Laura

Laura is a Latin feminine name derived from the word laurus, meaning laurel, the aromatic evergreen shrub whose branches were woven into crowns to honor victorious generals, athletes, and poets in ancient Rome. The name was borne by Saint Laura of Córdoba, a ninth-century Spanish martyr, and was famously immortalized by the Italian poet Petrarch, who addressed his celebrated sequence of love sonnets to a woman of that name in the fourteenth century. Laura spread widely across Europe through literary and religious influence and remains common throughout the Romance-speaking world and beyond. Closely related forms include Laurie, Lora, Loretta, Lauren, Laureen, Loretta, and the masculine Laurence.