Cinderella is not really a name. It is a nickname about housework, given to a girl who sleeps in the fireplace.

The English form comes from Charles Perrault, who published his version of the tale in French in 1697 as Cendrillon. The word is built on cendre, "ashes." Interesting Literature sums up the logic: the poor girl sits among the ashes in the chimney corner, hence her cindery name.

When the story reached English in Robert Samber's 1729 translation, the name was not carried over directly. Etymonline calls Cinderella a pseudo-translation: the French cendre was swapped for the English word cinder, which only looks related. Cinder comes from Old English sinder, meaning slag. Its spelling shifted from s- to c- under the influence of the unrelated French cendre, which goes back to Latin cinerem.

The best-known European versions use the same idea. Giambattista Basile's Pentamerone, printed in 1634, calls her Cenerentola, from Italian ashes. The Brothers Grimm called theirs Aschenputtel. Another German form, Aschenbrödel, is glossed by Etymonline as "scullion," from asche, ash. The name across languages marks her as the lowest servant in the house.

The tale itself is far older than any of these names. Interesting Literature points to a Chinese variant, Ye Xian, from the ninth century. It also cites a Greek story from the 1st century BC about Rhodopis, who marries the King of Egypt.

One famous claim about the French text is a myth. It says Perrault's glass slipper, verre, was a slip for vair, squirrel fur. The idea appears to have been spread by Honoré de Balzac. Snopes notes that "pantoufle de verre" is what Perrault wrote, and that vair had fallen out of use by his time. The Bata Shoe Museum adds that fur slippers were out of fashion in the late 17th century. Snopes goes further, counting the glass slipper among Perrault's own additions to the tale. It notes that most versions identify the heroine with a ring, and the ninth-century Chinese one with a golden slipper.

So the name is plain description. She was the girl covered in ash, in French, Italian, German and finally English.