Sabrina

Continuing with the party, this name can't quite seem to get away from the grasp of a certain teenage witch.

Sabrina Spellman fist appeared in the comic book series Sabrina the Teenage Witch in 1962. Sabrina is really half-witch (the magical talent is on her father's side), and she lives with her two aunts, Zelda and Hilda. She also has a male witch-turned-cat named Salem. I refuse to call him a warlock, that term is always used incorrectly (sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine). In her stories, Sabrina learns how to use her powers, tries to help people without revealing who she is, and deals with the everyday challenges of being a teenager.

The character became very popular. It was made into several movie and television adaptations. One animated series retells the story, starting when Sabrina's in Junior High and just learning about her powers. There were also made into a series of paperback novels.

Sabrina (pronounced "sah-BREE-nah") has uncertain roots. But it does appear in a Celtic myth. Sabrina was the illegitimate daughter of the Welsh King Locrine. The King's wife Queen Gwendolyn ordered that the infant be drowned in the river. The river where the baby was killed was named after her, but it's since been changed to Severn.

Sabrina has been on the top 1000 baby names of the United States since the 1950s. It reached the peak of it's popularity in the 1990s at #91. Since then it's been steadily dropping, and now its rated #214. It's also #93 in Quebec and #437 in Norway.

Even with the name's popularity, people with this name confess that the first thing anyone says when they introduce themselves is, "Oh, like Sabrina the Teenage Witch!" They say it gets old. I don't blame them. But it's still a familiar name that is accepted by non-Pagans. Personally, I think it's a little passe, but if you really love it, who am I to steer you away from it? And if you are a Neo-Pagan, the teenage witch association could be a plus.

Sources:
http://www.babynamewizard.com/namipedia/girl/sabrina
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_the_Teenage_Witch

Image Credit:
Found via http://ffffound.com/