- Origin: English
- Gender: Unisex
- First appearance: 1740s
From the vocabulary word, which ultimately derives from the Latin vallis of the same meaning, used to describe flat land between hills or mountains. Alternately, it may be a diminutive form of Valentine, Valentina or Valerie and spun off as an independent name, or it could be from the transferred use of a surname of the same former meaning.
It first appeared sporadically as a given name for both males and females in the 18th-century, both in England and the United States.
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