| [ 1 syll. blan-(c)he, bl-an-che ] The girl name Blanche is pronounced BLAENCH KEY. Blanche's language of origin is Old French, and it is predominantly used in English and French. Derived from blanc 'white, bright, beautiful' ; blanco 'white' ; blanche 'white' ; bianco 'white'. The name is from words of various Romance languages, and ultimately from the Germanic word 'blanc'. The name was originally given to blondes; a fair complexion and light blonde hair has been the traditional European and aristocratic notion of beauty. The name has been borne by several members of royalty, such as Blanche of Castile (1188-1252), queen of Louis VIII of France; Blanche of Artois (1248-1302), queen of Henry I; and Duchess Blanche of Lancaster (1345-1369), the heroine of The Book of the Duchess (1369-1372), an elegy written by Chaucer to commemorate her death. The given name was introduced into England by the Normans, but it was not used much in the medieval period. It saw a brief revival at the end of the 19th century. In literature, the form Bianca was used by Shakespeare for the sister of the 'shrew' in Taming of the Shrew (1593) and a courtesan in Othello (1603). Blanche was later made known by the character Blanche Du Bois in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire (1949), which was made into a successful film (1951) starring Vivien Leigh as the female lead. Variants of Blanche include Bianca (German, Italian, and Romanian), Bianka (German and Hungarian), Blanca (Italian and Spanish), Blanch (English), Blanka (Czech, German, Hungarian, Polish, and Slavic), and Branca (Galician and Portuguese). Blanche is an unusual baby name for girls. Its usage peaked modestly in 1903 with 0.422% of baby girls being named Blanche. Its ranking then was #59. The baby name has since steeply slipped in popularity, and is currently of only sporadic use. In 2007, among the group of girl names directly related to Blanche, Bianca (German, Italian, and Romanian) was the most widely used. The name Blanche has been predominantly given to girls, although it has also been used as a boy name in the past century. Girls named Blanche outnumbered boys by 61 times in 1908. Baby names that sound like Blanche include Blanch (English), Blanca (Italian and Spanish), and Blanka (Czech, German, Hungarian, Polish, and Slavic). KEY: Pronunciation for Blanche: B as in "be (B.IY)" ; L as in "lee (L.IY)" ; AE as in "at (AE.T)" ; N as in "knee (N.IY)" ; CH as in "cheese (CH.IY.Z)"
|
