Lorna

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A feminine first name of Scottish origin that became popular through a nineteenth-century romantic novel
2. A female personal name of Scottish origin, made widely known by a Victorian-era English romance
3. Used as a woman's first name, of Scottish origin, and popularized by a famous nineteenth-century novel

Etymology: R. D. Blackmore, the English novelist, invented the name "Lorna" in 1869 for the heroine of his novel "Lorna Doone," and it is one of the few given names that began life as a fictional invention and then spread into real use. Blackmore's novel was a romance set on Exmoor, and its title character gave the name to a generation of readers who had never met a Lorna before. The name may have been drawn from Lorn, a district in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland, though this is a possibility rather than a settled fact. Blackmore's choice of a Scottish-sounding name for an Exmoor story reflects the popular romantic taste of the period, when Scottish settings and names carried a sense of wild, distant beauty.