Pamela
//ˈpæmələ// name
name ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Proper Noun
- 1 A female given name originating as a coinage.
"They lived about thirty miles from the Squire; and she told me, that I might be sure to find her out by one circumstance; for that they had a daughter with a very strange name, Pamĕla, or Pamēla; some pronounced it one way, and some the other."
Example
More examples"Pamela must have been at home when I tried to get in touch with her, but she didn't answer the telephone."
Etymology
Invented by Sir Philip Sidney for his pastoral poem The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (c 1593). Seemingly created from scratch; some imagine an analysis as Ancient Greek πᾶς (pâs, “all”) + μέλι (méli, “honey”) but there is no evidence that this was intended.
Related phrases
More for "pamela"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.