Purity is an English virtue name taken directly from the quality of moral cleanness or innocence.
Purity belongs to the long tradition of virtue names in English — an unambiguous act of aspiration in naming, declaring a quality the parents hope the child will embody. The tradition was energized by the Puritan settlers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who gave children names like Faith, Hope, Charity, Grace, and Patience, using the act of naming as a form of prayer. Purity was among the more austere of these choices, reflecting an intense focus on moral and spiritual cleanliness that defined radical Protestant theology of the era.
Though the Puritan wave receded in England and New England, virtue naming survived and found new life in various global Christian communities. In sub-Saharan Africa — particularly in countries like Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria — English virtue names became widely embraced during the colonial and post-colonial eras, fused with indigenous naming traditions that had long assigned names reflecting circumstances, character, or parental hopes. In these communities, Purity carries no archaic stiffness; it is a living, forward-looking name given to daughters with genuine warmth and intention.
In contemporary Western naming culture, Purity occupies unusual territory — too overtly ideological for secular parents, too austere even for many religious ones, yet striking precisely because of its unambiguous directness. Where names like Grace and Faith have become so common as to feel almost secular, Purity retains its full freight of meaning. Literary uses have occasionally played with that weight, but the name's real story is told by the families — primarily in East and West Africa and in diaspora communities — who continue to choose it for daughters with complete sincerity.