We are not making this name up

In the interests of educating the various people who seem to believe that we’ve invented our forthcoming baby’s name like a pair of society-defying hippies, I hereby present a morning’s Google-search of evidence that it's a respectable and lovely name with a long pedigree:

Literature and Film

Sire Degarre (c. 1325): hero of the anonymous “Lai of Sire Degarre,” in which a foundling boy is named Degarre because it means (the poet tells us) “lost” or “stray” or “almost forsaken” (related to the French verb égaré). Sire Degarre (i.e. Sir Diggory) kills a dragon with a club, wins the hand of a princess by out-jousting the king, and defeats a fairy knight—narrowly avoiding killing his father and marrying his mother, like Oedipus. This character and his story get passed on as “Degarre,” “Degore,” and eventually Digory or Diggory. He is incorporated into Arthurian legend in some sources as a knight of the round table. The Winchester Round Table lists “Sir Degore” among its twenty-five names.

“Captain Digorie Piper his Galliard” (c. 1604): a dance for lute and viol composed by John Dowland, lutenist to King Christian IV of Denmark. Digorie Piper is unknown, but you can hear performances of his galliard on YouTube.

Diggory, one of Hardcastle’s awkward servants, in Oliver Goldsmith’s play She Stoops to Conquer (1771).

Sir Diggory Drysalt, a satirical character in Samuel Warren’s “Blucher, or, the Adventures of a Newfoundland Dog,” published in The Merchant’s Clerk and Other Tales (1836)

Diggory Venn, in Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native (1878): Venn is a “reddleman,” i.e. a seller of reddle, or red ochre, a dye used to mark sheep. He thus looks, Hardy writes, like the devil, but is in fact an altruistic and heroic character who repeatedly saves the day.

Digory Kirke, in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (1950–56): Kirke appears as the Professor who takes in the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as the title character in The Magician’s Nephew, and in The Last Battle.

Digory Rendell, a handsome and dashing stranger in Charlotte Louise Dolan’s pulp romance novel The Counterfeit Gentleman (1994). Rendell was named for the author’s Cornish ancestor, Digory Baker.

Cedric Diggory, in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (1995-2000): a talented and generally decent student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is what you’ll get if you Google the name, because Cedric was played in the film by a teen heartthrob.

Diggory, title character of Philippa Gregory’s children’s story Diggory and the Boa Conductor (1996).

Diggory the Dog in Jane Buxton’s children’s book A Home for Diggory (2002).

Digory, reluctant child hero of Digory the Dragon Slayer (2006) and Digory and the Lost King (2007), by Angela McAllister.

Diggory Compton, a character played by Eric Potts on British soap opera Coronation Street (2005–): a beloved elderly bakery shop owner who experiences increasingly poor health.

Diggory Franklin, young lawyer hero of a serialized digital novel, The Surprising Life and Death of Diggory Franklin (2008–)

History

More common as a surname, Diggory has always been rare, but not unknown, as given name. It seems to have been most popular in Kilkhampton, Cornwall in the mid-sixteenth century, when parish records indicate that it was as common as Thomas (though not as common as John).

Digory Priest (c. 1579–1621): one of the original 102 pilgrims aboard the Mayflower and a signer of the Mayflower Compact.

Digory (Digoreus or Degoreus) Wheare (1573-1647): head of Abingdon school and first Camden Professor of ancient history at Oxford University.

Digory Sargent (1651–1704): early Cornish emigrant to Massachusetts, married by Cotton Mather, scalped and killed by natives.

Digory Docke (d. 1657): a name recorded in the burial records of Kilkhampton, Cornwall, just possibly influencing “Hickory Dickory Dock,” the nursery rhyme.

Sir Diggory Forrest: Mayor of Plymouth, 1815-16

A few currently living Diggorys (thanks, Google!)

Diggory Bailey: Senior Assistant Parliamentary Counsel at Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, London.

Diggory Brooke, LL.B: a legal consultant living in Melbourne.

Diggory Gordon, television art director.

Diggory Kendrick: reggae flautist.

Diggory Laycock, tweeter, some kind of minor British aristocracy, and great-nephew of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

Diggory Orr-Ewing, documentary producer.

Et Cetera

“Diggory,” a variety of the snowdrop (Galanthus plicatus) with puckered, rounded outer petals.

Diggory Brown, a bespoke kilt-making business in the Outer Hebrides.