← All names

Rowena

Girl name · 88 babies recorded · 1974–2025

Rowena: 88 babies born in Scotland since 1974, given to girls, peaking at 7 births in 1977.

Of Welsh origin, Rowena is thought to derive from the elements *rhawn* (spear) and *gwen* (white, fair, blessed), giving the meaning "white spear" or "blessed spear." The name is famously associated with the legendary Rowena, the beautiful Saxon princess in Sir Walter Scott's novel *Ivanhoe*, who helped popularise the name in the English-speaking world. In Scottish history, Rowena appears as a figure in Geoffrey of Monmouth's *Historia Regum Britanniae*, where she is the daughter of the Saxon leader Hengist. The name has no direct place-name connections, but its literary fame has kept it in steady, if modest, use in Scotland since the 1970s. A notable variant is the Welsh form Rhonwen, which shares the same root.