Given name · also Welsh, Germanic
Rowena
“one who is fair and slender”·“having much fame and happiness”
Rowena has a medieval literary record and a later revival through Walter Scott.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Interpretations include “one who is fair and slender” and “having much fame and happiness”. These belong to different or overlapping naming contexts.
Where it comes from
A possible origin is Germanic, although the derivation remains uncertain.
The story
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s twelfth-century chronicle names Hengist’s daughter Rowena. Walter Scott later used it for the Saxon woman who marries Ivanhoe, carrying the medieval name into nineteenth-century fiction.
Rowena through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 10,526
- 0 boys · 10,526 girls
- Most popular year
- 1917
- 224 babies
- 2025
- 32
- #4,441 for girls
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- +27%
- Rising
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 32 U.S. birth records for girls, ranking No. 4,441 among girls’ names. Average annual use for girls was 26.8% higher in 2021–2025 than in 2016–2020. Its largest published annual count for girls was 224 in 1917. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 9,883 as a first name in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Rowena’s family of names
In Filipino usage, Rowena has a diminutive in WENNA. Rowena has a related form in Rhonwen. Rowena has a related form in Rhonwyn.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 10
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
- Rowennavariant · English
- Wennadiminutive · Tagalog
- Rowynavariant
- Rhonwynvariant
- Rhonwenvariant
- Rowinnavariant
- Rowinavariant
- Roweinavariant
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Spellings & scripts 1
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 3
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Rowena
- Rowena MorrillAmerican artist (1944–2021)
- Rowena WebsterAustralian female water polo playerborn 1987
- Rowena MeredithAustralian rowerborn 1995
- Rowena Mary BruceEnglish chess player1915–1999
- Rowena KingBritish actressborn 1970
- Rowena Meeks AbdyAmerican modernist painter (1887-1945)
- Dodie HeathAmerican actress (1926–2023)
- Rowena Green Matthewsprofessor, biochemistborn 1938
- Rowena SweatmanBritish judokaborn 1968
Characters named Rowena: Rowena Ravenclaw (fictional witch in the Harry Potter franchise, one of the four founders of Hogwarts, creator of Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, mother of Helena Ravenclaw).
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Appears in
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If you love Rowena, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
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