Daphne

Apollo then adopted the laurel as his sacred plant, an origin myth that explained the use of laurel crowns to honor poets and victors.

The myth was an enormously influential subject in Western art.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s sculpture Apollo and Daphne (1622-1625), housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, is one of the masterworks of Baroque sculpture and among the most celebrated depictions of the myth.

Countless paintings, operas, and literary works have treated the same subject across the centuries, making Daphne one of the most artistically memorialized figures from classical mythology.

The name consequently carries strong associations with aesthetic and artistic culture.

As a given name, Daphne was used in England from at least the 16th century, appearing in Elizabethan poetry and pastoral literature. It gained wider use during the 19th century as the Romantic movement rekindled interest in classical antiquity.

In the 20th century, the name is most famously associated with Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989), the British author of Rebecca (1938), Jamaica Inn, and The Birds, works that shaped the genre of gothic suspense.

In the United States, Daphne was most popular in the 1960s and 1970s, when it ranked within the top 200 names for girls.

The animated series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which debuted in 1969, featured a character named Daphne Blake and maintained the name’s cultural currency across decades of reruns and reboots.

A more recent revival has been driven in part by the character Daphne Bridgerton in the Netflix series Bridgerton (2020-present), which reached global audiences.

By 2024, Daphne ranked within the top 100 names for girls in the United States, a significant rise from its 1990s and 2000s nadir. The name also ranks prominently in France, Greece, and Belgium.

Variant forms include the French Daphnée and the rarely used Daphna. The name shares its root with the botanical genus Daphne, a group of ornamental shrubs.