Violet (given name)
Violet is a given name for girls which comes from the eponymous flower. As with other such names, its popularity has varied dramatically over time. Flower names were commonly used from about 1880 through about 1910 in the United States, with usage dropping throughout the next 80 years or so; Violet was the 88th most frequent girls' given name in 1900, dropping below position 1000 by 1960. In 1990, the name appeared again in the top 1000 at position 289 and subsequently increased in popularity; it was the 69th most popular girls' name in 2013.
The cognates in other languages are Viola, Violeta, Violetta, or Violette. These are also common girls' given names, whose popularity varies by time and country.
Name variants
- Violet – English
- Violette – French, English
- Violetta – Italian, Belgian, Dutch
- Viola – Latin, English, Italian, German, Swedish
- Violeta – Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, Lithuanian, Albanian
- Виолета / Violeta – Serbian
- Виолета – Bulgarian
- Виолетта – Russian
- Βιολέττα or Βιολέτα – Greek
- Wioleta, Wiola, Wioletta or Violetta – Polish
People with the name
- Violet Alva, Indian lawyer, politician and deputy chair of the Rajya Sabha, and Indian National Congress member
- Violet Archer, Canadian composer, teacher, pianist, organist, and percussionist
- Violet Astor, English aristocrat
- Violet Attlee, English wife of British Prime Minister Clement Attlee
- Violet Barclay, American illustrator
- Violet Barungi, Ugandan writer and editor
- Violet Benson, Russian-born American Internet personality
- Violet Berlin, television presenter
- Violet Bidwill Wolfner, owner of the Chicago / St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League
- Violet Blue, American writer and sex educator
- Violet Brown, Jamaican supercentenarian
- Violet Brunton, English artist
- Violet Bonham Carter, British politician and diarist
- Violet Cameron, English actress and singer
- Violet Carson, British actress of radio and television, and a singer and pianist
- Violet Chachki, American drag queen, burlesque dancer, recording artist, TV personality, and model
- Violet Cliff, British pair skater
- Violet Dickson, wife of British colonial administrator H. R. P. Dickson
- Violet Douglas-Pennant, British philanthropist and supporter of local government
- Violet Duca, Turkish volleyball player and manager
- Violet Elton, English badminton player
- Violet Englefield, British actress and singer
- Violet Fane, poet, writer, and ambassadress
- Violet Farebrother, English film actress
- Violet Gibson, attempted assassin of Benito Mussolini
- Violet Gillett, Canadian painter and educator
- Violet Gordon-Woodhouse, British musician
- Violet Graham, English stage and film actress
- Violet Hackbarth, American baseball player
- Violet Hamilton, photographer who lived and worked in Australia, the US, and the UK
- Violet Heming, English stage and screen actress
- Violet Henry-Anderson, Scottish-born golfer and partner of poet Elsa Gidlow
- Violet Herbert, Countess of Powis, British peer
- Violet Hopkins, American painter
- Violet Hopson, British actress
- Violet Hunt, British writer
- Violet Jacob, Scottish writer
- Violet Jessop, survivor of three shipwrecks
- Violet Annie Lee, mother of the Kray twins
- Violet Kajubiri, former General Secretary of the Wildlife Clubs of Uganda, and sister of Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni
- Violet Kazue de Cristoforo, Japanese American poet, composer, and translator of haiku
- Violet Kemble-Cooper, British stage and film actress
- Violet King Henry, Canadian lawyer
- Violet Knights, American silent film actress
- Violet La Plante, American silent film actress
- Violet Loraine, English actress and singer
- Violet M. Digby, British artist
- Violet MacMillan, American actress
- Violet Makuto, Kenyan volleyball player
- Violet Manners, Duchess of Rutland, British artist and noblewoman
- Violet Markham, British writer and social reformer
- Violet Mathieson, English-born actress and dancer who lives in the US
- Violet May Cottrell, New Zealand writer, poet, and spiritualist
- Violet Melnotte, stage performer, actress-manager, and theatre owner
- Violet Mersereau, American stage and film actress
- Violet Milner, Viscountess Milner, English Edwardian society lady, and editor of the political monthly, National Review
- Violet Milstead, Canadian aviator
- Violet Mond, Baroness Melchett, British humanitarian and activist
- Violet Mount, Australian soprano
- Violet Myers, classical singer and the wife of British diplomat William Algernon Churchill
- Violet Needham, English author
- Violet Neilson, Jamaican politician
- Violet Florence Martin, Irish writer
- Violet Oaklander, child therapist
- Violet Oakley, American artist
- Violet Odogwu, Nigerian track and field athlete
- Violet Olney, English athlete
- Violet Owen, British tennis and hockey player
- Violet Palmer, American basketball referee in the NBA and WNBA
- Violet Philpott, English puppeteer and author
- Violet Piercy, English long-distance runner
- Violet Pinckney, English tennis player
- Violet Plummer, South Australian medical doctor
- Violet Powell, writer and critic
- Violet Richardson Ward, founder of the Berkeley Women's Gymnasium
- Violet Roche, New Zealand journalist and welfare worker
- Violet Romer, American dancer
- Violet Skies, Welsh singer-songwriter
- Violet Sleigh, the first Miss Malaya
- Violet Smith, American female jockey
- Violet Teague, Australian artist
- Violet Tillard, suffragette, nurse, pacifist, conscientious objector supporter, famine relief worker, and Quaker
- Violet Trefusis, English writer and socialite
- Violet Tweedale, Scottish author, poet, and spiritualist
- Violet Van der Elst, best known for activities against the death penalty
- Violet Vanbrugh, English actress
- Violet Walrond, New Zealand swimmer
- Violet Wattenberg, international cricketer
- Violet Webb, English track and field athlete
- Violet Wegner, daughter of Scotland Yard detective, William T. Wegner
- Violet Whiteman, English-born New Zealand artist
- Violet Wilkey, American child actress
- Violet Winspear, British writer
- Violet Wood, British supercentenarian
- Violet Yong Wui Wui, Malaysian lawyer and politician
Fictional characters
- Violet Gamart, a character in Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop
- Violet Gray, a Peanuts character
- Violet Baudelaire, an A Series of Unfortunate Events character
- Violet Beauregarde, a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory character
- Violet Evergarden, the protagonist of Kana Akatsuki's Violet Evergarden
- Violet Harmon, an American Horror Story: Murder House character
- Violet Parr, a The Incredibles character
- Violet Parr, a Mean Girls 2 character
- Violet Song jat Shariff, an UltraViolet character
- Violet Turner, a Private Practice character
- Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, a character on Downton Abbey
- Violet, a DC Comics character
- Lee Chaolan or Violet, a Tekken 4 character
- Violet Weiler, a character from Fred Mustard Stewart's novel Ellis Island, also on the TV miniseries of the same name
- Violet Wilson, character from the British ITV soap opera, Coronation Street
- Violet, the title character from the musical
- Violet, one of the five main characters in Winterborne Home For Vengeance and Valor
- Violet née Walton, the sister of Hyacinth Bucket in "Keeping Up Appearances"