Felicity Meaning — Origin & Biblical Significance

Felicity comes from the Latin felicitas, 'happiness, good fortune, fruitfulness,' from felix, 'happy, fruitful.' The root originally described fertile soil and productive livestock; the sense of emotional happiness came later. Felicitas was also a Roman goddess and a virtue stamped on imperial coinage, which makes the Christian appropriation of the word pointed.

That appropriation has a name. Felicity — Felicitas — was a slave imprisoned at Carthage in AD 203 alongside the noblewoman Perpetua. She was eight months pregnant, and Roman law forbade executing a pregnant woman; her companions prayed she would deliver early so they would not die without her. She gave birth to a daughter two days before they were taken to the arena. The account, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, is one of the earliest surviving Christian texts written substantially by a woman.

The name is not in Scripture, and no honest treatment should imply it is. But the concept it names runs through the Beatitudes: the Greek makarios, translated 'blessed,' means a settled, God-given happiness that circumstances do not create and cannot remove. Paul's own instance of that is Philippians 4:11, 'I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content' — written, like Felicity's story, from prison.

The name is far more common in Britain and Australia than the US, where it sits well outside the top 500. It gives the nicknames Flick, Fliss, Lissy and Fee, all of which soften a formal four-syllable name considerably.