Fiona

Fiona is a feminine given name of Gaelic origins. It means white or fair, the Irish name Fíona means vine. It was coined by Scottish writer William Sharp. Sharp may have drawn inspiration from Celtic variations of the name Catherine. Initially, the name was confined to Scotland but later it gained popularity in other countries, such as Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Australia, Germany and Canada.

Etymology
Fiona originates from the Gaelic word fionn, meaning white or fair, being a Latinised form; or an Anglicisation of the Irish name Fíona meaning vine. In ninth-century Welsh and Breton language Fion (today: ffion) referred to the foxglove species and is also a female given name as in Ffion Hague.

It was coined by the Scottish writer William Sharp under the pseudonym Fiona Macleod. Sharp may have drawn inspiration from Celtic variations of the name Catherine. Fiona carries connotations of gentility and refinement, often suggesting aristocratic lineage for its bearer. The name is commonly shortened to Fi, with other variations including Fina, Fee, and Tiona.

Variations of the name Fiona include Gwenn in Breton, Gwen and Wynne in Welsh. Masculine forms include Fion, Fionn, Finnán, Finnén, Finn, Gwyn and Wyn. The Scottish Gaelic feminine name Fionnghal is also sometimes equated with Fiona.

Popularity
Initially, the name remained largely confined to Scotland until the latter part of the 20th century when it gained popularity in Britain, Australia, and Canada. Additionally, the Ossianic poems of James Macpherson helped to familiarize the name in the English-speaking world. It experienced a surge in popularity during the latter half of the 1960s.

Fiona was the 71st most popular name for baby girls born in 2023 in Germany. It was the 439th most popular female name in Scotland in 2023. The name was the most common female name in the ranking of most popular names for baby girls born in Liechtenstein in 2022. In 2022, in Switzerland, Fiona was the 57th most popular name. In Australia it is the 138th most popular baby names since the 1930s. In New Zealand it was particularly popular during the 1960s until around 1980. In Canada, it was the 287th most popular baby girl name, ranking in 287th. In the US the most girls named Fiona were born in the 21h century and the number of Fionas born per year was greater than 1,000 from 2009 until 2021. It has ranked among the top 1,000 most popular names for girls since 1990 and among the top 500 since 1999. The name Fiona has been particularly popular for girls of Asian or Pacific Islander descent in New York City, where Fiona ranked as the ninth most popular name for girls from those groups in 2007.

Notable people with the given name

 * Fiona, hippopotamus born at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden
 * Fiona Adams, British photographer
 * Fiona Allen, English comedian and actress
 * Fiona Alpass, New Zealand academic
 * Fiona Apple, American singer
 * Fiona Baan, Scottish-born American sports administrator
 * Fiona Balfour, Australian business executive
 * Fiona Bloom, publicist
 * Fiona Bruce, BBC presenter
 * Fiona Button, English actress
 * Fiona Campbell, several people
 * Fiona Clark, New Zealand photographer
 * Fiona Connor (born 1981), New Zealand artist
 * Fiona Coyne (1965–2010), South African actress, author, playwright and presenter
 * Fiona Crawley, American tennis player
 * Fiona Crombie, Australian costume and production designer
 * Fiona Davis, Canadian author
 * Fiona Dawson, LGBT activist, writer, producer, and film director
 * Fiona Dourif, American actress
 * Fiona Doyle, Irish swimmer
 * Fiona M. Doyle, American scientist
 * Fiona Dunbar, English children's author and illustrator
 * Fiona Edgar, New Zealand professor of management
 * Fiona Fairhurst, inventor of the Speedo Fastskin swimsuit
 * Fiona Ferro, French tennis player
 * Fiona Flanagan, singer
 * Fiona Fox, British writer and chief executive
 * Fiona Fullerton, English actress
 * Fiona Fung, Hong Kong singer
 * Fiona Fussi, Hong Kong-Austrian fashion model and actress
 * Fiona Gaunt, English actress
 * Fiona Gélin, French actress
 * Fiona Geminder, Australian businessperson
 * Fiona Givens, American writer, teacher, and speaker
 * Fiona Glasscott, Irish actress
 * Fiona Godlee, first female editor of The British Medical Journal
 * Fiona Graham, Australian anthropologist and geisha
 * Fiona Gubelmann, American actress
 * Fiona Hammond, Australian water polo player
 * Fiona Highet, Scottish entomologist
 * Fiona Hill, British-American foreign affairs specialist
 * Fiona McLeod Hill, British political adviser
 * Fiona McLeod, Australian barrister and Labor politician
 * Fiona Kennedy, Scottish singer
 * Fiona Krautil, Australian specialist in inclusion, diversity and equal opportunity in the workplace
 * Fiona Leggate, British auto racing driver
 * Fiona Lowry, Australian painter
 * Fiona MacDonald, Scottish curler
 * Fiona J. Mackenzie, Scottish Gaelic singer
 * Fiona Macleod, pseudonym for English writer William Sharp
 * Fiona Macpherson, Scottish Philosopher
 * Fiona Mactaggart, British politician
 * Fiona May, English-Italian athlete and actress
 * Fiona McFarlane, Australian author
 * Fiona Millar, British author and journalist
 * Fiona O'Donnell, Scottish politician
 * Fiona O'Driscoll, Irish camogie player
 * Fiona O'Keeffe, American long-distance runner
 * Fiona O'Loughlin, Australian stand-up comedian
 * Fiona O'Loughlin, Irish politician
 * Fiona O'Malley, Irish politician
 * Fiona O'Shaughnessy, Irish actor
 * Fiona O'Sullivan, Irish footballer
 * Fiona Onasanya, British politician
 * Fiona Peterson, Australian academic
 * Fiona Phillips, British journalist and broadcaster
 * Fiona Pitt-Kethley, British poet, novelist and journalist
 * Fiona Richmond, English glamour model
 * Fiona Ritchie, American broadcaster
 * Fiona Robertson, Scottish judoka and wrestler
 * Fiona Robinson, Australian basketball and handball player
 * Fiona Scott Morton, American professor of economics
 * Fiona Shaw, Irish actress
 * Fiona Sit, Hong Kong Cantonese singer
 * Fiona Stanley, Australian epidemiologist and public health researcher
 * Fiona Staples, comic book artist
 * Fiona Urquhart, Scottish cricketer
 * Fiona Watt, British children's author
 * Fiona Wood, British born Australian plastic surgeon and burns specialist
 * Fiona Xie, Singaporean television actress
 * Fiona Yuen, German-born Hong Kong model and actress
 * Fiona Zedde, Jamaican-born American fiction writer

Fictional characters

 * Princess Fiona, the female lead in the Shrek
 * Fiona, stepmother of Sam Montgomery in the 2004 film A Cinderella Story
 * Fiona in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
 * Fiona, a character in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation
 * Fiona, a character in Xenoblade Chronicles 3
 * Fiona in the film EuroTrip
 * Fiona, main character in the film Josie and the Pussycats
 * Fiona, a character in Kid vs. Kat
 * Fiona, one of the regular characters in Round the Horne
 * Fiona, main character in the television series So Weird
 * Fiona, leader of the rebel mages in Dragon Age: Inquisition
 * Fiona, a main player-character from the Tales from the Borderlands video game
 * Fiona, the closest friend of Jonas in Lois Lowry's 1993 novel The Giver
 * Fiona, a playable character in the Free-to-play game Vindictus
 * Fiona of Fort Weyr, Telgar Weyrwoman in Dragon's Time by Anne and Todd McCaffrey
 * Fiona Anderson, a character from ''Louds
 * Fiona Bayar, an antagonist in The Seven Realms series
 * Fiona/Black Fairy in the TV series Once Upon a Time
 * Fiona Belli, protagonist in the game Haunting Ground
 * Fiona Brewer, character from the film, About a Boy
 * Fiona Callahan, a character in the CW show Charmed
 * Fionna Campbell, the gender-swapped version of Finn in the Adventure Time franchise
 * Fiona Carter in the BBC show Spooks
 * Fiona Cat, Huckle Cat's mother from The Busy World of Richard Scarry
 * Fiona "Fee" Cleary, matriarch of the Cleary family in the novel and mini-series The Thorn Birds
 * Fiona Conneely, main character in The Secret of Roan Inish
 * Fiona Coyne, a character in the Canadian television series Degrassi: The Next Generation
 * Fiona Fennec, a character in the comic Kevin and Kell
 * Fiona Flagstaff, a Spinosaurus character in DinoSquad
 * Fiona Fox, a character in the Sonic the Hedgehog comics by Archie Comics
 * Fiona Fraunfeld, a main character in Ransom Riggs' 2001 book Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
 * Fiona Gallagher, a character in the television drama Shameless
 * Fiona Gilman, a character in the video game Identity V
 * Fiona Glenanne, a main character in the television show Burn Notice
 * Fiona Goode, a character in American Horror Story: Coven
 * Fiona Hackworth in the book The Diamond Age
 * Fiona Kerr, a "notorious wet" in the novel The Passion Flower Hotel
 * Fiona Linette, a character in the anime series Zoids: Chaotic Century
 * Fiona Maxwell, one of the main characters in the 1993 novel Tomorrow, When the War Began
 * Fiona Mayfield, a character in the video game series Arcana Heart
 * Fiona McLaren, the main female character in the Broadway musical Brigadoon
 * Lady Fiona McTarry, the alias of Agent Mimi in the James Bond spoof Casino Royale
 * Fiona Pitch, aunt of Baz Grimm-Pitch in Rainbow Rowell's 2015 novel Carry On
 * Fiona Volpe, an assassin in the James Bond film Thunderball
 * Fiona Wallice, a character in the television and web series Web Therapy
 * Princess Fiona, sorceress in The Chronicles of Amber novels

Other

 * Fiona (hippopotamus), first Nile hippo imaged on ultrasound pre-natally