As an English name it can also derive from the month of August, which was named for the Roman emperor Augustus.
In America, this name received boosts in popularity from main characters in the movies The Jackal (1997) and Leap Year (2010).
Famous bearers of the name include the English poet Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), the German-Czech philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), the first person to climb Mount Everest.
This name was popular throughout the English-speaking world in the early 20th century. It staged a comeback in the early 21st century, returning to the American top ten in 2017.
Due to its favourable meaning, this name was popular among early Christians, being borne by many early saints and four popes. It has been used in England since the Middle Ages, though it has been more popular in continental Europe. A notable bearer was the German composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).
Due to the renown of the saint, this name became widespread in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. However, it was not regularly used in Britain until the 16th century. Famous bearers include Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1552), a missionary to East Asia, the philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the explorer and admiral Francis Drake (1540-1595), and Pope Francis (1936-).
In the English-speaking world this name is occasionally used for girls, as a variant of the homophone Frances.
The Normans brought the name to England in the 11th century but it quickly died out. It was reintroduced by the German House of Hanover when they inherited the British throne in the 18th century. A famous bearer was Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), an American ex-slave who became a leading advocate of abolition.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an important Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer. Both his name and surname were from an earlier 15th-century ancestor (a doctor).
Jonah's story was popular in the Middle Ages, and the Hellenized form Jonas was occasionally used in England. The form Jonah did not become common until after the Protestant Reformation.
This name has never been overly common in the Christian world, and it is considered typically Jewish. It was however borne by an 11th-century Hungarian king.
As an English name, it has been used occasionally since the 12th century. It is the name of a central character in Shakespeare's play The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594).