Variant spelling of Vivian, from Latin vivianus meaning 'alive' or 'full of life.'
Viviann is a variant spelling of Vivian or Viviane, a name rooted in the Latin "vivus" meaning alive, living, full of life — a root that also gives us vivid, vivacious, and vivisection, the common thread being vitality and animation. The Latin name Vivianus was used in early Christianity and produced several minor saints, but it was in the feminine form that the name truly found its enduring cultural home. Viviane, in particular, became famous through the Arthurian legendarium as the Lady of the Lake — the enchantress who gave Arthur his sword Excalibur, raised Lancelot from infancy, and imprisoned Merlin beneath a lake or rock depending on the source.
In Tennyson's Idylls of the King, she is Vivien, cunning and dangerous, extracting Merlin's most powerful secrets through seduction. The name circulated through medieval France and England in various spellings — Vivian, Vivien, Vivienne, Viviane — and carried its mystical and vital associations through the centuries. In 20th-century popular culture, Vivien Leigh's incandescent performance as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire refreshed the name with associations of passionate, volatile beauty.
Vivienne Westwood, the British fashion designer, gave it punk and avant-garde credibility in the 1970s and beyond. Viviann with the double-n is a relatively modern spelling choice, adding visual symmetry and individuality to a name that needs neither justification nor introduction. The extra consonant signals personalization — a name given with intentionality, not simply transcribed from tradition. It carries all the etymological vitality of its root while wearing a slightly different face in the world.