Aveline: Baby Name of the Day

The baby name Aveline blends current sounds with a long and complicated history.

Thanks to Kayleigh for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.

AVA MEETS ADELINE

If Aveline didn’t exist, someone would have invented the name by now.

It blends several similar sounding names:

• Top 100 picks like Ava and Avery
• Ends-in-ine names, from Adeline to Madeline/Madeleine, Caroline, Evangeline, and more
• The very similar sound of Evelyn, as well as Eva and Everly

Combining the elments to arrive at Ava-line or Ava-lina feels like an obvious approach. Variations including Avelina are seen.

Avalyn and Avalynn are obvious Ava-meets-Lynn smooshes, too. Both have appeared in the US Top 1000 during the twenty-first century.

But Aveline is something just a little bit different – and far less common, too.

A CITY, A MYSTIC, A BIRD

Saint Teresa of Ávila, a sixteenth-century mystic, is among the more famous of Catholic saints. She’s considered a doctor of the church, meaning that her writings are considered theologically significant.

Ávila is a day trip from Madrid. Back in Teresa’s day – the sixteenth century – it was an imposing fortress, a walled medieval city. Ávila was established by the Vettones, a Celtic tribe, probably around the fifth century BC. They called the place Obila – high mountain.

The pronunciation isn’t intuitive for an American English speaker. It’s AH vee lah. Odds are that you’d hear ah VEE lah in the US.

Still, 62 girls received the name Avila in the year 2022 – a new high. 

It’s easy to imagine Aveline being chosen as an honor name for the influential saint, too.

There’s also Avice, a given name used in medieval English. 

Aveline de Forz, Countess of of Aumale and Lady of Holderness, was a thirteenth century English noblewoman, just a few generations removed from the Normans.

Avice might’ve come from Aveza, based on an obscure Germanic root. But when the Normans brought it to England during the eleventh century, it became associated with the Latin word avis – bird. 

In our age of Lark and Wren, the Latin Avis fits right in. 

Aveline and Avelina might also be diminutives for these Av- names, too. 

HAZELNUT

Next let’s talk about the French word for hazelnut, which just happens to be Aveline.

This puts Aveline in the company of other edible names, like Olive and Clementine.

The word typically used in contemporary French for hazelnut is noisette.

A nineteenth century French-English dictionary lists avellana as the English word, and aveline and noisette as the French. (Noisette appears to be the preferred term in modern French.)

It’s a bit tangled, but it makes sense: corylus avellana is the scientific name of the common hazel, derived from avellana nux sylvestris – wild nut of Avella – a term used to describe hazelnuts dating to a sixteenth century botanical guide, and referenced by writers as far back as Virgil.

Avella is a city located in Italy, near Naples. The Roman name was Abella, of uncertain origin. Over the years, the region and it’s most important crop came to share the same name.

The Spanish word for hazelnut? Avellana.

The name of the nut evolved separately from the girl’s given name. Today, though, it seems logical to connect them. 

AILEEN, AVELYN, EVELINE, AND MORE

Similar names abound. 

In Irish, Aveline became Eibhlín, which then was Anglicized as Eileen or Aileen. Eileen and Aileen are also considered Irish equivalents of Helen, so it’s easy to misplace the older name.

Other European languages use Evelina, Eveline, Evalina, and other spelling variants. Though they’re sometimes elaborations of Eva and Eve, or romantic takes on Evelyn. The range of alternative names – and origins – is considerable. 

THE RISE OF LYNN NAMES

Girls’ names ending with -lynn aren’t new, but there’s a fresh wave of them in the 2020s.

Not only is Madelyn the most popular spelling of that traditional favorite, but combinations like Oaklynn, Gracelyn, Raelyn, Ashlyn, and Lakelynn, along with variations of each, appear in the US Top 1000 for baby girl names in recent years. 

Pronounce Aveline like Ava-lynn and it fits right in. Though, of course, it might also be Ava-leen, which puts it in the same category as Josephine.

SURNAME NAME

Aveline is also heard as a last name. It’s probably connected to the Latin avis, though it could share roots with Avila or Aveza, too.

There’s also Avitus, Avitius, Avita, and Avitia. 

In the 450s, Eparchius Avitus briefly served as emperor of the Western Roman Empire. There’s also a sixth century Saint Avitus, who served as bishop in Vienne, part of Gaul. His family was related to the Roman family. 

There are others in the Avitus family. It likely comes from the Latin avus, meanign ancestor.

POP CULTURE

The Middle Ages give us at least one notable Aveline. They’re rare in more recent years, but popular culture has delivered a handful of uses.

• During the 1960s, a French comic series titled La Fée Avelineran told the story of a fairy living in contemporary France. (The name has been associated with fairies for centuries in France.) It was written by René Goscinny  with designs by illustrator Luis Garcia Gallo, better known as Coq. 
• In the mid-1980s, television series Bread aired in Britain. The sitcom focused on a struggling Liverpool family, which included daughter Aveline.
• Aveline de Grandpré appears in the Assassin’s Creed video games, beginning in 2012. 
• More recently, indie band Aveline Wallflower released popular songs, while Aveline Gram is a well-known young pianist in the world of classical music. 

A parent might glimpse the name Aveline in any of these places, but it’s not enough to start a trend. 

BY the NUMBERS

The baby name Aveline has long been used in small numbers in France. Four were born in the year 2020; 10 back in 1993. Not surprisingly, a few notable women answer to the name, too, like illustrator Aveline Stokart.

In the US, the name briefly seemed to be catching on. In 2016, it peaked with 179 births. 

That likely represents a mix of factors: the video game character, and the overwhelming popularity of such names.

But the name slid right back down the popularity chart without ever really catching on. As of 2022, just 50 girls were given the name Aveline. 

Avalyn and Avalynn are also falling in use. 

SOPHISTICATION and SURPRISE

Overall, the Aveline might be the perfect name for parents torn between popular names and unique names. It’s neither and both at the same time. 

The name’s French origins lend it some sophistication. But it’s playful, too – the name of a a fairy, rather than an empress.

And while -lyn ending names have a long history of use – think Carolyn or Marilyn – it’s Adeline that feels more sweetly vintage. That suggests that Aveline, too, reads more like an overlooked antique gem. 

Ava and Lina are both possible nicknames for Aveline, and it could make a great middle name option.

The challenge: it’s easy to imagine an Aveline today being mistaken for Adeline and Evelyn and so on.

And yet, this name is undeniably attractive. It’s culture-spanning and meaning-rich. Here’s a story of a family who named their daughter Avalene, after a great-aunt Avallina as well as the Catholic saint. There’s a lovely Aveline on this blog, written by a globe-trotting mama.

If you love names like Josephine and Charlotte, but want something far less common for your daughter, Aveline might belong on your list.

What do you think of the baby name Aveline? 

This post was originally published on July 13, 2011. It was revised and re-posted on June 22, 2015 and again on April 13, 2024.