Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

Original poster

What is a quintessential English name for a girl?

39 replies

Doozie · 14/02/2010 13:20

I'm looking for a classic English name for a girl - what would your choice be?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Set a reminder
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
pranma · 16/02/2010 16:28

Rose
Constance
Mary
Jennifer
Joanna

JoeyBettany · 15/02/2010 15:14

Susan

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 15/02/2010 13:34

Joan
Alice/Alys/Alison (Chaucer is jampacked with them)
Jennifer (Cornish)
Jane
Margaret
Clarissa (made up by Richardson?)
Fanny (surely?)
Emma
Constance
Joyce
Iseult

Sunshinemummy · 15/02/2010 13:32

Rose is the most English sounding name to me.

SE13Mummy · 15/02/2010 12:56

My DD1 is Harriet - various of our non-English friends reckon that's a very English name (even though it's actually German!).

frakkinaround · 15/02/2010 12:55

Any of the ones you just mentioned (excluding Alice and Rosamund...) plus for me Frances, Cecily and Emma. I love the name Rosamund but both it and Rosalind are quite German. Rosalind less so.

For me the test is to try saying it in a French, Italian and German accent. If you can't do it then it's English (and therefore off my list, having suffered with a name no-one else can say).

Tamsin is Cornish.

Original poster
Doozie · 15/02/2010 12:38

Thanks everyone for your posts.

Frakkinaround ? I think I?m after a name that you?d go ?aha, she?s English?. You?re right, it is a challenge to find a name of English origin that is widely used and considered quintessentially English. So I'm thinking traditional English names but with Greek/Hebrew/Roman origins. Names popular in Jane Austen, Dickens or Shakespeare. Not Boudicca ? she was a thug.

I'm looking for the English version of saying?

There?s a good chance Clodagh is from Ireland, Myfanwy is from Wales and Marie-Antoinette is from France... etc.

Jane, Alice, Rosamund, Mary, Kate, Victoria, Jemima, Margaret, Anne?

OP posts:
yellowflowers · 15/02/2010 11:29

Tamsin is Welsh or Cornish isn't it?

Loved all that info Bellissima.

Not of English derivation perhaps but names I think of as English are:

Alice
Jane
Catherine
Elizabeth
Victoria
Mary
Emily
Emma
Meg
Samantha
Frances
Lydi a
Imogen
Rosalind
Diana
Polly
Holly
Charlotte
Sarah

VKschmeekay · 15/02/2010 06:29

Charlotte is of French origin.

Ann - definitely English origin
Victoria
Mary
Elizabeth
Sarah
Margaret

(The rest are traditional English names but originated from Greek and Hebrew)

gigglewitch · 15/02/2010 02:01

Also immediately thought Charlotte, Sarah, Emma.

CheerfulYank · 15/02/2010 01:48

Charlotte, Tamsin, Emily, Elizabeth, Victoria, Emma, etc. Of course am not English, but those have an English vibe to me. I've never known of a Tamsin who was anything but English.

Ziggurat · 14/02/2010 21:58

Penelope is Greek too - since when do the English pronounce single 'e's after a consonant (Hermione / Penelope) as e?

Hilda is German.

saggyhairyarse · 14/02/2010 21:57

First name that sprang to mind, Charlotte.

yama · 14/02/2010 21:52

Kate or Emma.

I'm not English by the way.

Ziggurat · 14/02/2010 21:50

Hermione - English...? It's Greek, Isn't it?

Isobel is Celtic / Scottish

Isabella is Italian

frakkinaround · 14/02/2010 17:48

Depends what you mean by English really! Many of the names mentioned are widely used in English but aren't 'originally' English, others which have a more English origin aren't common enough to be considered quintessentially English.

Do you mean a name that you look at and go "aha, she's English" like Frances, which doesn't really work in any other language, or a name that is very common in England but could be from anywhere?

JoeyBettany · 14/02/2010 17:29

Polly

mrsvwoolf · 14/02/2010 17:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PestoSnowMonster · 14/02/2010 17:17

Alice

zapostrophe · 14/02/2010 17:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

HalcyonDaze · 14/02/2010 16:54

Missed off Henrietta

HalcyonDaze · 14/02/2010 16:49

Anything a bit posh or royal....

Araminta
Penelope
Tamsin
Christabel
Amelia
Cordelia
Philippa
Verity
Daphne
Imo gen
Victoria
Beatrice/Beatrix
Eliza
Jemima
Arabella
Portia
Briony
Camilla
Felicity
Cecily
Juliet

mathanxiety · 14/02/2010 16:32

Joan
Gladys
Fenella
Cecily
Araminta
Arabella

MaggieMaeve · 14/02/2010 15:18

yes Bellissima, didn't Swift invent it for his friend, Esther Van something. or somebody Van Esleigh. something along those lines!! half a story!

bellissima · 14/02/2010 14:57

or even brian

Swipe left for the next trending thread