Lorna was invented by the English author R.D. Blackmore for his 1869 novel Lorna Doone — possibly from the Scottish place name Lorn (Argyll) or the Latin laurus ("laurel"). A top-300 US baby name from 1920 to 1950. **Lorna Doone (1869) — R.D. Blackmore's romance set in 17th-century Exmoor; the title character is a noblewoman raised by the outlaw Doone clan who falls in love with the yeoman farmer John Ridd; one of the best-selling English novels of the Victorian era and never out of print since publication, adapted for film and TV more than a dozen times. The Lorna Doone shortbread cookie (Nabisco, 1912) was named after the novel and remains one of the longest-running packaged cookies in America. Lorna Luft (born 1952) — American actress and singer; daughter of Judy Garland and half-sister of Liza Minnelli. Lorna Simpson (born 1960) — American conceptual artist and photographer; first African American woman to exhibit at the Venice Biennale (1990). Lorna Wing (1928-2014) — British psychiatrist who introduced the term "Asperger syndrome" to the English-speaking world and pioneered the autism-spectrum concept. Lorna Kesterson** — first woman mayor of Henderson, Nevada.
Featured throughout English literature since the Victorian era.
Lorna does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Lorna reduce to 6, The Nurturer. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.