Browse Names

Alphege m History (Ecclesiastical)
Middle English form of Ælfheah.

Bede m History (Ecclesiastical)
Modern form of the Old English name Baeda, possibly related to Old English bed "prayer". Saint Bede, called the Venerable Bede, was an 8th-century historian, scholar and Doctor of the Church.

Bonaventure m French, History (Ecclesiastical)
French and English form of Bonaventura. As a French name it is most common in Francophone Africa, while as an English name it is mostly used in reference to the saint.

Canute m History
Anglicized form of Knut.

Charlemagne m History
From Old French Charles le Magne meaning "Charles the Great". This is the name by which the Frankish king Charles the Great (742-814) is commonly known.

Constantine m History
From the Latin name Constantinus, a derivative of Constans. Constantine the Great (272-337), full name Flavius Valerius Constantinus, was the first Roman emperor to adopt Christianity. He moved the capital of the empire from Rome to Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople (modern Istanbul).

Molière m History
Stage name adopted by the French playwright and actor Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622-1673), the author of Tartuffe and other works. He probably borrowed the name from one of the many French towns called Meulière or Molière.

Tamerlane m History
Westernized form of Tīmūr e Lang (see Timur).

Voltaire m History
Pen name of François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), a French philosopher and writer, the author of Candide. It is not known how Arouet devised his name. He may have reversed the syllables of Airvault, a town where his family owned property; it may have been an anagram of the Latin spelling of his surname Arovet and LI standing for le jeune "the young"; or it may have come from French volontaire "determined".