Alva (given name) explained

Alva is a unisex given name. It is used in Sweden and Norway as a feminine form of the name Alf, meaning "elf."^[1] It is also a spelling variant of the Biblical masculine name Alvah, meaning "his highness."^[2] Alva is a currently popular name in Sweden, where it was ranked among the ten most popular names given to newborn girls in 2012.^[3] Notable people with the name include:

Men

• Alva Adams (governor) (1850–1922), Governor of Colorado
• Alva B. Adams (1875–1941), U.S. Senator from Colorado, son of the governor
• Alva Baptiste, Saint Lucian politician
• Alva Ted Bonda (1917–2005), president and part-owner of the Cleveland Indians Major League Baseball team
• Alva Bradley (1884–1953), American businessman and baseball executive
• Alva M. Cummins (1869–1946), American lawyer
• Alva Duer (1904–1987), American college basketball coach
• Alva R. Fitch (1907–1989), United States Army lieutenant general
• Alva Clark Forney (1871–1956), Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota (1925–1927)
• Alva Garey (1883–1971), American politician
• Alva L. Hager (1850–1923), three-term U.S. Representative from Iowa
• Alva Johnston (1888–1950), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and biographer
• Alva Kelley (1918–1999), American collegiate football player and coach
• Alva Liles (1956–1998), American football player
• Alva M. Lumpkin (1886–1941), U.S. Senator from South Carolina for less than a month
• Alva Hugh Maddox (1930–2020), a justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama from 1969 to 2001
• Alva Noë (born 1964), American philosopher and cognitive scientist
• Alva Allie Paine (1919–2008), American basketball player
• Alva Ross (1928–2004), Jamaican politician

Women

• Alva, a character in the Adventure Time miniseries "Islands"
• Alva Belmont (1853–1933), American socialite and suffragette
• Alva Challis (1930 – 2010), Welsh-born New Zealand geologist
• Alva Colquhoun (born 1942), Australian swimmer
• Alva C. Ellisor (1892–1964), American geologist, one of the first female stratigraphers in North America
• Alva Forsius (1866–1935), Finnish midwife, social worker and a founding member of the Finnish Salvation Army
• Alva Myrdal (1902–1986), Swedish Nobel Peace Prize winner

Notes and References

1. Web site: Meaning, origin and history of the name Alva (1).
2. Web site: Meaning, origin and history of the name Alvah.
3. Web site: Girls' names 2012 - Statistics Sweden . 2013-01-21 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130124233211/http://www.scb.se/Pages/TableAndChart____347442.aspx . 2013-01-24 . dead.