A page of Perditas

It's pronounced (by me and probably Shakespeare, at least) PURRditta (not perDEETa). It's the feminine past participle of the Latin verb perdere (perdo, perdere, perdidi, perditum) to lose, ruin, destroy, raze to the ground...

More references very welcome. For now here's what I've collected.

Fiction with characters called Perdita:

William Shakespeare: A Winter's Tale

This I think is the original coinage: the character was abandoned.

Terry Pratchett: various books with Perdita X Dream. (I fondly imagine that this one originates consciously or unconsciously with me, given that my username is pxs and I know TP and I were once regular readers of the same newsgroup...)
Dodie Smith: One Hundred and One Dalmations
Jean Plaidy: Perdita's Prince
Nina Bawden: The Witch's Daughter
Sarah Smith: The Vanished Child
Margaret Atwood: Cat's Eye (if I remember rightly?)
Isabel Hamer: Perdita
Genevieve Lyons: Perdita's Passion
Barry Gifford: Perdita Durango (and the film, though it's an unsound webpage which makes no sense without shockwave or something)
Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Perdita and Other Stories
Katie Fforde: Thyme Out and Second Thyme Around
John Updike: Toward the End of Time
John Cowper Powys: Weymouth Sands
Mary Stewart: The Wind off the Small Isles
Mary Gentle: Grunts
Jilly Cooper: Polo
Rosemary Sutcliffe: The Queen Elizabeth Story

Non-fiction:

Paule Byrne: Perdita, The life of Mary Robinson

People with "Perdita" as their "real" (given) name:

Perdita Andrews, who lives in Ontario, Canada, and works as a consultant.
Perdita Armstrong, who lives in London and (in 2006) was 26 and had a 6yo daughter.
Perdita Barran, who is a chemist at UCSB.
Perdita Boardman, whose daughter recently contacted me with this info - thanks!
Perdita Buchan, writer.
Perdita Butler, seems to be e.g. program director for the Youth Farm and Market Project in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Perdita Campbell is associated with Persimmon Pudding for me at present!
Perdita Chenjela lives in Zambia, was 32 in 2008 and is a writer and journalist.
Perdita Felicien an awesome sprinter/hurdler it seems
Perdita Finn, author of several books including Awesome Activites To Help Reluctant Writers Succeed: Strategies, Min-Lessons, And Motivating Activites To Boost Writing Skills And Writing Confidence
Perdita Fraser, author of Equities and Emerging Stock Markets (Antonia Fraser's daughter, I understand)
Perdita Hall from Surrey, student, University of St Andrews (in 2007).
Perdita Hatton-Brown, who writes (in 2005) "I am 24, from Frome in Somerset... I am a drama graduate thinking about directing and currently selling vintage clothes on ebay..."
Perdita Kretschmer
Perdita Langhorn, mature student living in Brighton with her husband and baby daughter (in 2008)
Perdita Loehr, or Loehr-Richter, or the variants with o-umlaut instead of oe, a computer science researcher in Germany
Perdita Lowe, mature student from Devon
Perdita Rose Martell, born 8th oct 1974. She lives in London and describes herself (in 2008) as "entrepreneur and loving mother of patterdale terrier"
Perdita Patterson, editor of What Mobile
Perdita Pohle a geographer
Perdita Stevens, that's me!
Perdita Strang, Revenue Officer; Mother of Grace 2 and Jack and Millie 10 months (at Jan 05); lives in Lincolnshire, UK, born in RAF Wegberg Germany 1974.

Perditas who may or may not be pen names:

Perdita Huston, author of several books including Families As We Are: Conversations From Around The World
Perdita Kirkness Norwood, author of The Enlightened Stepmother
Perdita Schaffner, author of Nights

Perditas who may or may not be stage names:

Miscellaneous:

Ella, who lives in France, wrote to tell me that she has adopted an abandoned puppy and called her Perdita
a painting Mrs "Perdita" Robinson by Thomas Gainsborough
the rose called Perdita
Perdita Finn tells me that her husband found in a book by Thomas Merton that Perdita was the lost island of paradise according to St. Brendan!
any number of gaming characters called Perdita: I'm not listing them

perdita@inf.ed.ac.uk