Variant of Camilla, from Latin meaning young ceremonial attendant.
Camillia is an elaborated spelling of Camilla, a name whose roots reach back to ancient Rome and possibly further, into the Etruscan civilization that predated it. In Latin, a *camillus* or *camilla* was a young attendant — a free-born boy or girl who assisted at religious ceremonies, holding sacred vessels and lighting the altar fires. The name thus carries an original aura of ritual and devotion.
Its most vivid ancient bearer is the warrior maiden Camilla in Virgil's *Aeneid* — a huntress queen of the Volsci who fights alongside Turnus against Aeneas, described as swift enough to run across a field of grain without bending a single stalk. Virgil's Camilla became one of the great heroines of classical literature and influenced portraits of warrior women for centuries. The camellia flower — the glossy-leafed ornamental shrub beloved in East Asian gardens and Western conservatories alike — was named after the Jesuit botanist Georg Josef Kamel in the 18th century, creating a happy botanical echo that gives Camillia a floral resonance it didn't originally possess.
Alexandre Dumas fils immortalized the flower's symbolism in *La Dame aux Camélias*, the tragic romance that became the opera *La Traviata*. The spelling Camillia, with its doubled *l*, amplifies the name's visual lushness, making it feel more like the flower it sounds like. Royal visibility increased dramatically when Camilla Parker Bowles became the Princess of Wales, returning the name to the top of British consciousness.