From the Italian city Genova (Genoa), possibly from Latin 'genu' (knee) or 'janua' (gate, door).
Genova functions on a beautifully doubled register: it is both a variant of the ancient name Genoveva (from which Genevieve descends, rooted possibly in the Celtic words for "tribe" and "woman," or perhaps from the Germanic "kuni" meaning kin and "wefa" meaning woman) and the Italian name for the city of Genoa, the ancient maritime republic carved into the Ligurian cliffs of northwestern Italy. Saint Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, reportedly rallied the city against Attila the Hun through prayer and moral authority in the 5th century — one of the great feminine acts of civic courage in late antique history.
As the Italian name for Genoa, Genova carries the full weight of one of Europe's most consequential cities: birthplace of Christopher Columbus, home to the powerful Doria banking dynasty, center of medieval Mediterranean trade, and a city of vertiginous caruggi (alleyways) that inspired centuries of poets and painters. The dual nature of the name — saint and city, feminine virtue and seafaring republic — gives it an unusual richness that purely invented names can never possess. In Italian usage, Genova as a given name is relatively rare, which is precisely its appeal: it carries instant geographic and hagiographic resonance for Italian ears while sounding fresh and distinctive everywhere else. For families with Ligurian heritage or a love of Italian history and landscape, it is a name that carries a civilization's worth of association in three syllables.