Monica is a female given name with many variant forms, including Mónica (Italian, Spanish and Portuguese), Mônica (Brazilian Portuguese), Monique (French), Monika (German, Indian, Lithuanian), Moonika (Estonia), and Mónika (Hungarian).
St. Monica was born in Numidia in North Africa, but was also a citizen of Carthage, hence the name may be of Punic or Berber origin.
[2] Though etymologically unrelated, "Monica" was also a name in Latin, deriving from the verb monere, meaning "to advise".
[citation needed] One of the early occurrences of the name in modern literature is the character Monica Thorne in the 1858 novel Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope.
[3] In the European tradition of name day celebration, the date for the name Monica or Monika varies from country to country: In Finland the version with one "o" belongs to the name day calendar of Swedish-speaking population, for Finland is a bilingual country.