Fauna

FAW-nah

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The name Fauna means “animal life, goddess of fertility.” It comes from the Latin language tradition.

Fauna is the Roman goddess of earth and fertility, and the Latin collective term for all animal life in a region (complementing flora for plant life). The name connects its bearer to the wild, living world in the most fundamental way. It has an earthy, primal beauty that appeals to nature-oriented parents.

Wiktionary confirms Fauna as the feminine form of Faunus, tracing it either to a reconstructed root meaning beast or to Latin faveo, to favor, hedging between the two derivations itself. Wikipedia confirms fauna as the standing collective term for all animal life in a region, complementing flora for plants, which supports the animal-life sense given elsewhere.

The Faunus derivation is consistent with Fauna being a Roman deity linked to that nature god, but the source doesn't itself spell out her specific role as goddess of earth and fertility, so that epithet given elsewhere isn't directly confirmed by anything found here.

• Fauna Hodel (American woman at the center of the Black Dahlia investigation)
• Fauna (one of the fairy godmothers in Disney's Sleeping Beauty)

Sibling names that share Fauna's rhythm and register without echoing it too closely.