Eleanor

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Eleanor (also Elinor, Eleanore, or Elynor) is a female given name

The first known bearer of the name was Eleanor of Aquitaine. She was named after her mother, Aénor de Châtellerault, and called Aliénor, (from Alia-Aénor), which means other-Aénor in Occitan). It became "Eléanor" in the northern Langue d'oïl and in English. Therefore the meaning of the name is sometimes given as "The Other." Aénor is a Provençal name whose meaning is not surely known, maybe coming from latin lenire ("to heal"). In English the name is sometimes connected to Elena, Ellen or Elaine (Helen, Helene) as well. It could be connected to the Greek eleos ("compassion") as well. There is however an earlier Eleanor on record. Eleanor of Normandy, William the Conqueror's aunt, lived a century earlier than Eleanor of Aquitaine. The story of her might be apocryphal.

The similar Hebrew name Eliora is the feminine form of Elior ("my God is light"). The similar-sounding Arabic Allahu Nuri also means "God is my light"; the modern version is Nurullah (Noorullah) ("light of God").

[edit] Notable people

• Several queens are known as Queen Eleanor, most notably Eleanor of Aquitaine
• Eleanor of Portugal (1434-1467) Consort of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
• The Infanta Leonor of Spain
• Saint Helen is sometimes referred to as Saint Eleanor.
• Eleonora by Edgar Allan Poe
• Eleanor Boardman, American actress
• Eleanor Bron, British actress and author
• Eleanor Duckworth, Canadian thinker and educator
• Eleonora Dziekiewicz, Polish volleyball player
• Elinor Fair, American actress
• Eleanor Marx, writer and daughter of Karl Marx
• Eleanor Roosevelt, the activist, diplomat, and wife and First Lady of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Eleanor Powell, a tap-dance legend
• Eleanor Montgomery, American high jumper
• Eleanor Friedberger, vocalist of New York indie rock band The Fiery Furnaces

[edit] Fictional characters

• Eleanor Butterbean of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
• Eleanor of Tristain of Familiar of Zero

[edit] Other uses of Eleanor

• Elinor Dashwood, the heroine of Jane Austen's popular novel, Sense and Sensibility
• Franz Ferdinand have recently released a song titled 'Eleanor Put Your Boots On'.
• Jet have recently released a song titled 'Eleanor'.
• The Turtles released a song titled 'Elenore' in 1968.
• Eleanor is also the codename for the legendary Mustangs seen in both versions of the film Gone in 60 Seconds: in the original 1974 version, Eleanor is a 1973 Mach 1 coupe, while in the 2000 remake, Eleanor is a modified 1967 Shelby GT500.
• The Beatles released a song titled Eleanor Rigby on the album Revolver. Although Eleanor Rigby is fictional, a gravestone bearing the name Eleanor Rigby exists in a church in the band's birthplace of Liverpool
• Eleanor Miller, the youngest of The Chipettes.
• Lady Eleanor is a song written by Alan Hull which featured on the first Lindisfarne album, Nicely out of Tune, and was released as a single in 1970
• In the fictional world of The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien created an alternative meaning for this name in his created Elvish language. In the novels, Elanor means "sun-star" (el: star, and anor: sun), and is the name of a golden five-pointed flower that grows in the woods of Lothlórien and the given name of a golden-haired child.

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