Estelle (given name)

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Estelle
Gender female
Origin
Word/Name Latin, French
Meaning star
Other names
Related names Stella, Estella, Esther

Estelle is a female given name of French derivation usually interpreted as meaning "star" via equation with "estoile" the Old French form of the modern French "etoile" whose Latin root is "stella".[1] Saint Estelle is the name of a third-century Occitan martyr: the older form of her name Eustalia indicates a derivation from the Greek "eustales" i.e. well-groomed.[2] The name Estelle was brought by the Normans to Great Britain, where it likely absorbed the Anglo-Saxon name Estrilde derived from Easter, either referencing the Christian festival or the dawn goddess whose name defaulted to that feast, combined with the element "hilde" meaning "warrior".[3] Obsolete in English usage after the Middle Ages, Estelle was revived in the Victorian era after Charles Dickens gave the variant form Estella to a character in his 1860-61 novel Great Expectations; Estelle and Estella were popular from 1880 to 1930 with a subsequent decline to become unfashionable since 1960.[1] Estelle is also used as an alternate form of Esther.[4]

List of people with the given name Estelle

See also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 "http://www.behindthename.com/name/estelle". 
  2. Sabine Bring-Gould. The Lives of the Saints.
  3. http://www.gaminggeeks.org/Resources/KateMonk/England-Medieval/Saxon.htm
  4. Thomas W. Sheehan. Dictionary of Patorn Saints (2001) OSV Inc Huntington IN p.103
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