Belinda

Belinda is a literary name of uncertain derivation. One proposed explanation connects its opening with Italian bella, meaning beautiful, while other possibilities involve older Germanic elements. The precise construction remains unsettled. Its history is clearer in literature than in any single reconstructed phrase.

Alexander Pope used Belinda for the heroine of The Rape of the Lock, and Maria Edgeworth later gave the name to a novel and its central character. Singer Belinda Carlisle supplies a familiar modern bearer. The eighteenth-century literary heroines and the modern musical namesake give Belinda several distinct artistic connections, extending its story well beyond a single generation or style.