Medieval variant of Honora, from Latin 'honor' meaning honor or esteem.
Annora is a medieval English and Irish variant of Honora, itself from the Latin honor — meaning, with admirable directness, "honour." The name arrived in Britain with Norman influence after 1066, where it was spelled variously as Honoria, Honora, Annora, and Anor, the spellings drifting further from the Latin original as they passed through French and then English mouths. In Ireland, it was absorbed into Gaelic naming practice as Nóra and Onóra, and it became one of the most common women's names in medieval Irish records — a name for women of dignity across every social class.
The historical Annoras and Honoras include saints, abbesses, and noblewomen documented in English and Irish sources from the twelfth century onward. The name carries the particular prestige of virtue names that were not merely aspirational but practically universal — in an era when "honour" was the central organizing concept of social life, naming a daughter Annora was a statement of serious parental intention. Eleanor of Aquitaine's granddaughter bore a form of the name; so did countless women whose lives appear only as a signature on a deed or a line in a parish register.
Annora today is among the rarest of the medieval revival names — less discovered than Arabella or Isadora, more truly obscure than even Sunniva or Elowen. It offers a parent something genuinely unusual: a name with centuries of use in English and Irish culture, a clear and lovely meaning, and phonetic elegance (the doubled vowel syllables give it a particular softness). It could be shortened to Nora, which has had its own strong revival, making the longer form a natural and unexpected parent name.