Korinne is a variant of Corinne, from Greek Korinna, usually understood as meaning "maiden."
Korinne is a contemporary respelling of Corinne (or Corinna), a name that traces back to the ancient Greek Korinna, derived from kore, meaning maiden or young woman — the same root that gives us Persephone's epithet as the Kore, the archetypal girl at the threshold of womanhood. The ancient Greek lyric poetess Corinna of Tanagra, said to have been a rival and teacher of Pindar in the fifth century BCE, is the earliest notable bearer, and she lends the name an intellectual and creative heritage that has endured quietly across millennia.
The French form Corinne was dramatically revived in 1807 when the writer Madame de Staël published her celebrated novel Corinne, ou l'Italie, whose passionate, brilliant heroine became a feminist icon of the Romantic era. The novel was a sensation across Europe, and Corinne became a fashionable literary name for decades afterward, especially in France and among educated anglophone families who saw in it echoes of artistic independence. In 19th-century America the name appeared in parlors and poetry collections as a marker of refinement.
The Korinne spelling emerged in the latter 20th century as part of a broader American trend of personalizing classical names with K-initial or doubled-consonant variations, giving parents a way to signal individuality while keeping the name's melodic three-syllable rhythm intact. It sits today in a pleasing middle ground: recognizable enough to need no explanation, unusual enough to stand apart on a class roster.