As the title says, I’m having my first child and we just got the news it will be a girl so I’m starting to brainstorm names. I’m a literature nerd so I wouldn’t be opposed to naming her after a strong female character. Would love suggestions! Thanks and merry Christmas!
Astrid, the feature character in White Oleander, is an inspirational character.
And it’s the name of Sweden’s most beloved children’s writer who wrote Pippi Longstockings, Emil of Lönneberga and Ronja, the robber’s daughter.
Just not Asturd IYKYK
spelt astird on the m&m bowl
I read that book twice. I loved it!
Josephine. Jo March from Little Women.
Seconded; Jo was going to be my suggestion as well!
Listen to this song.
If I had a daughter I would’ve named her Josephine because of this song.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=H-p5LMrmyOQ&si=rylXIpHYDt0sVcmV
I was going to name my daughter Josephine. I just assumed she would be like me and Jo is the character I relate to most. When the time came it just didn’t feel right. She turned out to be a real life incarnate of Amy.
Or Meg, Amy, or Beth.
Same!
Amelia Bedelia
Draw the drapes, put out the lights, dust the furniture, … Looooooved that book!
Some of the comments on this thread are utterly cursed
True, Casandra was the priestess of Apollo in Troy. She displeased Apollo and his curse was that Casandra would be gifted with knowledge of the future, but no one would believe her. When the Greeks left the Trojan horse at the gates of Troy, she frantically pled the Trojans not to bring it into the city because it was full of Greek soldiers. They considered her mad and ignored her warnings. Can't think of a worse curse really.
Pretty sure she was raped by Ajax the Lesser too.
(It is one of my all time favourite names though)
Been laughing so hard at some of these! 😂
I almost named my daughter Esme, from the Salinger story "For Esme with love and Squalor"
Most people will think of Twilight though 🙈
There’s a Renesmee at my daughter’s school and I feel so bad for her.
Esme is also Granny Weatherwax from the Discworld books. One of my all time faves!
I thought of A Series of Unfortunate Events
Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle! It'd be nice to pick a book she could read (or have read to her) at a pretty young age.
Also Molly from The Last Unicorn, and Lyra from The Golden Compass.
Lyra has my vote!
I absolutely adore Molly Grue!
Elizabeth (Bennett)
Lizzie. Eliza. Liz, Beth, Betty, Bette, lilibet, lily, Betsy, Ellie, Zella, zibby, Thea
Honestly that name is a choose your own adventure also so nice flexibility there if you need to pivot
My mom was a teacher and knew an Elizabeth who went by Zab (eliZABeth)!
i love that. my middle name is elizabeth (and so is my moms) so ive always wanted to name my daughter elizabeth for the family significance and nickname flexibility
And Elspeth/ Elsbeth and Bess!
This is my #1 as of now
If you do end up going with the name Elizabeth, get her The Paperbag Princess to read early. It’s a classic book about a girl named Elizabeth https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-paper-bag-princess-40th-anniversary-edition-robert-munsch/1aa29558b6aaf191
We liked the name Austen for a girl a lot too!
Classic.
Anne, from ‘Anne of Green Gables’! For her boundless imagination and ability to always find beauty in the mundane
Plus there’s always Cordelia if you want something more dramatic
i have a chicken named small anne cordelia and she is very dramatic indeed. she’d make her namesake proud.
I always liked Marilla as well.
Definitely not Dolores.
Mulva?
Gipple?
HEAST?!
Rhymes with a female’s body part 😂
Also avoid Lolita
I‘m sorry, but the legal name would need to be Dolores.
Nothing legal about "Lolita"...
Is this Haze or Umbridge tho
Claiborne
[deleted]
Hahaha great answer and reference
My daughter is Rosalind.
Dorothea, from Middlemarch!
Dodo for short
Lyra from the first His Dark Materials trilogy and no other books.
Yes, there are only THREE books featuring Lyra Belaqua/Silvertongue and no more. Possibly ‘Lyra’s Oxford’ at a push.
Lyra is a beautiful name
This is my daughter's name! She was the last one born and the first name we picked out lol
If I ever have a daughter, this is the name I’m choosing. Great name!
This!! Sadly we named our cat Lyra years ago otherwise it would be shortlisted for a girl name 💔
Beatrice
From shakespeare's? 😭😭
I was thinking the Divine Comedy.
I was thinking about both actually!
I named my girl Eleanor, which is in part after Elanor from Lord of the Rings - my favorite book.
When Sam has his first child he is at a loss for what to name her, and Frodo suggests Elanor, after the little golden flowers from Lórien. We had gone through IVF which felt like our own little journey to Mordor and back, so the name seemed appropriate!
I also love Nynaeve... but I don’t know if I'd name my own child that unless I wanted to forever Doom her to mispronunciations and misspellings ...
the meaning behind eleanor is so beautiful!
I’m an IVF mom and I can’t think of a more suitable comparison than travelling to Mordor and back. I’ll be going back to Mordor in the spring in hopes of a second child.
I like your name choice!
Cthulhu
We have a winner.
Aww LuLu for short!
Male name but I will get a giant poster of him to hang in her room
Xena
And before anyone claims she's not a literary character - the series inspired a ton of books
Its fandom basically functioned as a writers workshop group for authors of female action leads and lesbian romance. So many Xena fic writers went on to publish (and even start publishing houses), it's a whole genre. One history I read credited the show's fandom with revitalizing lesbian publishing in the 90s, after it had atrophied in the 80s.
My vote here
Nickname WP (short for warrior princess)
What about someone from children’s literature, so she can learn about her namesake early on? Maybe Lyra from His Dark Materials?
How about a name from Shakespeare? Juliet, Rosalind, Jessica, Miranda, Imogen, Beatrice - all lovely names.
Portia, Ophelia, Kate, Celia, Paulina, Tamora, Cordelia, Phoebe, Ariel (whose gender is not specified, as they are an air spirit).
Do be aware, Ophelia and Juliet die by suicide. I would not choose Desdemona or Cleopatra.
Lady Macbeth
slay
Franny from Franny & Zooey.
Mattie from True Grit (one of the best strong female characters in literature).
And for some genre fiction inspiration, Trisha from The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
Franny would be perfect were she not the first child. Franny needs a big bro, I'd worry too much for her if she didn't have Zooey.
If I have a daughter I’m naming her Jane from Jane Eyre<3
Or maybe Jane after Jane Austen? 😂
Yeah who doesn't want their daughter to grow up abused and unloved so that she eventually settles for some dork who locks his mentally ill wife in the attic 😂
Did you read Wide Saragasso Sea?
You and I have very different interpretations of the character, so I won’t even argue with you
Would you rather name your kid after Catherine Earnshaw instead? 🥰
jane after jane goodall as well!!
Great character although I'm not a fan or naming my daughter after an orphan, seems like bad luck for me.
Cathy from East of Eden. Trust me. And please don't actually read the book, just trust me. And everyone who says it would be a bad decision is lying.
You want the kid to burn the house down?
Alternatively, Cathy from Wuthering Heights (the first one)
And they can adopt a little boy and name him Heathcliff
If it was a boy I was going to go with Judas so that’s a good call! 😂
Cathy, Wuthering Heights.
Just make sure she never finds out about botulism.
Congratulations! Lily, as in, Lily Briscoe, the painter in Virginia Woolf's masterpiece To the Lighthouse.
Blessings to you and your family. XO
Oooh forgot about this one, definitely added to the list. Thank you!
If I can second the name Lily, for Lily Bart, the heroine of Edith Wharton’s brilliant novel The House of Mirth. Does it end well? Um, no. But she’s hands down one of the greatest American literary female characters in history and she deserved the world.
Penelope
LOVE Penelope but I’ve always hated how Odysseus just goes around cheating on her with no repercussions while she’s holding shit down for him
Read The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood!
Thanks for this recommendation!
Éowyn is the clear answer
Do you like English literature and old fashion names? Agnes Wickfield from David Copperfield. Agnes Wickfield is a true heroine.
Yes! And I always thought the name Estella from Great Expectations was really beautiful.
Rachel from Moby Dick ("On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan")
Should be added that the Rachel in Moby Dick is a reference to the Biblical Rachel, specifically the prophetic bit in Jeremiah.
Okay, so she dies, or rather gets disappeared, but Clarisse McClellan is the character in Fahrenheit 451 who kind of catalyzes the whole plot, leading to Guy Montag’s rejection of the status quo and his quest to become better, and I think it’s a good name, although it may remind too many people of Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs.
Zadie
Cosette
Congratulations!
Adelaide, one of the three Yepanchin sisters in Dostoevsky's The Idiot, always struck me as a beautiful name
When my sister was younger, she had a friend named Adelina. I always thought it was a gorgeous name.
Penelope or Circe from The Odyssey and Circe.
“Penelope” but pronounced like “antelope”
makes me wonder how popular Hermione became in the last 20 years
https://www.babycenter.com/baby-names/details/hermione-30575
Apparently there's an answer
Another is Arya/Aria which became really popular from GOT/ASOIF
Dorothy (Oz), Nancy (Drew), Scarlett (Gone), Madeline, Matilda, Kara (Supergirl), Lisbeth (Girl with...), Rebecca, Alice, Myra, Rosemary, Anna, Holly
And I know you asked for characters, but some author's name include Agatha, Virginia, Joan, Eve, Mary, Shirley, Dorothy, Patricia, Muriel, Joyce, Margaret, Alice, Anna
Edited because I keep thinking of more. And I havent even started on names of the femme fatales in the detective and noir books...
Alice!
My parents named me Alice and all I can remember about it in my childhood was the "OH, LIKE ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND????" questions.
And their faces asking them, like they were the most original people in the world.
I really hated my name then 😂
Tess
Of the Durbevilles?
Ouch
No no no. You do know the story, right?
Katerina/Kitty (as nickname)
Hello! I am a book lover and literature nerd. I also have 2 daughters. Yes, lovely to be inspired by books you love but always do a few objective reality checks for any name. For example, if she wants to be a serious professional person, will her resume be disadvantaged by her name? (A lot of tragedeighs and fandom names fail this test. And yes it's a thing that names impact resume impressions, there is research on this). Do they have options with the name if they don't like it (short forms, nicknames). If it's a character do they do something horrible, is the ending known yet? (Looking at you all of the parents who had Khaleesi's before the end of GoT).
It's lovely to be inspired but always remember you are naming someone who will be their own person, first and foremost, and not just an extension of your own passions and hobbies!
(Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now) -signed, an adult with a weird foreign name
Yeah some of these are great characters but atrocious names for a real life child in 2026
I wanted Juliet (Romeo is a bit of a whiny loser, Juliet is logical and level) but my husband didn’t love it like I did
Yeah idk how I feel about naming after the girl who kills herself at 14
Rosaline comes out relatively unscathed? Dodged a bullet, as it were.
Dorotea (from Don Quixote). Honestly the character from that novel that I think about the most
Anaïs (from the one and only profoundly moving writer Anaïs Nin who wrote about her bewildering power and beauty that women possess)
Clearly Merricat!
Dorothea Brooke is one of the greatest characters ever.
My wife pushed for Penelope from The Odyssey.
I also pushed for Joan, being a Didion fan.
Violet from a series of unfortunate events 🎀
Bronwyn - How Green Was My Valley
Annabelle Lee
Not a character, but I think Flannery after Flannery O’Connor is pretty dope. One of my favorite writers and a fascinating life.
Dorothea
Emma. Jane Austen.
"What two letters of the alphabet are there, that express perfection?"
I have SUCH an urge to re-read Emma.
Guenevere
Lessa from the Dragonriders of Pern books is nice
Rebecca
Esperanza/Hopey from Love and Rockets (or Esperanza Rising/House on Mango Street)
I know an Esperanza, and she's a really lovely person. Very kind and honest, and she's well liked by friends and colleagues.
One of my friends named her daughter Clara from Lonesome Dove
Unconventional but I love Antigone as a name. Even Annie as an homage would be great imo.
Great name. Tig or Tiggy for short
Anne, from Anne of green gables Ramona, from Ramona Quimby series
Hear me out: Brontë
Corn Hotel!
Beautiful name especially without context.
Jean Louise (Scout)
Arwen
Natasha
Brienne
Anna
And a couple of authors
Willa
Harper
Ursula
Other authors: Emily, Charlotte, Alice, Toni, Barbara, Anne.
Sula :-)
Fern
Jane ☺️
Esther!
I found a note on my phone from a couple years ago that said “Baby names: 1) Esther” which was not continued. I don’t remember writing this, I don’t have plans for kids and it’s not even possible to name my daughter Esther unless I marry an anglophone. I really love this name though. Love The Bell Jar.
It’s an old-persian name that is given to girls in many countries outside the english-speaking world. Why couldn’t you name a kid after it without it having an english-speaking parent? Can’t you pick a name for a kid that you like regardless of where it originates from? I’m in Germany and plenty of people give their kids foreign names like French, English, Nordic or even Italian names like Luca.
Catherine from wuthering heights
Violet (Baudelaire)
Scout
Ursula.
From One hundred years of solitude (García Márquez, 1967).
Strong, unprejudiced, a moral beacon.
Whatever name you choose, I wish those qualities on your daughter. Congratulations!
One of the smartest, funniest, most resilient people I know survived a difficult childhood and renamed herself “Valancy Jane” to start her adult life. The name is from the novel “Blue Castle” by the same writer who wrote “Anne of Green Gables”.
Merricat (Mary Catherine) from We have Always Lived in the Castle.
Eilonwy from the Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander.
Is that separate from his Book of Three, Taran Wanderer, Black Cauldron series? I read those in grade school several decades back.
Scout, Hester, Lisbeth
Named my littlest after the murderess from Agatha Christie’s Dumb Witness, Arabella. Well, sort of. Loved the name. Not the character.
Mattie (True Grit).
Great character and lovely name!
Simone is always a strong female - in the real world and the character world.
Pippi
Rose of Sharon
Angharad is an old Welsh name meaning “beloved.” It’s also the given name of “Harry,” the protagonist of “The Blue Sword” by Robin McKinley.
The book may or may not count as literature (it’s a short fantasy novel on the edge of YA, before YA was really a thing), but it’s a favorite of mine. And since I’m unlikely to be naming any more small humans, someone ought to have it. :D
Splendid Angharad also being a character in Fury Road, the best movie of all time.
Artemis from Greek mythology
What about some greek/mythology goddess
Nancy after Nancy Blackett, the queen of the pirates in swallows and amazons
I named my Parakeet Casandra, but she turned out to a boy. Now he is Buddy.
lol I am here for parakeet names
Lilith
Meg - from A Wrinkle in Time.
Francie
Pippi or My after some Nordic strong and fun female characters. I also really like the name Agatha.
Elinor from Sense and Sensibility
Dominique (Francon)
Eustacia from Return of the Native, Hardy. She was a fireball.
Estella
Absolutely.
Alice, Helen, Luna, Arya, Summer
It is Christmas, so Imogene, from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!
Arwen and Éowyn from LOTR. Man, I hope I have twin girls if I get pregnant again!
Evangeline! From the Longfellow poem. Though her story is kind of sad...
Congratulations. I was so excited to have a daughter after 2 boys. My daughter's 1st and middle names are family names but if I didn't go for "heritage" I totally would have named her Garden after Garden Tradd in Alexandria Ripley's "On Leaving Charleston".
Another choice was "Sugar Beth" from "Ain't She Sweet" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.
Of course we are a southern family so Sugar or Garden would not be unusual in our family where almost everyone has "family" names and are usually called by their first and middle names
Arya
Congratulations!! Take care of both of you sweetheart!
Chrisjen, Naomi, Julie, Bobbie (Roberta), Camina, Anna... plenty of choice in the Expanse universe, they are all strong and badass in their own way