It’s a garden of girls out there.  In last year’s US Top 100, we find Lily (#27) and Jasmine (#32).  Rose, Daisy and Violet follow close behind.  Toss in variant spellings and elaborations, plus fresher botanical choices like Hazel and Ivy, Poppy and Willow, and it’s easy to wonder if you’re at the playground or the greenhouse. 

Today’s choice can be seen as the ultimate flower power moniker, but she’s terribly underused compared to her fellow blooms.  Thanks to Lola for suggesting our Name of the Day: Flora.

The similar sounding, but etymologically unrelated, Florence was once the height of fashion.  In the US, she ranked in the Top Ten from 1886 to 1904.  Today she’s the good natured housekeeper from the Brady Bunch.

Harry Potter heroine Fleur brought the French version of the name to many parents’ attention, but the odds of hearing the simple sound mispronounced are sky high.

And so we’re surprised that more parents haven’t considered Flora.  She’s the goddess of flowers in Roman mythology and the name has been in use since the late Renaissance, in both England and France.  In fact, Flora was a relatively obscure member of the pantheon.  Artists like Titian, Boticelli and Rembrandt brought her to life starting in the 1400s.

Unlike many a name, there’s no controversy about her meaning.  The Latin flos means flower.  Flora has been in use to describe plant life in general since the 1700s when Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus published Flora Suecica and a host of related works.

One of the earliest Floras is a saint born in France in the 1300s, showing that the name was in use quite early.  More famous Floras pop up in the historical record steadily following her artistic and scientific use.  In the 1700s, Flora McDonald helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape capture.  A statue commemorating her bravery stands in Inverness, Scotland today.  Early French feminist thinker Flora Tristan was well known in the socialist movement of the 1830s and 1840s.  English painter Flora Twort was active in the early 20th century.

In the late 19th century, Flora appeared steadily in the US Top 100.  She fell out of favor in the early 20th century, and last appeared in the Top 1000 in 1972.

You’ll still hear Flora in Europe, including Poland, Sweden and Belgium and we’ve met a Flora born in the late 70s, too.  Flora offers one of those pleasing compromises – your daughter won’t share her name, but she’ll rarely have to spell it.

Besides blending in with the botanical name craze in recent years, her two syllable, ends-in-a pattern is equally current.  Flora could be a substitute for Emma, Hannah, Sarah or Ella.

If you’ve been watching the Disney vault, you might know that Flora is about to get a boost.  She’s one of the names used for the good fairies in the 1959 animated version of Sleeping Beauty.  The name the film used for Beauty – Aurora – now ranks in the 300s in the US.  Perhaps the movie’s re-release this week will bring Flora to greater prominence, too.