A female name. this name, very common from the 12th to 14th C, was the Norman-French form of Honora q.v. For the phonetic development see Oxford English Dictionary s v. Honour. In Ireland where it was introduced by the Anglo-Normans, it became a great favourite and gave rise to the popular Nora q.v. The common diminutive Annot may sometimes have been derived from Annora, though it was probably as a rule from Annis (see Agnes).

A female name. this was a common Anglo-Norman name, a derivative of Latin honor ‘reputation’, ‘beauty’, though the exact etymology is doubtful. There was a St Honoria, one of the companions of St Ursula, and a St Honorata (French Honorée), either of whom may have been the sponsor of the name which occurs in Latin records from the 12th to 14th C as Honora, Onora, Annora. Annora, which is the commonest form, is a regular Anglo-Norman development, cf. Middle English annour for honour (see Oxford English Dictionary s.v. Honour). It was carried to Ireland by the Normans and became a favourite name there, giving rise to the common Nora (q.v.). After the Reformation Honor or Honour was adopted as a christian name in England (cf. Faith, &c.), and in the 16th and 17th C was used as both a man’s and a woman’s name. Honora, Honoria came in again in the 18th C.

Annora Curia Regis Rolls 1187-1215, Feudal Aids 1302, 1316, Hundred Rolls 1273, Testa de Neville, or Book of Fees, temp. Hen. III-Edw. I 13th C. Annor Hundred Rolls 1273.

ANORA, f. Now rather uncommon and always confined to Northern England, it derives from either the Greek for ‘light’ or the Hebrew for ‘grace’: it is therefore a variant of Hannah and Anne, and of Eleanor a and Helen. (Yonge.)

A Hebrew-Latin name, meaning: Honor and grace.