Cynthia

Origin

From an Ancient Greek epithet of the moon goddess Artemis, from the Mount Κύνθος, on Delos island, the center of her worship.

Full definition of Cynthia

Proper noun

1. (poetic) The moon, personified.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.1:As when faire Cynthia, in darkesome night,
  Is in a noyous cloud enveloped ....
• 1601 Ben Jonson, Hymn to Diana:Cynthia's shining orb was made
  Heaven to clear when day did close....
2. .
• 1866 Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Chapter 10:"Cynthia seems to me such an out-of-the-way name, only fit for poetry, not for daily use."
• 1978 Graham Greene, The Human Factor, ISBN 0671240854, page 59:Cynthia, the domestic-minded, looked as dashing as a young commando. It was a pity that her spelling was so bad, but perhaps there was something Elizabethan about her spelling as well as about her name.

Usage notes

Popular given name in the U.S.A. in the 1950s and the 1960s.