Baby Names from Books

Created by George R. R. Martin for his series A Song of Ice and Fire. Aemon Targaryen is the great-uncle of Daenerys.

Invented by Swedish author August Strindberg for a 1909 poem of the same name, this quirky choice is rare even in its native land but would make for an extremely eye-catching choice outside it. It may be based on Vellamo, a Finnish sea goddess.

Author Sarah J. Maas created the name Amren for a High Fae in her acclaimed fantasy romance series A Court of Thorns and Roses. Amren debuted on the US charts in 2023.

Yennefer is the name of one of the protagists of The Witcher series, first books by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski and then a video game and now a Netflix series. Yennefer is a powerful fighter and sorceress. As a name, we don't think Yennefer is any improvement on millennial mom name Jennifer, but nickname Yen has it all over the dated Jen.

Formal name lacking any sparkle or sheen.

Moody would work great as the name of Snow White's lost eighth dwarf friend, but we can't recommend it as a first name IRL. It was the last name of Harry Potter character Mad-Eye Moody, played by Brenden Gleason in the movies; his given name was Alastor. The bond credit rating company Moody's is likewise named for the surname of its founder, John Moody.

The unlikely name of the hero of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, named for an author his father revered.

Jaskier is the original Polish name of the bard character in The Witcher, incorrectly translated in the English versions of the books and video games as Dandelion but really meaning Buttercup. The Netflix show reverts to Jaskier, with the J pronounced like an English Y.

This rare English surname's most famous bearers are Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie: the four siblings who are the protagonists of C. S. Lewis' Narnia books. It probably derives from Pevensey, the name of the bay in East Sussex, England where William the Conqueror landed in 1066.

The name of the protagonist in Richard Wright's 1940 novel Native Son.

This common Arabic name is related to Aaron, but feels far more distinctive in the US. Haroun Khalifa is the protagonist of Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

Princess Ozma was the leading character of L. Frank Baum's book Ozma of Oz.

Moll is one of those names that is used all the time as a nickname for a nickname, but rarely put on the birth certificate. Moll Flanders is an eponymous 18th century novel by Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe,

Offred is not technically a name but the "slave name" of a woman given to a man — literally Of Fred — in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Offred, who was stripped of her own name, is the main protagonist of the book and now the hit TV series, starring Elisabeth Moss. The novel is set in a patriarchal society in which fertile women like Offred are kept by men for the purposes of reproduction. Offred is definitely not a name you'd want to give to your baby girl.

Samuel Johnson invented the name Rasselas for the title character of his novel, Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. Rasselas is actually the son of the prince.

The name of the protagonist in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2013 novel Americanah.

A character name in the Shadow and Bone book series, invented by author Leigh Bardugo. It is intended as a Ravkan form of Malcolm, meaning "disciple of St Columba".