ʻElena

Historical scholarship

Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.

• 1884From the archives

  Elena— “light”

  Nor are these Keltic Ellens the only offspring of the name. Elena in Italy, it assumed the form of Aliénor among the Romanesque populations of Provence, who, though speaking a Latin tongue, greatly altered and disguised the words. Indeed there are some who derive this name from έλεος (pity), but there is much greater reason to suppose it another variety of Helena, not more changed than many other Provençal names. Aliénor in the land of troubadours received all the homage that…

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  Nor are these Keltic Ellens the only offspring of the name. Elena in Italy, it assumed the form of Aliénor among the Romanesque populations of Provence, who, though speaking a Latin tongue, greatly altered and disguised the words. Indeed there are some who derive this name from έλεος (pity), but there is much greater reason to suppose it another variety of Helena, not more changed than many other Provençal names. Aliénor in the land of troubadours received all the homage that the Languedoc could pay, and one Aliénor at least was entirely spoilt by it, namely, she who was called Eléonore by the French king who had the misfortune to marry her, and who became in time on English lips our grim Eleanor of the dagger and the bowl, the hateful Aquitainian grandmother, who bandies words with Constance of Brittany in _King John_. Her daughter, a person of far different nature, carried her name to Castille, where, the language being always disposed to cut off a commencing _e_, she was known as Leonor, and left hosts of namesakes.…

  Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part III, Chapter II (Names From Greek Mythology), Section VI (Hele) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)