Lorena (name)

Lorena is a German, English, Croatian, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish feminine given name with different origins. It can be used as an version of Lorraine or, alternately, as a Latin version of Lauren.[1] As a Croatian, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish name, it is derived from the Latin Laurentius.[2] As a German and English name, it is a modern form of the Germanic Chlothar (which is a blended form of Hlūdaz and Harjaz).[3] As used in the United States, it may have come from the song title of a popular 1856 song by Rev. Henry D.L. Webster and Joseph Philbrick Webster, who are said to have derived the name from an anagram of the name Lenore, a character in Edgar Allan Poe's 1845 poem The Raven.[1] In Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O'Hara's daughter with Frank Kennedy was named Ella Lorena in reference to the song Lorena. Frank G. Slaughter wrote a book called Lorena in which the character was also called Reeny hence the alternative pronunciation of Lor ee na.