Character Name
Greta
Greta Greta has a crisp, modern Scandinavian-Germanic feel that suits both period and contemporary characters. Through Goethe's Gretchen it carries older associations with feminine innocence and moral pathos; through figures like Greta Garbo and Greta Thunberg it has accumulated connotations of quiet, uncompromising individuality. Characters named Greta tend to be clear-eyed, principled, and quietly formidable.
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Famous characters named Greta
Gretchen (Margarete)
Faust — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The innocent young woman seduced and destroyed by Faust, whose tragic fate forms the moral heart of Goethe's masterwork.
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Related names
More Germanic names
Gottfried
“A Germanic masculine name composed of "got" meaning "god" and "frid" meaning "peace" — thus "God's peace" or "divinely peaceful". The name was widespread in the medieval German-speaking world and was borne by numerous clerics, nobles, and crusaders. Its most celebrated literary bearer is Gottfried von Strassburg, the 13th-century Middle High German poet who wrote "Tristan und Isolde", one of the great works of medieval romance.”
Carlie
“A feminine diminutive form of Carl, the English form of the Germanic Karl, derived from the Old Germanic karlaz meaning "free man." Carl and its variants (Karl, Carlos, Charles) all share this root, which denoted a common man — as opposed to a noble — and later came to carry a sense of honest independence. Carlie is a modern, informal English feminine form.”
Amalia
“A Germanic feminine name derived from the element "amal", the dynastic name of the Amal clan — the royal house of the Ostrogoths — possibly meaning "labour", "vigour", or related to a Proto-Germanic root meaning "work". The Amali dynasty produced Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths and Italy. The name spread into the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire and became a favoured royal name in several European dynasties.”
Kriemhild
“A Middle High German feminine name, possibly composed of "grîman" meaning "mask" or "helmet" and "hild" meaning "battle" — though the etymology is debated, with some scholars connecting the first element to a word meaning "violence" or "grief". Kriemhild is the central heroine-avenger of the Nibelungenlied, whose grief at the murder of her husband Siegfried transforms her into an unstoppable instrument of vengeance.”
Ansel
“An English and Germanic name derived from the Old High German "Anshelm" or "Anselm", composed of "ans" meaning "god" (specifically one of the Æsir or Germanic divine beings) and "helm" meaning "helmet" or "protection" — thus "protected by god" or "under divine protection". The name was borne most famously by Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), the Italian-born Archbishop of Canterbury and philosopher who formulated the ontological argument for God's existence.”
Eloisa
“The Italian and Spanish form of Eloise, from the Old French Héloïse, which derives from the Germanic Helewidis, composed of heil ("healthy, whole") and wit ("wide"). The name is forever associated with Héloïse d'Argenteuil (1101–1164), the medieval French scholar and nun whose passionate correspondence with philosopher Peter Abelard became one of the great epistolary love stories of Western history.”
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