Give your newborn a name worth reading about by picking a moniker inspired by the greats of British literature. Our list of famous writers from England, Scotland, and Wales is packed full of quaint, old-fashioned names, as well as interesting, unusual options. You could even mix things up by selecting a surname — Brontë is a beautiful choice for a girl, and Huxley is strong pick for a boy. Browse our favourites here, and while you're in a literary mood, check out names inspired by English literature's greatest heroines [1].
Names For Girls
- Agatha (Christie)
- Ali (Smith)
- Andrea (Levy)
- Angela (Carter)
- Anne (Brontë)
- Beryl (Bainbridge)
- Carol Ann (Duffy)
- Charlotte (Brontë)
- Doris (Lessing)
- Elizabeth (Barrett Browning, Bowen, Gaskell)
- Emily (Brontë)
- Enid (Blyton)
- Hilary (Mantel)
- Iris (Murdoch)
- Jacqueline (Wilson)
- Jane (Austen)
- Jean (Rhys)
- Jeanette (Winterson)
- Joan (Aiken)
- Julia (Donaldson)
- Kate (Mosse)
- Margaret (Drabble)
- Mary (Shelley)
- Monica (Ali)
- Muriel (Spark)
- Penelope (Lively)
- Rose (Tremain)
- Sarah (Waters)
- Virginia (Woolf)
- Zadie (Smith)
Names For Boys
- Alan (Bennett)
- Aldous (Huxley)
- Alfred (Tennyson)
- Arthur (Conan Doyle)
- Charles (Dickens)
- Christopher (Marlowe)
- Daniel (Defoe)
- David (Mitchell, Nicholls)
- Dylan (Thomas)
- Ford (Maddox Ford)
- Geoffrey (Chaucer)
- George (Byron, Orwell)
- Ian (Fleming, McEwan)
- John (Donne, Fowles, Keats, Milton)
- Julian (Barnes)
- Kingsley (Amis)
- Lewis (Carroll)
- Mervyn (Peake)
- Neil (Gaiman)
- Percy (Shelley)
- Philip (Pullman)
- Roald (Dahl)
- Robert (Burns, Louis Stevenson)
- Rudyard (Kipling)
- Samuel (Taylor Coleridge, Johnson)
- Somerset (Maugham)
- Ted (Hughes)
- Thomas (Hardy)
- Wilfred (Owen)
- William (Makepeace Thackeray, Shakespeare, Wordsworth)