Names of strong and interesting women in history?

[snowrevolution]

Fishing for ideas really, in case DC2 is a girl. Possible contenders include:

Emmeline (Pankhurst)
Florence (Nightingale)
Agatha (Christie)

Any other suggestions in this vein? Not so much into more obviously traditional names like Elizabeth.

Rosalind (Franklin) - very important in discovery of DNA but found it really hard being a scientist in the "boys club" of the 1950s. Didn't win a Nobel Prize as died (from cancer as a result of exposure to radiation while doing her experiments) and the Nobel Prize is not awarded post-humously.

Audrey (Hepburn)

Sylvia (my favourite of the Pankhursts)
Mary (Wollestonecraft)
Octavia (Hill - a Margaret Drabble character called her daughter Octavia for that reason I think)

Helen (Keller)
Louisa (May Alcott)
Victoria (Queen)
Joan (of Arc)
Jane (Austen)
Amelia (Earheart)
Anne (Frank)
Marie (Curie)
Catherine (The Great)
Cleopatra
Pocahontas (wildly under-used imo and it supposedly means 'my favourite daughter)

Eleanor of Aquitaine
Matilda of Boulogne

ROsa (Parcs - civil rights movement)
Sojourner (Truth - anti slavery protestor)

Ada (Lovelace - first computer programmer)

Great thread :)

Mother Teresa - humantarian
Erin Brockovich - environmental activist
Dr Fiona Wood - plastic surgeon; patented invention of spray on skin for burn victims, Australian of the Year 2005 AND mother of 6!
JK Rowling (Joanne Kathleen)
Dame Judi Dench -great actress
Dame Helen Mirren - as above
Indira Gandhi - former pm of India
Margaret Thatcher - sure this one has a mixed reaction!...
Amy Johnson - first woman to fly single handed from England To Australia
So many more I'm sure....

I forgot Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders...

Mary (Seacole)
Elizabeth/Betsy (Fry)
Emily (Davison)
Annie (Rogers)
Constance (Markievicz) - first female MP

Some great suggestions here, including some women I hadn't heard of before.

Not real history but Jewish mythology - Lilith was the first woman and the first feminist. DD1 was named after her.

Caroline (Chisholm)

Clementina Black - author of Married Women's work in 1915

Simone (de Beauvoir)
Clementina (Black)
Leonora (O'Reily)
Alice (Paul)
Mary (Wollstonecraft)

lizzie you said mine!! Would love to call a dd this.

Frida (Kahlo)

Edith (Cavell) - wiki link
Violette (Szabo)link
Dorothy (L Sayers) link
Lettice (Curtis) link
Dian (Fossey) link

Millicent Fawcett- suffragist, major force in getting women the vote.

Her sister, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first woman in the uk to quaify as a doctor.

(dd1 is Millicent Elizabeth- but this is purely coincidental)

Grace (Darling)
Rosa (Parks)
Katharine (Hepburn)
Anna (Pavlova)

'Historical'
Boudicca - leader of the Britons
Coco (Chanel) - created difinitive classic female fashion
Grace (Kelly) - Actress
Annie (Oakley) - female gun-slinger

Inventors
Martha (Coston) - invented maritime signal flares
Mary (Phelps Jacob) - invented the bra
Patsy (Sherman) - invented Scotchgard

More Current
Anita (Roddick) - british buisiness woman and human rights activist, founder of the Body Shop

I love Grace! ttc in 2 months and that is now top of my girls list, thank you!

Anita Roddick's book is amazing, she didn't get enough recognition imo.

Aphra (Behn)

Doris (Lessing)

Emily (Hobhouse), raised awareness of British led Boer concentration camps link