Here are 12 Bond girl names ranked, from the ones so silly we can’t help but like them to the ones that just work.
But First, About Bond Girls
James Bond is an unabashed womanizer who sometimes finds love, sometimes strategically beds his enemies, and sometimes just can’t resist fluttering eyelashes across a roulette table.
One way Bond creator Ian Fleming tried to signal that much of the spy series was tongue in cheek was by giving the many Bond girls in his novels names that ranged from puns to double entendres. Bond screenwriters have followed his fun tradition.
Sure, some Bond Girls have generic names (Pam Bouvier?) and some are silly but don’t quite work: Christmas Jones is a name designed to set up a terrible joke. But the names of Bond girls in the following slides are all diabolically good in one way or another. They’re ranked from least best to best.
12 — P—- Galore
Goldfinger, the third Bond movie, doesn’t skimp on silly character names. Heck, even Auric Goldfinger has a pretty on-the-nose name for a guy who loves gold. The manservant assassin? He’s named Oddjob. Then, of course, there is the gal who leads a team of female pilots. Her name? P—- Galore. (Sites that syndicate our stories won’t let us write out her first name, sorry.)
No Bond Girl name has been lampooned more than Ms. Galore’s. You’re snickering right now, aren’t you? It’s beyond on the nose, and the fact that the production managed to pull it off is a surprise.
Played by Honor Blackman (above), she goes from an accomplice of the villain to being on Bond’s side. Galore almost exists as its own parody, and therefore is the most-ludicrous name in all of Bond-dom. But it’s also the gold standard of silly names.
11 — Sylvia Trench
Bond’s womanizing was already there even from the beginning, but he didn’t just have a gal in every port. In fact, the same woman, played by the same actress, is in the first two Bond movies, Dr. No and From Russia with Love. That’s right, for a second there Bond had something of a semi-regular gal, and her name was Sylvia Trench.
Bond meets Trench, played by Eunice Gayson, while playing Baccarat in Dr. No. He seems to be dating her when From Russia with Love begins, but dips out on her to, you know, do the whole spy thing. While Trench never served as the Bond Girl in a movie, the fact she was in two movies as a romantic interest for Bond made it seem like she is a reasonable inclusion.
Plus, we wanted to include her, because her name is Sylvia Trench. Sylvia. Trench.
10 — Xenia Onatopp
Okay, so this is our biggest veering off from the typical idea of a Bond Girl. Xenia Onatopp is a straight-up femme fatale and villain. So much so that she gets a pretty-gnarly death in Goldeneye. A lot of the gals Bond sleeps with end up as cannon fodder in films, but to get an over-the-top action-sequence death like Xenia, you have to deliver as a baddie. And she does.
Foreshadowing the silliness of the Pierce Brosnan era of Bond, Xenia’s whole thing feels like it should have been done already. She’s a female villain in a Bond movie who is also sadist. She crushes a guy to death with her thighs. The name is delightfully dumb, particularly Onatopp.
Xenia, to be honest, is the cooler part of her name.
9 — Holly Goodhead
Moonraker is the Roger Moore era at its goofiest. It’s going for campy, but doesn’t quite get there. Moonraker is kind of a chore to watch at some moments, but it is packed with examples of Bond at his silliest. The Bond Girl in that film is a striking example of that.
Holly Goodhead is just a ridiculous name, and is indicative of the “first thought, best thought” philosophy that permeates Moonraker. She’s higher on the list than P—- Galore, though, because at least Holly is a real first name. Also, only half of her name is a double entendre.
8 — Tiffany Case
Diamonds Are Forever , while fun, feels half baked. Sean Connery returned after taking a movie off, and things did not coalesce. Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) may sound like something you’d get from Tiffany’s, but the movie hangs a lampshade on that.
The film also goes to the trouble of explaining her name: She was born prematurely at a Tiffany’s. No, no, no: Never complain, never explain.
7 — Solitaire
Solitaire is a nickname, but it’s a pretty cool one. It also makes sense, given that she is a tarot card reader (and also because she abstains from sex as to keep her tarot skills intact).
From context, it seems that in Live and Let Die Solitaire (Jane Seymour) does have the actual ability to see into the future with tarot. That’s weird!
We don’t get Solitaire’s real name in the film, which costs this one a little bit in our rankings.
6 — Stacey Sutton
There are a handful of Bond girls with alliterative names, but not as many as you might think. They definitely went more the “entendre” route than the “alliterative” route. There can be alliterative double entendres, though!
Stacey Sutton rolls off the tongue (not a double entendre!) better than any of the Bond girl names. Go ahead. Say it.
She can be found in A View to a Kill, the last Roger Moore movie, and is played by Tanya Roberts. That also would be a pretty good name for a Bond Girl. (We also liked Roberts as Donna’s mom on That ‘70s Show.)
5 — Anya Amasova
Much of the Bond era played out during the Cold War. On occasion Bond would find himself working alongside, and romancing, a Russian woman. Here in the middle of the rankings, we figured the best Russian Bond Girl name should be acknowledged.
Anya Amasova is alliterative, clearly Russian, but also easy enough to pronounce. Compare that to, say, Tatiana Romanova or Natalya Simonova. It’s a lot easier to wrap your head around Anya Amasova.
The Spy Who Loved Me is the most “Britain and the Soviet Union joining forces for the greater good” Bond movie, and Anya is one of the most interesting Bond girls in that we never know, up until the final frames, if she is Bond’s lover or enemy or both.
4 — Doctor Madeleine Swann
The Daniel Craig era has the most continuity of any Bond era. As such, it is not surprising that in the Bond era we get the first Bond Girl who appears as a Bond Girl in two movies. Dr. Swann, played by Lea Seydoux, appears in both Spectre and No Time to Die, and ends up being a very important person in Bond’s life.
Madeleine Swann is a good name. However, and crucially, she’s Doctor Madeleine Swann. While some Bond girls are just attractive ladies getting dragged around on Bond’s adventures, Dr. Swann is something more. A significant love interest, yes, but also a substantive character.
3 — Domino Derval
Welcome to the top three Bond girl names. Finishing in third is nothing to feel bad about here, fictional character! Here’s the thing: The femme fatale in Thunderball is named Fiona Volpe, and even that fabulous name is overshadowed by Domino Derval.
Domino Derval (Claudine Auger) is sandwiched between Galore and Kissy Suzuki, which probably helps her stand out in terms of cool names. Sometimes, it is that simple. In fact, Domino Derval is probably the coolest of any Bond girl name.
So why have her third? Well, in Thunderball she is basically only called Domino. Her last name is mentioned… maybe once? That’ll leave you taking the bronze.
2 — Honey Ryder
Perhaps the best Bond girl — Ursula Andress’ emerging from the waves scene basically saved Dr. No, in some tellings of the tale — and the second-best Bond Girl name.
Honey Ryder held the title for a long time. The name is original, to be sure. There aren’t a lot of women named Honey out there. However, it feels plausible, and Ryder is certainly a last name.
It’s a fun name that pops, and it certainly works for the proto Bond Girl.
1 — Vesper Lynd
Longtime Bond fans know that while Dr. No was the first Bond movie, Casino Royale was the first Bond novel — and included Vesper Lynd, a character who endured more than half a century to play a crucial role in 2006’s Casino Royale, the first Daniel Craig Bond movie. She was formidably played by Eva Green.
She was also played by Ursula Andress in the Bond parody film confusingly also titled Casino Royale, and released in 1967.
Lynd has a complicated relationship with Bond, and quite a hold on 007. Maybe it’s the name?
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