Grace (given name)


Grace is a female name from the Latin gratia. It is often given in reference to the Christian concept of divine grace and used as a virtue name. As one of the theological virtues, Grace was in regular use by English Puritans in the 16th through the 18th centuries. The name also has connotations of physical grace, beauty, and charm.
The name was revived in the mid 19th century and was popularized in the Anglosphere by the fame of Grace Darling, a British woman who saved nine people from a shipwreck in 1838. Usage of the name increased for British girls in the late 1830s and 1840s. Many British and Irish girls named Grace then immigrated to the United States, where they passed the name Grace down to their descendants. Grace declined in use in the United Kingdom after 1870, but ranked among the top 100 names given to American girls from the 1860s to the late 1930s. The name was out of fashion from the 1940s through the 1980s, but rose in popularity in the Anglosphere after 1990. Usage of the name increased due to popular culture influences such as a character on the American television comedy series Will and Grace, which originally aired from 1998 to 2006. Grace has been a particularly well-used name in the United States throughout the 20th and 21st centuries for women and girls whose families are from a Chinese, Japanese, or Korean background. The names is often chosen for women of East Asian descent due to its Christian religious significance or because it is an English translation of a Chinese, Japanese, or Korean name with a similar meaning.

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