75 Baby Names Inspired by Famous Philosophers
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Philosophers are some of the most influential people and thinkers of our lifetime. They have laid down the framework for important progress in areas such as mathematics and physics.
More: 75 Inspirational Names that Exude Positivity
Below is a list of well-known boy, girl, and gender-neutral names in philosophy that would be meaningful and unique choices for a little one being brought into this world. When they grow up and ask how their name came to be, you will be able to provide them with a wonderful history lesson so they know just how crucial advances in philosophy are to our society.
Philosopher Girl Names
- Anne - Anne Conway was an English philosopher and she wrote a single treatise of philosophy that was influenced by contemporary philosophers.
- Antoinette - Antoinette Brown Blackwell was an American philosopher and the first woman to be ordained as a Protestant minister in the US.
- Aspasia - Aspasia was a Greek philosopher and a very influential writer in Ancient Greece.
- Ayn - Ayn Rand was an American writer and philosopher who is credited for developing Objectivism.
- Ban - Ban Zhao was a Chinese philosopher and the first known female Chinese historian.
- Catherine - Catherine Trotter Cockburn was an English writer and philosopher who focused on moral philosophy.
- Clea - This is a shortened name for Themisoclea who is also known as Aristoclea who was one of the first European philosophers.
- Damaris - Lady Damaris Cudworth Masham was an English philosopher and writer who was best known as the "Lockean feminist" because of her work and friendship with John Locke.
- Diotima - Diotima of Mantinea is the name of a fictional figure that is featured in Plato's Symposium.
- Edith - Saint Edith Stein was a German-Jewish philosopher who eventually became a patron saint of Europe after converting to Catholicism.
- Elizabeth - Elizabeth of the Palatinate was a German philosopher who worked closely with Rene Descartes.
- Emilie - Emilie du Chatelet was a French philosopher and her biggest project was translating Isaac Newton's Principia into French.
- Hannah - Hannah Arendt was an American philosopher and political scientist born in Germany and best known for her work in totalitarianism.
- Harriet - Harriet Taylor Mill was a British philosopher and large involved in women's rights, and she wrote many works on the women's suffrage movement.
- Helena - Helena Blavatsky was a Russian philosopher who co-founded the Theosophical Society.
- Heloise - Heloise d'Artgenteuill was a French nun and philosopher of love and friendship.
- Hildegard - Saint Hildegard of Bingen was a German philosopher who was believed to have been the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.
- Hypatia - Hypatia was an astronomer and philosopher in Egypt who taught philosophy and astronomy at the Neoplatonic School in Alexandria.
- Iris - Dame Irish Murdoch was a British and Irish philosopher who wrote several novels and had a large role in moral philosophy as well as her interpretations of Aristotle and Plato.
- Jacqueline - Jacqueline Broad is an Australian philosopher and professor at Monash University in Australia, who is known for writing Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century.
- Juana - Juana Ines de la Cruz was a Mexican philosopher and writer who made many contributions to literature during the Spanish Golden Age.
- Judith - Judith Jarvis Thomson was an American philosopher and elected to the American Philosophical Society because of her work on the trolley problem.
- Laura - Laura Ruetsche was an American philosopher and the Chair of the department of philosophy at the University of Michigan.
- Macrina - Saint Macrina the Younger was a universalist and nun in the Early Christian Catholic Church.
- Maitreyi - Maitreyi was an Indian philosopher during the Vedic period and a symbol of Indian intellectual women.
- Mary - Mary Astell was an English writer and philosopher and was famous for being the first English feminist.
- Philippa - Philippa Foot was an English philosopher who was credited with inventing the trolley problem and one of the founders of contemporary virtue ethics.
- Rosa - Rosa Luxemburg was a Polish and German philosopher and co-founded the anti-war Spartacus League.
- Ruth - Ruth Marcus was an American philosopher who is known for developing the principle called the Barcan formula.
- Simone - Simone de Beauvoir was a French philosopher who wrote several works and had a significant influence on female existentialism.
- Sosipatra - Sosipatra of Pergamum was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher and said to have mystical powers.
- Susanne - Susanne Langer was one of the first American women in history to have a career in philosophy.
- Thecla - Saint Thecla was very knowledgeable in philosophy and was known as one of Paul's apostles.
- Tullia - Tullia d-Aragona was an Italian philosopher who was a large influence on many male philosophers and worked hard to gain status as equal to men.
Philosopher Boy Names
- Alan - Alan Watts was a British philosopher who has written many works involving Buddhism.
- Aristotle - Aristotle was a Greek philosopher in ancient Greece who learned under Plato and founded the philosophy of treatise the Aristotelian tradition.
- Arthur - Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher who is most known for writing The World as Will and Representation.
- Baruch - Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher and one of the early thinkers of the Enlightenment as well as a leading figure of the Dutch Golden Age.
- Bertrand - Bertrand was a British polymath who is credited with being one of the founders of analytic philosophy.
- Cicero - Marcus Cicero was a Roman philosopher and one of Rome's greatest orators during the establishment of the Roman Empire.
- Confucius - Confucius was a Chinese philosopher who founded Confucianism and went on to be one of the most influential people in history.
- David - David Hume was a Scottish Enlightenment Philosopher and most of his work was dedicated to proving that human knowledge comes only from experience by writing several works on naturalism.
- Democritus - Democritus was an ancient Greek Socratic philosopher known for creating the atomic theory of the universe.
- Diogenes - Diogenes the Cynic was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of cynicism.
- Epicurus - Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded Epicureanism.
- Friedrich - Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher and the youngest person to ever become the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel.
- Gandhi - Mahatma Gandhi was an anti-colonial nationalist who leads the campaign for India's independence through nonviolence.
- Georg - Georg Hegel was a German philosopher and an important figure in Western philosophy and German idealism.
- Gottfried - Gottfried Leibniz was a German polymath who made countless contributions to philosophy and physics.
- Hobbes - Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher who is best known for his book Leviathan.
- Immanuel - Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher is an influential figure who developed a doctrine of transcendental idealism.
- Jean-Paul - Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher and a key figure in existentialism and phenomenology.
- Karl - Karl Marx was a German philosopher who was best known for his theories about capitalism and advocating for communism.
- Locke - John Locke was an English philosopher who was known as the "Father of Liberalism."
- Ludwig - Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked to understand artificial vs natural intelligence and the dependence of technology on learning.
- Marcus - Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher as well as the last emperor of the Pax Romana.
- Niccolo - Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian philosopher during the Renaissance and was best known for his political treatise called The Prince.
- Noam - Noam Chomsky was an American philosopher and one of the founders of the cognitive science field.
- Pascal - Blaise Pascal was a French philosopher who formulated Pascal's principle of pressure.
- Plato - Plato was an Athenian philosopher who founded the Platonist School of Thought and The Academy and is considered one of the most influential individuals in history.
- Pythagoras - Pythagoras of Samos was a Greek philosopher and founder of Pythagoreanism.
- Rousseau - Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher and hugely influenced the progress of the Enlightenment period.
- Sigmund - Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and philosopher who founded psychoanalysis.
- Socrates - Socrates was a Greek philosopher who is the founder of Western philosophy and the Socratic Method.
- Soren - Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher and is known as the first existentialist.
- Thomas - Thomas Aquinas was an Italian philosopher and also known as the Doctor Angelicus.
- Voltaire - Francois Arouet or Voltaire was a French philosopher and a prominent Enlightenment thinker.
- Zeno - Zeno of Elea was a Greek philosopher before Socrates and the inventor of the dialectic.
Gender Neutral Philosopher Names
- Blaise - Blaise Pascal was a French philosopher as previously mentioned, and also a prominent author during the French Classical Period.
- Eliot - T.S. Eliot was an American poet and a prominent figure in Modernist poetry who studied philosophy at the Sorbonne.
- Emerson - Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American philosopher and essayist who is known for his lectures and his essay Self-Reliance.
- Francis - Francis Bacon was an English philosopher who promoted the scientific method.
- Rene - Rene Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician who is known for inventing analytical geometry.
- Samuel - Samuel Alexander was an Australian-British philosopher and won the Green moral philosophy prize in 1887.
- Seneca - Seneca the Younger was a Roman Stoic philosopher and is a major figure in stoicism and the Roman Imperial Period.
For more baby name inspiration check out these popular baby name lists:
- Top 1000 Most Popular Baby Girl Names in the U.S.
- Top 1000 Most Popular Baby Boy Names in the U.S.
- The 100 Coolest Baby Names in the World
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