Baby Name of the Day: Zelda

The baby name Zelda feels vintage, creative, and maybe a little bit offbeat too.

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

WHAT DOES THE NAME ZELDA MEAN?

History suggests two distinct, but very different, origins for the baby name Zelda.

First up: the Yiddish Selig or Zelig. It means happy. It makes sense that Zelda is a girl’s name based on Zelig.

An equally compelling argument suggests a German origin. Germanic names like Griselda end with the right sound. Griselda comes from elements meaning gray and battle. That’s a very different image. 

Petrarch, Chaucer, and Boccaccio all re-told the story of Patient Griselda. It’s pretty awful by modern standards, but remained popular in folklore for centuries. In the story, Griselda is an obedient, endlessly patient woman who suffers mightily and is ultimately rewarded. The tale explains why the name endured across time. 

Worth noting: Yiddish originated as a form of German spoken by Jews in the Holy Roman Empire. It mixed in Hebrew elements, borrowed from Slavic and Romance languages, and evolved into a vernacular spoken internationally. It’s still in use today.

All of this makes Zelda equal parts joyful and fierce. 

LITERARY ZELDA

By the 19th century, Zelda stepped out Griselda’s shadow. At least two novels used the name:

• An 1866 novel by Jane Howard titled Zelda: A Tale of the Massachusetts Colony
• Robert Edward Francillon’s Zelda’s Fortune in 1874 

It suggests the name was reasonably popular. Enough, at least, that in the year 1900 Anthony and Minnie Sayre gave the name to their daughter.

Zelda Sayre grew up to become jazz age icon Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of celebrated author F. Scott Fitzgerald and a novelist in her own right.

Raised in Montgomery, Alabama, the daughter of a prominent Southern family, Zelda met F. Scott when he volunteered for the army in 1918. Scott was sent to Camp Sheridan, outside of Zelda’s hometown. They met and eventually married. The author freely admitted that several of his characters were modeled on his new bride; scholars later discovered that Zelda’s letters heavily influenced her husband’s work, too.

Dubbed “the first American flapper” by her husband, Zelda is wrapped up with the era. While the couple’s story ends on a low note – separated and burned out – we remember them at their peak, living a fabulous life in the Roaring 20s. 

In 2013, Therese Fowler published Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. The bestseller became a 2017 Amazon series, starring Christina Ricci as the glamorous socialite.

It informs how we hear the baby name Zelda today.

SPELLMAN, GILROY, ZONK

By the 1960s, the name’s image had changed.

If once it was a Bohemian, Jazz Age darling, the baby name Zelda shifted. It still felt offbeat, but maybe in a different way.

After all, when Archie Comics introduced us to Sabrina the Teenage Witch, she lived with her aunts, Hilda and Zelda Spellman.

The name remained a reasonable choice for a witch as the series evolved, becoming a 1990s sitcom staple. The show gave us a scientist-witch, determined to see Sabrina use her powers for good.

Miranda Otto played the part in Netflix’s darker The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina from 2018 to 2020. 

Over the years, we’ve met a few other Zeldas:

• Sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis introduced us to Zelda Gilroy in 1959. She was smart and accomplished, but – like Dobie and their friend Maynard – a little offbeat.
• Marilyn Monroe sometimes used the pseudonym Zelda Zonk, which feels delightfully improbable.
• Actress Zelda Rubenstein played the diminutive psychic in the Poltergeist movies during hte 1980s. 

Plenty more fictional and real women answered to the name. 

But there’s one that comes to mind along with Fitzgerald.

You might know that the late Robin Williams named his daughter Zelda Rae. His inspiration? Not literature, but a video game. 

LEGENDARY ZELDA

In 1986, Nintendo released the genre-busting Legend of Zelda video game. Players guided their hero, Link, through a series of underground dungeons. Link’s quest? To find and rescue Princess Zelda.

An instant bestseller, the game has been reinvented over the years, becoming more and more sophisticated.

The character Zelda, too, has evolved. Instead of a damsel in distress, clad in a bubblegum pink ballgown, newer iterations of Zelda emphasize her independence. She adventures on her own, or by Link’s side, in more recent versions of the game.

The game’s creator has said that his princess was named after Zelda Fitzgerald. In turn, Robin Williams stated that his daughter – born in 1989 – was named after the video game character.

HOW POPULAR IS THE NAME ZELDA?

Those 19th century novels and turn-of-the-century women wearing the name point to Zelda’s popularity back in the day.

In fact, the baby name Zelda appears in the US Top 1000 way back in 1880 – the very first year for which data is available.

As of the year 1900, the name ranked #503 – neither familiar nor truly obscure.

It remained a Top 500 choice into the 1930s, and left the US Top 1000 only after 1966.

The baby name Zelda returned in 2015, as a generation raised on Nintendo and wild about Zoey and Zoe went searching for more Z names for our daughters.

Zelda peaked in use around 2020. As of 2025, it fell back to #832.

QUIRKY COOL

The baby name Zelda blends a sort of vibrant, 1920s appeal with an offbeat independence. It’s a stand-out name that’s instantly familiar. Vintage, and yet perfectly at home in the 21st century. 

Zelda is a sister for Tallulah or Odette, an alterantive to similar names in the Top 100, like Stella or Zoe. 

It’s effortlessly cool, strong, and exuberant, possibly the perfect name for a daughter born now. 

What do you think of the baby name Zelda?

First published on December 15, 2008, this post was revised substantially and re-published on July 28, 2021 and again on August 4, 2026.