Blanche (given name)

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Blanche is a feminine given name. It means "white" in French, derived from the Late Latin word "blancus",^[1] which is itself of Germanic origin, one of a number of words designating colours - others are words for "grey" (German "greis" meaning "grey-haired", French "gris") and "brown" (French "brun") - which are thought to have been borrowed into Latin to classify horses (cf Old English "blanca" meaning "white horse") (English and French: Blanche; Italian: Bianca; Spanish: Blanca; Portuguese: Branca).

It became common in the last medieval centuries in the Western European cultural sphere. Apparently the name, possibly invented at that time, received a boost when king García Ramírez of Navarre and his French-born wife Marguerite de L'Aigle named one of their daughters Blanca. Many of their descendants, who rapidly spread to royal families all around Western Europe, named one of their daughters Blanche.

The name's popularity might be related to aesthetic concepts current at the time, whereby "a skin white as milk" was considered as an ultimate mark of female beauty. Such idealised depictions of beautiful women - of beautiful princesses in particular - are attested in numerous works of prose and poetry of this period.

The Welsh female name "Gwen" also means "White". One of the theories for the origin of Spanish "Elvira" is that it is derived from the same word in Arabic.

People

There have been several persons named "Blanche" or "Blanca":

The Navarrese royal family

• Blanca Garcés of Navarre, daughter of García Ramírez of Navarre, wife of King Sancho III of Castile, died 1156
• Blanca Sánchez of Navarre, also Blanche de Navarre, died 1229, countess of Champagne and regent of Navarre
• Blanche of Artois, also Blanche de Navarre, died 1300, regent of Navarre
• Blanche of Navarre, wife of duke John I of Brittany
• Blanche I of Navarre (1385-1441), Queen Regnant of Navarre, wife of John II of Navarre
• Blanche II of Navarre, daughter of the previous. Pretender of Navarre, divorced queen of Castile.
• Blanca of Navarre (1420-1464), first wife of Henry IV of Castile

The name vanished from use by the royals of Navarre after the 1460s.

Other nobility

• Blanche of Castile, queen of France, granddaughter of Blanca of Navarre (daughter of Garcia VI)
• Blanche of Namur, queen of Norway and Sweden
• Duchess Blanche of Lancaster
• Blanche of Brittany, mother of Robert III of Artois
• Blanche of Sicily, wife of Robert III of Flanders
• Blanche of Anjou, wife of James II of Aragon
• Blanche d'Évreux, queen of France
• Blanche of France (1253–1323), wife of Fernando, the eldest son of Alfonso X of Castile
• Blanche of France (1282–1305), wife of Rudolf III of Austria, eldest son of Holy Roman Emperor Albert I
• Blanche of France, Duchess of Orléans, Duchess consort of Orleans
• Blanche of Burgundy, queen of France
• Lady Blanche, daughter of Charles Noel, 2nd Earl of Gainsborough of Flitteriss Park
• Blanche of Valois, wife of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

Other people

• Blanche d'Alpuget, Australian novelist and biographer
• Blanche Baker, actress
• Blanche Bates, actress
• Blanche Bruce, first black to serve a full term in the United States Senate
• Blanche Calloway, 1930s African-American jazz singer
• Blanche Lazzell, modernist painter and printmaker
• Blanche Douglass Leathers, first female steamboat captain
• Blanche Lincoln, the senior Senator from Arkansas
• Blanche Oelrichs, actress and poet
• Blanche Ravalec, actress
• Blanche Roddick, mother of tennis player Andy Roddick
• Blanche Stuart Scott, aviatrix
• Blanche Thebom, operatic soprano
• Blanche Walsh, actress

As a surname

• Bartolomé Blanche, Provisional President of Chile
• Margot Blanche, pop singer
• John Blanche, illustrator
• Roland Blanche, French actor.
• Francis Blanche, French actor and humorist.
• Jacques-Émile Blanche, French artist
• Jean-Pierre Blanche, French artist.

Fictional characters

• Blanche, white cat in 1977 Japanese surrealistic horror film Hausu
• Blanche, Kaede Saitou's angel in the anime and manga series Angelic Layer
• Blanche Devereaux, character on The Golden Girls and The Golden Palace
• Blanche DuBois, character in A Streetcar Named Desire
• Blanche Hunt, character in Coronation Street
• Blanche Ingram, a character from Jane Eyre
• Blanche Schwarzmann (White Black-man), an only-mentioned psychiatrist in Lolita
• Blanca, a character from Animal Crossing
• Blanka, a character in the Street Fighter II video games
• Madamoiselle Blanche De Cominges, a character from Dostoevsky's novel The Gambler
• Blanca, a character in the web comic "Sugar Stars"
• Blanche White, character in the board game Cluedo (Clue in US)
• Blanca Trueba, character in Isabel Allende's novel The House of the Spirits
• Blanche Buck, character in Bonnie and Clyde from 1967, played by academy award winner Estelle Parsons

See also

• Blanche (disambiguation)

References

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