William Shakespeare named over a thousand characters across his plays and poems. And honestly? He was one of the greatest namers who ever lived.
Some of the most beautiful names in the English language either came from Shakespeare or were made famous by him. He invented names nobody had thought of before. He took obscure names from mythology and history and made them beloved. He created heroines and heroes so vivid that their names became permanently attached to the qualities they embodied.
If you want a name with real literary depth, real beauty, and a story behind it that has lasted four hundred years — Shakespeare is where you look.
This list has 77 Shakespearean baby names for girls and boys. Some you will recognize immediately. Some will completely surprise you. All of them have that extraordinary quality of having been chosen by the greatest writer in the English language.
Shakespearean Baby Girl Names
Shakespeare wrote some of literature’s most extraordinary women. Fierce queens, devoted lovers, witty heroines, and complex villains — and every single one of them had a name worth borrowing.
What makes these names so special is that they carry both beauty and character. Every one of them belongs to a woman who did something extraordinary — spoke her mind, followed her heart, or changed everything around her. That is worth a lot in a name.
1. Rosalind
- Origin: Spanish / Germanic
- Meaning: Pretty rose, gentle horse
Rosalind from As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s greatest heroines — witty, brave, and completely herself. She disguises herself as a boy to survive in the Forest of Arden and somehow still manages to fall in love and sort everyone else’s love lives out too. A name for a girl who handles everything.
2. Viola
- Origin: Italian / Latin
- Meaning: Violet flower
She washes ashore after a shipwreck in Twelfth Night, disguises herself as a boy named Cesario, falls in love with the Duke she serves, and navigates one of Shakespeare’s most delightfully complicated plots. Soft, musical, and deeply lovely.
3. Beatrice
- Origin: Italian / Latin
- Meaning: She who makes happy, blessed
Shakespeare’s wittiest heroine in Much Ado About Nothing — sharp-tongued, independent, and deeply funny. Her verbal sparring with Benedick is some of the best dialogue ever written. A name for a girl who will always have the last word.
4. Cordelia
- Origin: Celtic / Latin
- Meaning: Heart, daughter of the sea
In King Lear she is the one daughter who loves her father truly and honestly in a play full of flattery and betrayal. Her quiet integrity makes her one of Shakespeare’s most moving characters. Warm, literary, and deeply beautiful.
5. Portia
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Doorway, pig
She disguises herself as a lawyer in The Merchant of Venice and delivers one of the most famous speeches in all of Shakespeare on the quality of mercy. Bold, intelligent, and completely brilliant.
6. Miranda
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Worthy of admiration
She has grown up on a magical island seeing almost no other human beings and when she finally does, her response is pure wonder. Her name means worthy of admiration and she absolutely is.
7. Imogen
- Origin: Celtic / Shakespearean
- Meaning: Maiden, girl
Shakespeare’s most genuine and loving heroine in Cymbeline — warm, faithful, and deeply human. Rare enough today to feel completely fresh and distinctive.
8. Helena
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Shining light
Two different Helenas appear in Shakespeare — one in A Midsummer Night’s Dream pursuing the man she loves across a forest, one in All’s Well That Ends Well doing the same across half of Europe. Determination runs through this name.
9. Hermia
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: From Hermes, messenger
She runs away into the enchanted forest for love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and spends one of literature’s most chaotic nights chasing and being chased by everyone around her. Short, mythological, and full of energy.
10. Cressida
- Origin: Greek / Shakespearean
- Meaning: Golden
Shakespeare gave her one of his most ambiguous and debated stories in Troilus and Cressida. Bold, unusual, and carries a dramatic Shakespearean beauty that is completely distinctive in modern naming.
11. Titania
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Daughter of the Titans
Queen of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and one of Shakespeare’s most magnificent creations. Grand, magical, and completely unforgettable.
12. Ophelia
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Help, advantage
One of literature’s most heartbreaking figures in Hamlet. Her name has a lyrical, flowing beauty that carries the full weight of her story with it.
13. Jessica
- Origin: Hebrew
- Meaning: God beholds, foresight
Shakespeare actually invented the name Jessica in The Merchant of Venice. Before him it did not exist in this form. Jessica is warm, classic, and carries the extraordinary legacy of having been created by the greatest writer in the English language.
14. Marina
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Of the sea
Born at sea during a storm in Pericles and her name carries that same powerful, elemental connection to the ocean throughout her entire life.
15. Perdita
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Lost one
Abandoned as a baby and raised by shepherds in The Winter’s Tale, only to be discovered as a princess years later. Her name means lost and her whole story is about being found.
16. Adriana
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: From the Adriatic Sea
Passionate, loving, and carries her feelings without apology in The Comedy of Errors. Warm, flowing, and beautifully Shakespearean.
17. Regan
- Origin: Irish Gaelic
- Meaning: Little ruler
One of Lear’s two villainous daughters in King Lear. As a name it has crossed into modern usage where it carries a clean, strong energy completely independent of its Shakespearean origins.
18. Nerissa
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Sea nymph
Portia’s faithful waiting woman in The Merchant of Venice. Nerissa is rare, literary, and carries a beautiful oceanic quality.
19. Lavinia
- Origin: Roman
- Meaning: Woman of Latium, pure
Shakespeare took this ancient Roman name in Titus Andronicus and gave it a new literary life. Elegant, classical, and deeply rooted in both Roman and Shakespearean tradition.
20. Desdemona
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Ill-fated, misery
Shakespeare’s most loving and faithful heroine in Othello, whose complete trust becomes her tragedy. Long, dramatic, and carries an extraordinary depth of feeling.
21. Calphurnia
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Julius Caesar’s wife
She warns her husband not to go to the Senate on the Ides of March in Julius Caesar. She is right. He does not listen. A name that carries one of history’s most famous warnings.
22. Juliet
- Origin: French / Latin
- Meaning: Youthful
Perhaps the most famous heroine in all of literature. Romeo and Juliet gave this name an immortality that no other love story has quite matched. Romantic, warm, and endlessly beautiful.
23. Margaret
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Pearl
Margaret appears across multiple Shakespeare plays. She is at her most vivid in Henry VI and Richard III where she transforms from a young French princess into a fierce, bitter, prophetic queen who outlives everyone around her. A name with extraordinary range.
24. Silvia
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Of the forest, silver
She inspires the famous song “Who Is Silvia, What Is She?” in The Two Gentlemen of Verona — one of the most beautiful short lyrics Shakespeare ever wrote. The answer, according to the song, is that she is holy, fair, and wise.
25. Phebe
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Bright, shining
A shepherdess in As You Like It who falls in love with the disguised Rosalind. Shakespeare’s spelling is Phebe rather than Phoebe and it carries a beautiful literary distinctiveness.
26. Isabella
- Origin: Spanish / Hebrew
- Meaning: My God is my oath
She faces one of Shakespeare’s most brutal moral dilemmas in Measure for Measure with extraordinary courage and dignity. Royal, romantic, and carrying both real and literary history.
27. Audrey
- Origin: Old English
- Meaning: Noble strength
A country girl in As You Like It who ends up married to the clown Touchstone in one of Shakespeare’s most warmly comic matches. The name also carries all of Audrey Hepburn’s elegance.
28. Bianca
- Origin: Italian
- Meaning: White, pure
She appears twice across Shakespeare — in Othello and The Taming of the Shrew — as a name for women who are more complex than they first appear. Sleek, Italian, and carries a beautiful bold elegance.
29. Diana
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Goddess of the moon and the hunt
A young woman of Florence in All’s Well That Ends Well whose virtue and cleverness help Helena achieve her goals. Classic, powerful, and carrying centuries of mythological and literary history.
30. Katharina
- Origin: Greek / Shakespearean
- Meaning: Pure
Shakespeare spelled it Katharina rather than Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew and the distinction matters — it gives the name a European edge that feels completely fresh in modern naming.
Shakespearean Baby Boy Names
Shakespeare’s men range from the most tragic heroes in all of literature to brilliant clowns and devoted lovers. Every name here has been spoken on stages across the world for four hundred years and has survived because it is genuinely worth keeping.
31. Hamlet
- Origin: Old Norse / Danish
- Meaning: Village, home
Shakespeare’s most famous creation. Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark who spends a play asking the most fundamental questions about existence, mortality, and action. A name for a boy who will think deeply about everything.
32. Oberon
- Origin: Germanic / Shakespearean
- Meaning: Noble bear
King of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream whose quarrel with his wife Titania causes chaos throughout the enchanted forest. Magical, literary, and completely distinctive.
33. Lysander
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Liberator of man
He pursues his love Hermia into the enchanted forest in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and gets thoroughly confused along the way. Lyrical, rare, and carries a beautiful quality of freedom.
34. Benedick
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Blessed
Shakespeare’s spelling of Benedict from Much Ado About Nothing. Benedick is witty, proud, and gradually opens his heart to love. The Shakespearean spelling sets it apart from the more common form.
35. Prospero
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Favorable, prosperous
The exiled Duke of Milan in The Tempest who controls his island through magic and manipulation before finally choosing mercy over revenge. A name for a boy who will eventually know when to let things go.
36. Leontes
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Lion
He destroys his family through jealousy in The Winter’s Tale and spends sixteen years in guilt and grief before grace finds him. A powerful name that carries a story of devastating loss and extraordinary redemption.
37. Pericles
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Surrounded by glory
Shakespeare’s most adventure-filled hero — a prince who loses everything repeatedly and finds it all again through patience and endurance. Grand, rare, and deeply classical.
38. Caliban
- Origin: Shakespearean / possibly from Carib
- Meaning: No traditional meaning
One of Shakespeare’s most complex and debated characters in The Tempest — part monster, part victim, entirely fascinating. Bold, unusual, and carries an extraordinary literary depth.
39. Ariel
- Origin: Hebrew
- Meaning: Lion of God
A spirit of the air who serves Prospero in The Tempest. Before The Little Mermaid made it feminine, Ariel was Shakespeare’s airy, androgynous spirit. Strong, beautiful, and deeply literary.
40. Mercutio
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Of Mercury, quick-witted
Romeo’s brilliant, reckless, incredibly funny best friend in Romeo and Juliet whose death turns the play from comedy to tragedy. His name carries all of that crackling, quick-silver energy.
41. Falstaff
- Origin: Old English / Shakespearean
- Meaning: No traditional meaning
Sir John Falstaff appears across multiple plays as Shakespeare’s greatest comic creation — a fat, cowardly, brilliant, life-loving knight who is somehow more alive than almost everyone around him. As a name it is bold and completely unforgettable.
42. Lorenzo
- Origin: Italian / Latin
- Meaning: From Laurentum, crowned with laurel
He elopes with Jessica in The Merchant of Venice in one of Shakespeare’s most romantic subplots. Warm, Italian, and carries a beautiful musical quality.
43. Orlando
- Origin: Germanic / Italian
- Meaning: Famous land, renowned warrior
The romantic hero of As You Like It who covers the Forest of Arden in poems for Rosalind. Warm, Italian, and carries a beautiful sense of devoted, slightly ridiculous love.
44. Antonio
- Origin: Italian / Latin
- Meaning: Priceless, praiseworthy
Antonio appears in multiple Shakespeare plays. He is the merchant of Venice, the treacherous usurper in The Tempest, and the faithful friend in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. A name with extraordinary range.
45. Sebastian
- Origin: Greek / Latin
- Meaning: Venerable, from Sebaste
Viola’s twin brother who washes ashore in both Twelfth Night and The Tempest and causes delightful chaos through his resemblance to his disguised sister. Warm, classic, and enduringly beautiful.
46. Cassio
- Origin: Latin / Italian
- Meaning: Empty, vain
Michael Cassio’s promotion in Othello triggers Iago’s jealousy and starts the tragedy. The name has a beautiful Italian elegance that outshines its Shakespearean associations.
47. Duncan
- Origin: Scottish Gaelic
- Meaning: Dark warrior, brown warrior
The good king in Macbeth whose murder sets the whole tragedy in motion. His name carries a warm, grounded Scottish quality that has absolutely nothing to do with his fate.
48. Edmund
- Origin: Old English
- Meaning: Wealthy protector
The illegitimate son in King Lear who schemes against everyone around him with brilliant cold logic. As a name it carries literary weight and a quiet, old-world dignity.
49. Lysander
Already in the girls section as a note but Lysander is genuinely stronger as a boy name. Lyrical, rare, and carries extraordinary freedom in its meaning.
50. Tybalt
- Origin: Germanic
- Meaning: Bold people
Romeo’s great enemy in Romeo and Juliet — hot-tempered, skilled with a sword, and utterly convinced of his own rightness. Bold, unusual, and carries a fierce, striking energy.
51. Claudio
- Origin: Latin / Italian
- Meaning: Lame, enclosure
The romantic hero of Much Ado About Nothing who nearly destroys Hero through credulity and pride. The Italian form of Claudius is warmer and more musical than its Latin original.
52. Petruchio
- Origin: Italian / Latin
- Meaning: Stone, rock
One of Shakespeare’s most controversial characters in The Taming of the Shrew — bold, theatrical, and impossible to ignore. Dramatic, Italian, and completely distinctive as a name.
53. Leonato
- Origin: Italian / Latin
- Meaning: Like a lion
Hero’s father and Beatrice’s uncle in Much Ado About Nothing — a warm, slightly hapless patriarch who loves his family deeply. Warm, unusual, and carries a beautiful Italian quality.
54. Alonso
- Origin: Spanish / Germanic
- Meaning: Noble and ready
King of Naples in The Tempest whose guilt over his treatment of Prospero drives the emotional heart of the play. Warm, Spanish, and carries a beautiful noble quality.
55. Florizel
- Origin: Shakespearean / Latin
- Meaning: Little flower
A prince who falls in love with Perdita while she is disguised as a shepherdess in The Winter’s Tale. One of the rarest and most beautiful Shakespearean names that almost nobody thinks to use.
56. Stephano
- Origin: Italian / Greek
- Meaning: Crown, garland
The drunken butler in The Tempest who teams up with Caliban and Trinculo for one of the play’s most comic subplots. The Italian spelling gives it a warmth and distinctiveness all its own.
57. Timon
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Honor, to honor
He starts as the most generous man in Athens and ends as the most bitter misanthrope in Timon of Athens. His journey is one of Shakespeare’s most radical portraits of disillusionment.
58. Lucius
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Light
Lucius appears across multiple Shakespeare plays. He is Brutus’s faithful servant in Julius Caesar and a Roman general in Titus Andronicus. Short, classical, and carries a beautiful ancient Roman quality.
59. Balthazar
- Origin: Babylonian
- Meaning: Baal protect the king
Balthazar appears in multiple plays as a disguise name. In The Merchant of Venice it is the name Portia adopts when disguised as a lawyer. Grand, dramatic, and carries an extraordinary ancient weight.
60. Gratiano
- Origin: Italian / Latin
- Meaning: Pleasing, grateful
Bassanio’s friend in The Merchant of Venice who falls in love with Nerissa. Warm, Italian, and carries a beautiful grateful quality in its very meaning.
Unisex Shakespearean Names
Many of his characters spent entire plays disguised as the opposite gender which means these names naturally carry both energies. Beautiful for any baby.
61. Robin
- Origin: Germanic / English
- Meaning: Bright fame, the bird
Robin Goodfellow — also known as Puck — is one of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s most beloved characters. Warm, nature-rooted, and genuinely unisex across four centuries of use.
62. Ariel
Already in the boys section but Ariel is genuinely unisex in Shakespeare and works beautifully for any child. Literary, airy, and carries a beautiful spiritual quality.
63. Phoebe
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Bright, shining
She appears in As You Like It and also as an epithet of Artemis across Shakespeare’s works. Classical, bright, and widely beloved.
64. Valentine
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Strong, healthy
The romantic hero of Shakespeare’s earliest comedy in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. As a unisex name it carries both the play’s warmth and the most romantic date in the calendar.
65. Celia
- Origin: Latin
- Meaning: Heaven, the sky
Rosalind’s devoted cousin and best friend in As You Like It who follows her into exile without hesitation. Warm, celestial, and works beautifully across genders.
66. Percy
- Origin: French / Norman
- Meaning: From Percy, Normandy
Harry Percy — Hotspur — is one of Shakespeare’s most vivid historical characters in Henry IV. As a unisex name Percy carries a warm, slightly eccentric English quality.
67. Demetrius
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Follower of Demeter, earth lover
He spends A Midsummer Night’s Dream being magically redirected from one love to another. Grand, classical, and works beautifully across genders.
68. Hero
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Defender, warrior
Falsely accused of infidelity in Much Ado About Nothing, the whole play turns on her rehabilitation. Short, mythological, and carries an extraordinary sense of quiet, enduring courage.
69. Moth
- Origin: English word name
- Meaning: A small winged insect
A witty young page in Love’s Labour’s Lost whose rapid-fire intelligence delights throughout the play. Bold and unusual as a name but carries a wonderful lightness.
70. Fenton
- Origin: Old English
- Meaning: From the marsh settlement
The romantic young gentleman in The Merry Wives of Windsor who wins the girl everyone else was trying to manipulate. Warm, unusual, and carries a gentle English quality.
71. Gonzalo
- Origin: Spanish / Germanic
- Meaning: Saved from battle
The kindly old councillor in The Tempest who has always tried to do right by everyone. Warm, Spanish, and carries a beautiful sense of quiet goodness.
72. Lucentio
- Origin: Italian / Latin
- Meaning: Light, shining
He disguises himself as a tutor to get close to Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew — one of Shakespeare’s most romantically optimistic plots. Warm, Italian, and carries a beautiful luminous quality.
73. Lysander
Already across multiple sections. Genuinely one of the most beautiful unisex Shakespearean names available.
74. Troilus
- Origin: Greek
- Meaning: Of Troy
The Trojan prince whose devotion to Cressida drives one of Shakespeare’s most complex and ambiguous plays. Rare, mythological, and carries an extraordinary ancient depth.
75. Benedick
Already in the boys section but Shakespeare’s spelling of Benedick is genuinely unisex territory and works beautifully for any child who will grow up to be witty, proud, and eventually wise enough to love well.
76. Puck
- Origin: Old English
- Meaning: Mischievous sprite
Robin Goodfellow — the trickster who causes and resolves most of the chaos in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Playful, short, and carries the most mischievous energy in all of Shakespeare.
77. Prospero
Already in the boys section but Prospero’s qualities of wisdom, magic, and eventual mercy make it a genuinely beautiful choice for any child.
Wrapping Up
Shakespeare named his characters with extraordinary care because he understood that names carry character.
Every name on this list has been spoken on stages across the world for four hundred years and has survived because it is genuinely beautiful, genuinely interesting, or genuinely unforgettable.
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