of King David and mother of King Solomon could be a bit of a load for a modern girl to carry.

Mythological water spirit with the more common spelling of Ondine, heroine of an Edith Wharton novel.

Kinsey enjoyed popularity blip thanks to similarity to Lindsay, and because of Sue Grafton's alphabet mysteries heroine, Kinsey Millhone. Now, Kinsley has become more popular than Kinsey.

Petal is the soft and sweet-smelling name of a character in the novel and film, The Shipping News. With the rise of such flower names as Poppy and Posy, we believe Petal — down-to-earth yet romantic — has its own appealingly distinctive style.

Petal is the soft and sweet-smelling name of a character in the novel and film, The Shipping News. With the rise of such flower names as Poppy and Posy, we believe Petal — down-to-earth yet romantic — has its own appealingly distinctive style.

In Nabokov's notorious novel, Lolita is the pet name given by the pedophilic narrator, Humbert Humbert, to his victim: a young girl called Dolores and nicknamed Lola or Lo by her mother. Still, it seems that a few parents are prepared to look past this problematic association, seeing this as a offbeat option for those who defy convention. We would recommend thinking seriously about the background of this name before bestowing it on your daughter.

This lovely name from Spenser's The Faerie Queene is borne by a character who represents married love. A related unusual-yet-usable choice: Amabel.

Yet another creative character name from Toni Morrison, Denver was a daughter of Sethe's in the novel Beloved. Today Denver is most familiar as the name of the largest city in Colorado, used almost equally for girls and boys.

Unspecific place name with a wonderfully wide-open, spacious, western feel; used for a character in Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland.

If you’re a fan of the annual animated Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, you’ll recognize the name of Rudolph’s beautiful doe sweetheart, pronounced cla-REES—uncomfortably close to the Silence of the Lambs pronunciation. Clarice was the name of the wife of Lorenzo de' Medici, and Clarice Cliff was a famed British ceramics artist. Though a Top 300 name from 1906 to 1934, modern parents might prefer the more delicate Clarissa.

Katniss Everdeen is the heroine of the popular Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, whose name comes from the (very real) edible aquatic plant of the genus Sagittaria. Katniss's father tells her that if she "finds herself," she'll never go hungry. Other unusual botanical names in the series include Primrose, Posy, Rue, and Clove, all for girls. Several of the boys' names come from ancient Rome: Cato, Seneca, Flavius, Caesar. Katniss the name has less appeal than Katniss the heroine, though it's definitely more attractive than Renesmee.