Korinna is a form of Corinna, from Greek and traditionally interpreted as maiden or girl.
Korinna is the Greek-spelling variant of Corinna, an ancient name derived from the Greek 'kore,' meaning 'maiden' or 'girl' — the same root that gives us the goddess Persephone's epithet Kore. The name has a distinguished literary pedigree stretching back to antiquity: Corinna of Tanagra was a celebrated Greek lyric poet of the fifth or fourth century BC, said to have been a contemporary and even rival of Pindar. Ancient tradition claimed she defeated Pindar five times in poetic competition, earning legendary status in the history of women's writing.
Though only fragments of her work survive, she remained a touchstone for later poets who wanted to invoke feminine literary authority. The name was revived enthusiastically by Renaissance and early modern poets. Thomas Campion wrote songs to a Corinna, and Robert Herrick's 1648 poem 'Corinna's Going A-Maying' is one of the most famous carpe diem lyrics in English literature, casting Corinna as a figure of springtime vitality and youthful pleasure.
The name retained a pastoral, poetic quality through the eighteenth century and was used in several English novels and poems as the name for a vivid, unconventional heroine. The Korinna spelling restores the Greek orthography, giving the name a more scholarly and Hellenic character. It appeals to parents drawn to classical names that are genuinely ancient rather than merely antique-sounding. Rare in the modern anglophone world, Korinna carries the accumulated weight of two and a half millennia of poetic association.