OLIVIA BROWN

Latinate name, first used by Shakespeare for the rich heiress wooed by the duke in Twelfth Night (1599). Shakespeare may have taken it as a feminine form of Oliver or he may have derived it from Latin oliva ‘olive’. In the 1970s it was particularly associated with the Australian pop singer and actress Olivia Newton-John (b. 1948). Since the 1990s it has been very popular throughout the English-speaking world.

English, Scottish, and Irish: generally a nickname referring to the color of the hair or complexion, Middle English br(o)un, from Old English brūn or Old French brun. This word is occasionally found in Old English and Old Norse as a personal name or byname. Brun- was also a Germanic name-forming element. Some instances of Old English Brūn as a personal name may therefore be short forms of compound names such as Brūngar, Brūnwine, etc. As a Scottish and Irish name, it sometimes represents a translation of Gaelic Donn. As an American family name, it has absorbed numerous surnames from other languages with the same meaning.