- Origin: Visigothic
- Meaning: Uncertain
- Usage: Albanian, Bashkir, Bosnian, Catalan, Croatian, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Galician, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Portuguese, Provençal, Romanian, Romansch, Russian, Scandinavian, Slovene, Tatar
- Transcription: Эльвира (Russian)
- Gender: Female
- Eng (el-VY-rah); Sp (el-VEE-rah; el-BEE-rah)
A 19th-century gem and late 20th-century vampiric monikor, the name is of uncertain meaning but has its origins in Medieval Spain. It is likely of Visigothic origins, possibly derived from Gailawera or Geloyra, which stem from gails (happy) or (spear); and wers (friendly, agreeable, true).
It should be noted that Elvira (Latin: Iliberri or Iliberis) was an ancient Iberian and later Roman city located near present-day Granada, in Andalusia, southern Spain. However, in this case, it is likely derived from an Iberian source, meaning “new town.”
It was a popular female name among the royal family of Castille & León, producing two queens who bore this name, Elvira of Castile, Queen of León (965–1017) and Elvira of Castile, Queen of Sicily (c. 1100–1135).
It was later used in Mozart’s 1787 opera Don Giovanni (libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte), in which Donna Elvira is one of Don Giovanni’s former lovers. This likely popularized the name outside of the Iberian peninsula.
By the turn of the 20th-century, Elvira was not unknown in the United States, though never overly popular, it peaked at #254 in 1914, but fell out the Top 1000 by 1981, the same year Elvira, Mistress of the Dark came on the scene.
The real Halloween link began in 1981, when actress Cassandra Peterson created the camp-horror TV hostess Elvira, Mistress of the Dark for a Los Angeles late-night show (Movie Macabre).
Dressed in a plunging black gown with a beehive of jet hair, Elvira presented old horror movies with sardonic humor — blending Gothic sex appeal, irony, and B-movie kitsch.
The character became a pop-culture icon: Halloween TV specials, films, pinball machines, comic books, and even perfume lines immortalized her as the Queen of Halloween.
Outside the United States, this name does not have such associations. In Sweden, it has been among the top 100 girls’ since 1998 and peaked at #25 in 2014. As of 2024, it came in at #40.
It’s a popular name in the Balkans, even spinning off a male form of Elvir (Bosnian and Albanian).
Other forms include:
- Elbire (Basque)
- Elvíra (Czech/Slovakian)
- Elviira (Estonian, Finnish)
- Elvire (French)
- Elwira (Polish, also an alternate Swedish spelling, Sorbian)
- Elvīra (Latvian)
- Elvyra (Lithuanian)
Obscure Lithuanian male forms are the Lithuanian, Elvyras; the Polish, Elwir(o), and the Italian Elviro.
Name days: August 25 (Austria), July 16 (Croatia), February 10 (Hungary), January 25 (Spain), March 1 (Sweden), November 21 (Slovakia), August 13 (Latvia).
Sources
- Withycombe, E. G. The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950.
- https://www.behindthename.com/name/elvira
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvira
- https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvira_(nombre)
- https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvire
