Girl · Gothic (probably), through Spanish
Elvira
Say it: el-VEER-ah
Meaning
Believed to be of Visigothic origin, but its elements are not known with any certainty.
Uncertainseveral explanations, none settled.
Used among the Christian nobility of medieval Spain and spread by opera in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1900s
In the United States
- 26,862 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1909, about 1 in 1,800 girls
- 65 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Early Middle Ages400 to 800
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
| Italian | Elvira |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | Elvira |
| German | Elvira |
Famous bearers
- Donna Elvira, in Mozart's Don Giovanni
- Elvira Menéndez, queen of León
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Medieval Spanish and Portuguese chronicles and charters
- Well-known works of literature
- Royal and noble genealogies
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.