SCARLETT SPICER

Name popularized by the central character in the novel Gone With the Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell, later made into a famous film. The characters in the novel bear a variety of unusual given names, which had a remarkable influence on naming practices throughout the English-speaking world in the 20th century. According to the novel, the name of the central character was Katie Scarlett O'Hara (the middle name representing her grandmother's maiden surname), but she was always known as Scarlett. The surname Scarlett is in origin an occupational name for a dyer or for a seller of rich, bright fabrics, from Old French escarlate ‘scarlet cloth’ (Late Latin scarlata, of uncertain, probably Semitic, derivation).

English: occupational name for a seller of spices, Middle English spic(i)er (a reduced form of Old French espicier, Late Latin speciarius, an agent derivative of species ‘spice’, ‘groceries’, ‘merchandise’).