Heather

Heather is an English name taken directly from the common word for the flowering shrub of the genus Calluna, which blankets the moorlands of Scotland and northern England. The plant name itself derives from the Middle English hather or heddyr, of uncertain further origin, possibly connected to Old English hæð, meaning heath or open wasteland. The name began to be used as a given name in the nineteenth century, part of a broader fashion for flower and plant names, and became especially popular in Britain and North America during the mid-twentieth century. Holly and Erica, the latter being the Latin botanical name for a related plant, are close thematic cognates in the same naming tradition.