Vanessa

Vanessa was invented by the Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift for his poem Cadenus and Vanessa (1726), constructed from the name of his close friend Esther Vanhomrigh by combining the first syllable of her surname with the pet form Essa of her given name. Swift intended it as a private literary name, but its attractive sound led to its adoption as a genuine given name across English-speaking countries and later throughout much of Western Europe. The naturalist Johann Christian Fabricius independently gave the name to a genus of butterflies in 1807, further cementing its cultural presence. Vanesa is a common Spanish and Portuguese spelling variant, while Vanesse appears occasionally in French contexts.