From Greek 'korē' meaning maiden; borne by ancient Greek lyric poetess Corinna.
Corina (also Corinna, Korina) flows from the ancient Greek *Korinna*, a diminutive of *Kore*, meaning "maiden" or "girl"—the same root that gives us Persephone's epithet Kore, the maiden of the underworld. The name entered literary history through Corinna of Tanagra, a Boeotian lyric poet of the fifth or fourth century BCE who, according to ancient tradition, repeatedly defeated the great Pindar in poetic competitions held at Thebes. Whether this story is historically reliable or a later invention, it established Corinna as a name for women of uncommon intellectual and artistic gifts.
The name traveled into Roman poetry through Ovid, who immortalized a woman called Corinna as the addressee of his *Amores*—an elegant, witty, and unattainable mistress whom scholars have debated as real, composite, or entirely fictional. Ovid's Corinna became a model for Renaissance poets seeking a classical name for their beloved, and the name appears throughout English and Italian Renaissance verse. Robert Herrick's "Corinna's Going a-Maying" (1648) is among its most celebrated appearances, a lush invitation to seize spring's pleasures before age arrives.
Corina, in its more streamlined modern spelling, has been particularly popular across Latin America, Spain, Romania, and Germany. In the United States it surfaced most visibly through the 1991 film *Corrina, Corrina* and several soul and R&B recordings that gave the name a warm, melodic association. It occupies a sweet spot between classical authority and everyday warmth—not so antique that it feels costumed, not so common that it disappears into a crowd.