Gender: Feminine
Origin: English/Italian/Latin/Scandinavian
Meaning: “violet.”
Eng (VIE-ə-lə; vee-OH-luh); It (VYOLE-lah)
The name is derived from the Latin word for violet and has been used throughout Europe since Medieval times. In the English-speaking world, it was introduced via the Shakespeare play Twelfth Night (1602). It was extremely popular in both Britain and the United States during the turn of the 20th-century, coming in as the 42nd most popular female name in 1908, (United States).
Currently, Viola is the 31st most popular name in Italian-speaking, Switzerland, (2010).
Other forms of the name include:
- Viola (Czech/English/Finnish/German/Hungarian/Italian/Latin/Portuguese/Russian/Scandinavian/Spanish)
- Viole (French)
- Wiola (Polish)