Meaning and history
Undine is a literary name for a female water spirit. The Renaissance writer Paracelsus used Latin unda, “wave,” in naming undines as elemental beings of water. Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s 1811 novella Undine, about a water spirit who gains a soul through marriage, established the name in European literature, music, and ballet. A notable real-life bearer was American composer and educator Undine Smith Moore, whose work drew extensively on African American musical traditions.