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Thelma

A feminine literary given name of unknown meaning, documented as Thelma in an 1845 English translation and later popularised by Marie Corelli’s 1887 novel.

Last updated: 2026-08-20

Thelma is a feminine given name with no securely established literal meaning. Its documented literary history begins before Marie Corelli: a Swedish novel of 1840–41 has a character called Telma, and an English translation published in 1845 renders her name Thelma. Corelli later gave the name to the Norwegian heroine of her widely read 1887 novel Thelma, after which it became much more familiar in English-language naming.

That history makes literary name of uncertain derivation a more accurate description than “Greek name” or “Norwegian name.” The spelling occurs in fiction set in Sweden and Norway, but a character’s nationality does not establish the linguistic origin of her name.

What Does Thelma Mean?

The honest answer is unknown. The Ancient Greek noun θέλημα (thélēma) is real: the Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek lexicon glosses it as “will”. This explains why “will,” “wish,” or “volition” is often given as Thelma’s meaning.

The existence of a similar Greek word does not, however, prove that it produced the personal name. *A Dictionary of First Names* notes the Greek comparison but considers it unlikely that Corelli formed the name from that word. More importantly, Thelma was already present in an English literary text decades before Corelli’s novel. No checked source records Flygare-Carlén, her English translator, or Corelli explaining the name as a Greek coinage. “Will” is therefore best treated as a proposed association, not a translation of the name.

The Earlier Telma–Thelma Literary Trail

Emilie Flygare-Carlén’s Swedish novel Kyrkoinvigningen i Hammarby was published in 1840–41. The digitised Swedish text repeatedly calls one character Telma, including the phrase vår lilla Telma (“our little Telma”). This is direct evidence for the form without h in the original novel.

The work appeared in English as *The Magic Goblet: A Swedish Tale* in 1845. That translation calls the character Thelma. The 2007 scholarly edition edited by Amy H. Sturgis identifies and reprints the 1845 English translation of Kyrkoinvigningen i Hammarby. The spelling path can therefore be stated cautiously:

  • Telma — the form in Flygare-Carlén’s Swedish original, 1840–41;
  • Thelma — the form in the 1845 English translation.

This does not prove that Flygare-Carlén herself invented Telma, or that the translator was the first person ever to spell it Thelma. It does show that accounts calling Thelma a name first created by Corelli in 1887 are too absolute.

There is also evidence of real-life use before Corelli. Name scholar Gulbrand Alhaug’s Store norske leksikon entry records Thelma Paulsen, born in Kristiania (now Oslo) in 1848, as the first registered bearer in Norway. That is a national first-bearer statement, not a claim that she was the earliest Thelma anywhere.

Marie Corelli and Wider Adoption

Marie Corelli’s Thelma: A Society Novel was issued by Richard Bentley in London in three volumes in 1887. Its title character, Thelma Güldmar, is a young Norwegian woman who marries an Englishman and enters London society. The novel itself is available in a complete Project Gutenberg text, while At the Circulating Library, a research database of Victorian fiction, confirms the 1887 Bentley edition.

Corelli’s importance lies in popularisation, not first invention. Standard name references associate the name’s rise at the end of the nineteenth century with her novel. United States Social Security data show how firmly established it soon became there: Thelma ranked 41st among girls’ names @@0@@, with 18,265 recorded uses, and 34th @@1@@, with 68,767. These are US decade totals, not evidence for worldwide use and not proof that every parent chose the name because of the novel.

Pronunciation, Gender, and Spelling

In standard British and American English, Cambridge University Press gives **/ˈθel.mə/**, approximately THEL-muh, with the opening consonant heard in thin.

Thelma is established primarily as a feminine given name. Telma is the most directly relevant alternate spelling because it appears in Flygare-Carlén’s Swedish original and is also listed as a variant by Store norske leksikon. In a particular person’s records, however, a change between Telma and Thelma may reflect language, a clerk’s choice, or the bearer’s own preferred spelling; similarity alone should not be used to silently alter a historical record.

Names such as Selma, Velma, and Elma resemble Thelma in sound and nineteenth-century style, but resemblance is not enough to make them routine variants. They should be researched under their own documented histories unless a particular bearer’s records connect the spellings.

Is Thelma a Norwegian Name?

The answer depends on what “Norwegian” means. Thelma has genuine recorded use in Norway: the national name reference cited above documents an 1848 bearer and modern Norwegian use. Corelli also made her Thelma a Norwegian heroine. Neither fact demonstrates that the name arose from Old Norse or from a traditional Norwegian word.

It is safer to say that Thelma is an uncertain literary name later adopted in Norway and elsewhere. A person called Thelma does not thereby have Norwegian ancestry, and two bearers of the name do not thereby share a family line. Etymology explains a name’s history; genealogy requires records connecting particular people.

References