A variant of Daphne, from Greek, meaning laurel tree.
Daphnie is an alternate spelling of Daphne, one of the most mythologically resonant names in the Western tradition. The original Greek Daphne means "laurel tree," and the name belongs to one of the most poignant figures in Ovid's Metamorphoses: a naiad pursued by the god Apollo, she calls on her father, the river god Peneus, to transform her rather than submit — and she becomes a laurel tree at the moment of Apollo's grasp. The god, forever stricken, declares the laurel sacred, wearing a wreath of its leaves on his head in perpetual mourning and love.
This story made the laurel crown the symbol of poetic achievement and honor in the ancient world, a meaning that still echoes in the phrase "poet laureate." Daphne was used throughout antiquity and appears in early Christian records, though it was not among the dominant names of the medieval period. It experienced a significant revival in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as classical names came back into fashion among English-speaking families.
The author Daphne du Maurier — whose 1938 novel Rebecca remains one of the great Gothic masterpieces — did more than perhaps anyone to establish the name's literary credentials and brooding romantic associations in the modern imagination. The spelling Daphnie softens the name slightly, lending it a more whimsical and individualized quality that distinguishes its bearer from the more common Daphne. The name gained fresh pop-cultural exposure through the television series Frasier and the Scooby-Doo franchise, giving it a dual life as both a name of classical gravitas and warm animated nostalgia.