Strong but feminine girl names

Cordelia, Tabitha, Beatrix, Eartha, Penelope, Hazel?

Anne Marie (mimi)
Sasha
Hazel
Josephine

Rhea or Lyra! I will never have a girl so I give you these wonders :)

Love Astrid.

Anya
Briony
Romilly
Saffron (Saffy)
Thea
Romy
Tamra
Soraya
Marcia
Alexandra (Alex)
Francesca (Frankie)
Claudia
Juniper
Lois

Astrid is great.

I have a Margaret. She is opinionated, independent, fiercely feminist and generally awesome. She is also VERY hard work to parent! I love the variety of diminutives you can have with Margaret. Daisy, Greta, Margot, Meg.....

Joan

Many names I think of to match your description have already been suggested, so I'm seconding them:

Greta
Ingrid
Cleo
Saskia
Claudia
Sigrid
Georgia
Bridget
Matilda
Harriet
Tess
Tamsin
Demelza
Kate
Brenna
Beatrix
Kerensa
Zara
Pippa
Pippin

I love both Astrid and Nova - both really cool sounding.

I'm not really sure about 'strong but feminine' - very few girl's names sound masculine to me. I suppose names with consonant endings have a stronger sound to vowels? Things like:

Autumn, Brynn, Bronwen, Cerys, Charlotte, Clare, Devon, Dylan, Eirlys, Evelyn, Edith, Elise, Eve, Ellen, Elizabeth, Faith, Florence, Frances, Grace, Giselle, Gabrielle, Harriet, Hope, Isabel, Imogen, Iris, Juliet, Jasmine, Jade, Josephine, Kate, Katherine, Lois, Lauren, Madeleine, Merryn, Miriam, Nadine, Olive, Paige, Pearl, Quinn, Rachel, Ruth, Rhiannon, Rose, Saffron, Seren, Scarlett, Tegan, Taryn, Tess, Vivienne, Wren, Yasmin

I love the kind of strong historical queen names or the kind of names that would suit a feisty mill girl in a Catherine Cookson novel.

Maude, Edith, Beatrix, Hattie, Norah, Evelyn, Gwen, Hilda, Dorcas, Lillian,

Tamara
Emmeline
Adelaide
Genevieve
Leonora

Leona, Leonora, Thea, Bethan, Elen, Vivienne, Harriet, Athena, Olive, Frances.

I love Beulah

Astrid is great name.

Other ideas (just incase) -
Beatrix
Ingrid
Bridget
Rosa
Freya
Ada
Iris

Cassandra has always been an excellent strong woman’s name to me. Plus, I believe her Greek character was also very intelligent.

Astrid is great. Also like Rosa.

Marion

Rosa

Greta

I love Astrid, DH wasn't having it and I'd already known my one day dd's name for years before but it was on my list. One of the lovely midwives on the ward after I'd had dd was called Astrid so I did falter a bit but I knew dd's name was right. Roxanne. I also have a ds with an x in his name so I wondered if it was a bit weird but I so, so wanted him to be Roxanne and when he was a boy I was a bit gutted just because I couldn't use the name! Luck in, next and last one was a girl so here my Roxy is.

Some of the above suggestions are lovely, i.e
Scarlet
Matilda
Claudette

I really like Astrid for what it's worth.

Greek goddesses have lovely strong names:
Persephone
Artemis
Pheobe
Thalia

I also love Donatella aswell but my OH veto'd it asking me if we were having a teenage mutant ninja turtle 🤔

I love Ursula.

I don't usually get involved with the baby naming threads because mine are now in their thirties. But this is exactly what I wanted for my DD. I wanted a 'great aunt' name. There was a whole generation of middle class women (think I need to be specific about that because working class women always worked, obviously) during the First World War who came out of the house and worked, which was revolutionary at the time. Many of them never married because their men were killed. This was a whole generation of strong women, masquerading as 'sweet little old ladies', but you wouldn't want to mess about with them.

So in the late eighties I wasn't going to get away with Agatha, and my Mum hated Winifred as her second name so that wasn't going to work (and Auntie Win was exactly what I wanted my daughter to be - fun, strong, kind, dry sense of humour, saviour from spiders and just wonderful). I looked around for a great aunt name (or Auntie Win name if I couldn't have that one).

You should be careful for what you wish for. My Phoebe is a strong, fiercely intelligent, funny, wonderful woman. She has been opinionated and difficult at times, but I wouldn't wish for any other daughter. She has some fairly serious MH problems because I married an abusive person and we all suffered as a consequence, but deals with them as best she can, which is pretty well.

Phoebe was a really unusual name at the time (pre 'Friends'), and I gave her a very conventional second name so if she hated it she could call herself by her second name.

Go for it! Give your baby a name which reflects what you would like her to grow up to be. Baby names are very personal - Phoebe was right for me (and my Phoebe). Neither of your thoughts float my boat, but I hope you come up with a name which suits your baby and you.

Good point about Nova, I'll scrap that
one... boom boom!

I like Nova actually and Astrid. How about Esther, Nancy, Scarlett, Sienna, Phoenix, or Ursula.

Of course with a son called Max (not far removed from Ford S Max) you could embrace the car name theme and go for Octavia or Mercedes.... I am just gently teasing, I love the name Max!

I quite like Nova although I prefer Norah
Astrid is quite cool
Beatrix has a similar cool sort of vibe
Maybe Paloma