Ottilie

Ottilie is a female given name stemming from the medieval German boy's name Otto and meaning "riches", "wealth" or "prosperity." It has never become very popular in modern culture and has remained very low on popularity rankings only reaching its peak in 1880 when it reached almost 600th position in the US.^[1] Ottilie is a much more common first name in German-speaking countries.^[2]

Ottilie was the name given to the female protagonist in John Wyndham's science fiction story "Random Quest" later made into a film "Quest for Love", starring Joan Collins as Ottilie, Tom Bell, Denholm Elliott and Laurence Naismith. The story is about a scientist, Colin Trafford, who crosses into a parallel world after a scientific demonstration goes wrong. He finds himself married to Ottilie Harshom, falls in love with her, and then desperately looks for her when he returns to his own world - the "quest" of the title.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a poem called "To Ottilie".^[3]

Ottilie is one of the four principal characters in the novel Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The term elective affinities was taken from 18th century chemistry, and describes how attractive forces between different atoms dictate their reactions.^[4] In the story, Eduard, Charlotte, the Captain, and Ottilie are assembled in a mansion on Eduard's estate in the country. In keeping with its title, the characters are isolated from extraneous influences and allowed to react with each other.

There is a character called Ottilie in a short story by Truman Capote, 'House Of Flowers' published in 1958 and later adapted into a musical.

Ottilie is a variant of Odile. Ottilia and Ottoline are both variants of Ottilie.

• Ottilie Abrahams, a Nambian activist.
• Ottilie Assing, a German journalist.
• Ottilie von Bistram, a Latvian writer and teacher.
• Ottilia Borbáth, a Romanian actor.
• Ottilie Davidová, the youngest of Franz Kafka's three sisters.
• Ottilie Fleischer, a German athlete.
• Ottilie Louise Fresco, a Dutch scientist.
• Ottilie Godefroy, an Austrian actor who performed under the name Tilla Durieux.
• Ottilie Houser Brattain an American mathematician and mother of the physicist Walter Houser Brattain.
• Ottilie von Katzenelnbogen, a German aristocrat.
• Ottilie Klimek, an American serial killer.
• Ottilie Kruger an American actor and daughter of the actor Otto Kruger.
• Ottilia Carolina Kuhlman, a Swedish actor.
• Ottoline Leyser, a British plant biologist.
• Ottilia Littmarck, a Swedish actor and director.
• Ottilie Losch, an Austrian dancer and choreographer who lived and worked in the United States and United Kingdom.
• Ottilie Maclaren Wallace, a Scottish sculptor.
• Ottilie Metzger, a German contralto.
• Lady Ottoline Morrell, an English society hostess.
• Ottilie Patterson, a Northern Irish jazz singer who recorded in the late 1950s and early 1960s with Chris Barber.
• Ottilie Roederstein, a Swiss painter.
• Ottilie Sutro, an American pianist.
• Ottilie Wildermuth, a German writer.

References

1. Think baby names website
2. Ottilie on German Wikipedia
3. "To Ottilie" by Robert Louis Stevenson
4. Bhanji, S; Jolles FE; Jolles RA (September 1990). "Goethe's Ottilie". J R Soc Med. 83 (9): 581–585. PMC 1292821. PMID 2213809.