Notes for: Rowena L. Broadwater

Name Origins, by Julie Helen Otto, Genealogist
"ROWENA (f): In his American Given Names (1979), George R. Stewart writes, [Rowena] occurs in the twelfth-century writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Since those writings are essentially fictional, the name may be considered his coinage . . . Sir Walter Scott used Rowena for the Anglo-Saxon heroine of Ivanhoe [1819]. From that very popular novel it was adopted for real women, and thus it enjoyed some use in the middle nineteenth century. It is a good example of what we may call a ‘Romantic’ name." According to the Augusta, Maine, Vital Records to 1892, Rowena A. Tobey of Vassalboro and John F. Saben were married on Sept. 5, 1872. In the 1850 census, 689 women and girls named Rowena were listed; in the 1940 census, 7,811 were enumerated with the name."