Florence (given name)

Florence
Florence Nightingale inspired use of the name in English-speaking countries.
Gender	Female
Origin
Word/Name	English, French
Meaning	To flower in the sense of a blossom or prosperous, flourishing
Other names
Related names	Fiorenza, Flo, Florencia, Florencita, Florentia, Florrie, Floss, Flossie, Flora, Florance, Florella, Florentina, Florentine, Florian, Florice, Florina, Florinda

Florence is an English, Italian or French given name for girls. It is derived from the Latin verb floreo, meaning "I flower", in the sense of a blossom. The name is also derived from the Italian city Firenze, or Florence, in English.

A notable Florence was Florence Nightingale, who was a nurse in British hospitals during the Crimean War and is usually considered the founder of modern nursing. She was given the name because she was born in Florence, Italy.

Contrary to popular belief, Florence Nightingale was not the first person to be given this name. A much earlier example was Florence, wife of John Cole of the Irish County of Fermanagh (married in 1707), who was herself named after her mother, the wife of Sir Bourchier Wrey of Trebitch and the daughter of Sir John Rolle of Stevenstone.^[1] This name is also of note because John Cole named his house after his wife "Florence Court". One of John Cole's descendants, who had become "Lord Enniskillen", planted a peculiarly upright yew tree in the grounds of Florence Court, which was to become the mother tree of all Irish Yews or "Florence Court Yews".^[2]

Florencia, a Spanish version, is among the most popular names for baby girls in Argentina and Uruguay. Florence was most popular in the United States between 1900 and 1940, when it was in the top 100 names given to baby girls. The name last ranked in the top 1,000 names given to baby girls in the 1970s. Florence was the fourth most popular name given to baby girls in Quebec, Canada in 2007 and the name has also risen in popularity in the England and Wales, where Florence was the 109th most popular name given to baby girls in 2007.

Contents 1 Name variants 2 People with this name 2.1 As a surname 2.2 As a given name 2.3 As a stage name 2.4 Fictional characters 3 See also 4 Notes

Name variants

Alternate forms include:

• Flo, Flora, Florance, Florella, Florentina, Florentine, Florentyna, Florice, Florina, Florinda, Florine, Floris, Florrance, Florynce (English)
• Florentia (German)
• Fiorentina, Fiorenza (Italian)
• Florencia, Florencita, Floriana, Florinia (Spanish)

English nicknames for Florence include:

• Flo, Florie, Florrie, Florry, Floss, Flossey, Flossie, Flossy, Flozo and FloFlo

Florian is a masculine equivalent.

People with this name

As a surname

• Drayton Florence, American football player
• Hercules Florence, French/Brazilian artist and inventor of photography
• Tyler Florence, celebrity chef and TV host

As a given name

• Florence Ballard, African-American singer
• Florence Beaumont, one of eight Americans known to have set themselves on fire in protest of the Vietnam war
• Florence Bjelke-Petersen, politician, writer and wife of the longest serving premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen
• Florence Delay, French actress
• Florence Ezeh, French-Togolese hammer thrower
• Florence Harding, wife of American president Warren G. Harding
• Florence Henderson, American actress and singer
• Florence Foster Jenkins, American soprano
• Florence Griffith Joyner, American athlete in track and field
• Florence Hoath, British actress
• Florence Kelley, American social reformist and feminist
• Florence King, Mississippi author
• Florence Knapp, American supercentenarian
• Florence LaBadie, Canadian silent movie actress
• Florence Lawrence, inventor and actress, referred to as "The First Movie Star"
• Florence Mills, actress in 1920s black theatre and the Harlem Renaissance
• Florence Newton, Irish alleged witch
• Florence Nightingale, pioneer of modern nursing
• Florence Beatrice Price, African-American composer and teacher
• Florence Marjorie Robertson, British actress and singer
• Florence Sabin (1871–1953), anatomist and pathologist, first female professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School
• Florence Stephens, landholder and the main figure of the Huseby court case.
• Florence Welch, Singer and frontwoman of Florence & The Machine

As a stage name

• Florence (actor), stage name of Nicolas-Joseph Billot de La Ferrière (1749–1816), French actor

Fictional characters

• Florence in The Magic Roundabout TV programme and subsequent The Magic Roundabout (film) adaptation
• Florence Jean Castleberry in the film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and the Alice and Flo TV series
• Florence Johnston, supporting character in The Jeffersons TV series
• Florence Rose, character in the Little Britain radio and TV sketch show
• Florence Dombey in Charles Dickens' novel Dombey and Son
• Florence, aka Yami-Bakura, or just Bakura, a spirit of an ancient Egyptian thief from the anime Yu-Gi-Oh!

See also

• Florence (disambiguation)

Notes

This page or section lists people that share the same given name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change that link to point directly to the intended article.