Vanessa’s Notebook: Personalized Journal for Vanessa
Vanessa's Notebook puts her name front and center, written in flowing script across a soft watercolor apple blossom design.
- 160 lined pages
- 6" x 9" paperback
- Watercolor apple blossom cover with "Vanessa's Notebook" on the front
- Printed and shipped by Amazon
Vanessa: meaning and origin
Vanessa was invented by a writer. Behind the Name says Jonathan Swift created it for his poem Cadenus and Vanessa by combining syllables from the name of his close friend Esther Vanhomrigh. Wikipedia explains the parts: “Van” from Vanhomrigh and “Essa”, a pet form of Esther. Since van means “of” or “from” in Dutch surnames and Esther may come from a Persian word for “star”, Wikipedia says Vanessa could literally mean “from the star”. Swift wrote the poem in 1713, but it was not published until 1726, three years after Vanhomrigh died.
Nicknames and variants
Behind the Name lists Ness and Nessa as English diminutives and Vanesa as the Spanish spelling, along with forms such as the Hungarian Vanessza and the Polish Wanessa. Nessa and Ness give a three-syllable name a short, friendly option for everyday use.
Famous people named Vanessa
Vanessa Bell, the sister of Virginia Woolf, was an English painter and interior designer in the Bloomsbury Group, and later settled at Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex. Dame Vanessa Redgrave has won an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmys and a Tony, one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. And Vanessa Williams became the first Black woman to win the Miss America title, in 1984, then built a successful career as a singer and actress.
Is Vanessa a popular name?
Vanessa has had a long run. US Social Security data has it in the girls’ top 200 in every decade from the 1950s to the 2010s, with its best rank, 48th, and its biggest count in the 1980s, when more than 65,000 American girls were named Vanessa. It was 57th in the 1990s and 74th in the 2000s. Wikipedia says it first entered the US top 1,000 in 1950, in 939th place.
Vanessa trivia
Vanessa is also a butterfly. Wikipedia says the entomologist Johan Christian Fabricius adopted the name for a genus of butterflies in 1807, about 80 years after Swift’s poem was first published. Behind the Name adds that Vanessa stayed a rare given name until the mid-20th century.
Gift ideas that suit a Vanessa
- For a butterfly lover. Garden notes and sightings, for a name shared with a butterfly genus.
- For a painter. Sketches and color notes, in honor of Vanessa Bell.
- For a poetry fan. Vanessa began in a poem by Jonathan Swift.
- For a 40th birthday. Vanessa peaked in the 1980s, so milestone birthdays are here.
How Vanessa can use it
Any Vanessa, of any age. The 6" x 9" size is roomy enough for proper writing and small enough for a handbag or school bag. With 160 plain lined pages there’s no fixed layout, so it can be a diary, a gratitude journal, a study notebook, a recipe book or a home for to-do lists. Notebooks tend to multiply in drawers, but one with her name on the front is instantly hers.
The little things that make it hers
There’s something about seeing your own name in print. It makes a notebook feel like it belongs to you, which is a good reason to fill it. It also means Vanessa can pick hers out of a pile in a second, at school, at work or on the kitchen counter.
Frequently asked questions
How big is Vanessa’s Notebook? About the size of a trade paperback book: 6 x 9 inches (15.2 x 22.9 cm), 160 lined pages.
Where do I buy it? It’s sold on Amazon in the US, Australia and the UK. Amazon prints and ships each copy and handles delivery and returns.
Do you have other names? Yes, the same apple blossom design comes in hundreds of girls’ names. Start at all name notebooks or our personalized name notebooks guide.
Get Vanessa's Notebook on Amazon
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