From Latin 'vernus' meaning 'of spring, springlike.' Used as a feminine given name since the 19th century.
Verna carries a complex dual etymology that illuminates much about how names accrue and shed meaning across centuries. In classical Latin, verna referred specifically to a slave born in the master's household rather than purchased — the word was used to distinguish the home-born from the foreign-bought, and it carries in its history a troubling social taxonomy. Yet Latin also gave us vernalis, the adjective of spring, from ver (spring), and Verna as a given name in the 19th and early 20th centuries was understood entirely through this second lens: as a nature name meaning "of spring," "vernal," fresh and seasonal, in the tradition of Flora, Viola, and Violet.
Verna was most popular in the United States between roughly 1900 and 1930, clustering in the same naming era as Myrna, Lorna, and Velma — feminine names with a particular sound signature: two syllables, ending in a soft vowel, suggesting quiet elegance. Verna Felton was a prominent character actress of Hollywood's golden age, appearing in Disney's Cinderella (as the Fairy Godmother's voice) and Sleeping Beauty, giving the name a warm, reassuring cultural association for a generation of American children. The name also appears in American regional literature as a working-class Southern and Midwestern name, embedded in the texture of 20th-century domestic life.
Like Ethel and its contemporaries, Verna has sat dormant for several decades, but the current revival of vintage names has brought it back into quiet consideration. Its connection to spring makes it a nature name with classical depth; its sound is distinctive without being invented; and its relative rarity today gives it the quality that modern parents prize most — the sense of being found rather than fashioned.