Vanessa - Origin and Meaning of the name

The girl name Vanessa [ 3 syll. va-nes-sa, van-e-ssa ] is pronounced VahNEHSah ^KEY. Vanessa's origin is Latin, and its use, English and German. The name was first invented by the Irish poet Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) as a nickname for his lover Esther Vanhomrigh, derived from 'Van' from the Dutch surname Vanhomrigh and the feminine suffix '-essa', probably inspired by the first name Esther. She was fictionalized in Swift's poem Cadenus and Vanessa (1713), with Cadenus referring to himself, and the first name subsequently grew in popularity.

Forms of Vanessa include Vanesa (Spanish), Vanetta (Engilsh), and Venessa (Engilsh). The short forms Nessa (English), Nessie (English), and Vanny (English) are other variants of the name.

Vanessa is a popular baby girl name. The name's popularity increased from the 1940s up to the 1980s; before that, it was of only very light use. At the modest height of its usage in 1985, 0.410% of baby girls were named Vanessa. It had a ranking of #42 then. The baby name has seen a decline in popularity since then. In 2007, it ranked at #71 with a usage of 0.210%, but it was nevertheless the most regularly used within all girl names in its family.

Baby names that sound like Vanessa include Vanesa (Spanish), Venessa (Engilsh), Vincetta (Italian), Vanja (Scandinavian), Venanzia (Italian), and Venus (Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Scandinavian, and Spanish).

^KEY: Pronunciation for Vanessa: V as in "vee (V.IY)" ; AH as in "hut (HH.AH.T)" ; N as in "knee (N.IY)" ; EH as in "Ed (EH.D)" ; S as in "sea (S.IY)" ; AH as in "hut (HH.AH.T)"

Details of famous persons named Vanessa:
Actress Vanessa Anne Hudgens, born 14 December 1988, Salinas, California.
Political Relative Vanessa Kerry, born 31 December 1976.
Singer Vanessa Williams, born 18 March 1963, Millwood, New York.

Popularity Trend
for Vanessa
from 1900 to 2007

Variant Popularity Chart
for Vanessa
in 2007