Variant of Cynthia, an epithet of Artemis from Mount Cynthus, giving it a mythic place-based origin.
Cinthia is a variant spelling of Cynthia, a name with deep roots in Greek mythology. Cynthia — or Kynthia — was an epithet for Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, the moon, and wild nature, derived from Mount Cynthus on the island of Delos, her mythological birthplace. The name was also applied to Apollo, Artemis's twin, as "Cynthius."
When Roman poets absorbed Greek mythology, they used Cynthia as a poetic stand-in for the moon goddess, and Propertius famously named the woman of his elegies Cynthia, making it a byword for idealized feminine beauty in classical Latin literature. The name entered English use during the Renaissance, when poets and playwrights revived classical names as part of the broader humanist project. Edmund Spenser used "Cynthia" as an allegorical name for Queen Elizabeth I — the virgin moon goddess serving as a flattering parallel to the Virgin Queen.
From that courtly peak it descended into general use, arriving in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a respectable given name, and peaking in mid-twentieth-century America. The Cinthia spelling — most prevalent in Spanish-speaking countries and among Latinx communities in the United States — gives the classical name a warmer, more Romance-language character. The dropped "y" is a small orthographic shift that signals cultural belonging without abandoning the name's ancient mythology. It remains a name freighted with moonlight, with classical beauty, and with the fierce independence of the goddess whose name it carries.