Feminine form of the Late Latin male name Laurus ‘laurel’. St
Laura was a 9th-century Spanish nun who met her death in a
cauldron of molten lead. Laura is also the name of the woman
addressed in the love poetry of the Italian poet Petrarch
(Francesco Petrarca, 1304–74), and it owes much of its
subsequent popularity to this. There have been various
speculations about her identity, but it has not been established
with any certainty. He first met her in 1327 while living in
Avignon, and she died of the plague in 1348. The popularity of
the given name in the English-speaking world has endured since
the 19th century, when it was probably imported from Italy.