Rowena

Where Rowena comes from

From the name of the daughter of Hengist and wife of Vortigern in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th century pseudohistorical Latin work Historia regum Britanniae. There have been attempts to connect it to some unattested Old English or Common Brittonic name, but without any real evidence. It was revived after Walter Scott used it in his novel Ivanhoe (1819). Some places are named after Lady Rowena in the novel.
— Wiktionary's entry for Rowena
  • Germanic
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #628 among girls — 8 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1893
    Peak, #422
    41 babies named Rowena — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1944
    Rowena Morrill born
    American artist
  4. 1987
    Rowena Webster born
    Australian female water polo player
  5. 1992
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #5,267.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name from the Germanic languages.
Namesakes
  • Rowena Morrill · American artist, 1944–2021
  • Rowena Webster · Australian female water polo player, born 1987
  • Rowena Meredith · Australian rower, born 1995
  • Rowena Mary Bruce · English chess player, 1915–1999
  • Rowena King · British actress, born 1970

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.