SHIRLEY INNOCENTI

Transferred use of the surname, in origin a local name from any of the various places (in the West Midlands, Derbyshire, Hampshire, and Surrey) named in Old English from scīr ‘county, shire’ or scīr ‘bright’ + lēah ‘wood, clearing’. It was given by Charlotte Brontë to the heroine of her novel Shirley (1849). According to the novel, her parents had selected the name in prospect of a male child and used it regardless. Shirley had earlier been used as a boy's name (Charlotte Brontë refers to it as a ‘masculine cognomen’), but this literary influence fixed it firmly as a girl's name. It was strongly reinforced during the 1930s and 40s by the popularity of the child film star Shirley Temple (b. 1928).

Italian: 1. patronymic from the personal name Innocente (Latin Innocentius), (see 2). This was borne by a 4th-century bishop of Tortona, several popes from the 5th century onwards, and a 6th-century bishop of Le Mans. 2. from innocente ‘innocent’ (Latin innocens, literally ‘not harming’). This was used as a nickname for a simpleton, following the Christian notion that simpletons, like children, were incapable of doing evil. The surname is found principally in Tuscany and neighboring regions and is extremely common in Florence, where it was given as a surname to the foundlings received into the Spedale degli Innocenti, an orphanage established in the 15th century.