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I am curious what folks think of the potential meaning(s) of Eleanor. I'm very curious as I love name meanings, this is a family name, and we're toying with using it on a future child.

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It is written up on most of the major websites these days as coming from "Aenor" (i.e. Alia Aenor, the other Aenor). Aenor is usually assigned meaning unknown. From what I gather, however, this interpretation is based on a single (but potentially sound) interpretation from single scholar in the 1970s.

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This drives me slightly batty, because I hate retreating to "meaning unknown." It seems so unsatisfying.

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Anyway, I recently came across this careful essay on British Baby Names. The essay argues for two potential meanings to Aenor, and it also notes that for many, many years--even though Aenor was originally unrelated to the classical name Helen --Eleanor and Helen's variants were viewed as the same or similar names. Intreguingly, the essay provides some evidence that some were recordings of Eleanor of Aquitaine's name as Helienordis, which suggests an immediate merger of the two names.

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So, this is making me giddy, because I'm a nerd for this kind of thing. But also, it makes sense to me that names merge all the time (such as Olivier crossing over the Latin for "Olive Tree" and taking on that meaning in most people's minds) and that it is proper to assign names meanings when they have been assigned those meanings for long periods of time. That is, a name can have multiple meanings in some cases, not just an "original" meaning that is a "true" meaning.

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What is your perspective?

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I'm pasting the link and essay below --

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http://www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2015/04/eleanor.html

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"Look in any baby name book and you'll most likely see Eleanor listed as "The French form of Helen" or simply meaning "Light."
True, the Greek Helen has long been associated with the Greek helene "torch," but Eleanor's origins are far more convoluted, and all seemingly pinpointed to one person: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and Queen of England.

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Eleanor, or more properly Alienor, was born in 1122 in Southern France as the eldest daughter of William, Duke of Aquitaine and his wife Aenor de Châtellerault. Back in the 1970s, author Marion Meade wrote a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine in which she made the connection between Alienor and Aenor, speculating that Alienor most likely came from the Latin phrase alia Aenor meaning "the other Aenor." Basically Aenor Junior or Little Aenor. Thus an alternate theory for Eleanor's etymology took route.

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To add to this, the name has also picked up extra etymological ties along the way.
The spelling Elinor corresponds to the Hebrew for El "God" and or "light" (God's Light). Though this is a coincidental association, it is quite likely that some parents are choosing the name because of this connection.

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J.R.R. Tolkien has also coined the variant Elanor from his created Elvish language Sindarin, made from the words el "star" and anor "sun." He gave it to a star-shaped flower which Samwise Gamgee liked so much he named his daughter after it.

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So which theory is the correct theory?

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There may be an element of truth to the "other Aenor" idea -- if only as a deliberate association made by William and Aenor. A charter dated from 1130, when Eleanor was only eight, lists her and her mother separately as Aenordis and Alienordis showing that their names were regarded as differing slightly by their contemporaries. But "the other Aenor" link can have only been a coincidental quirk on the part of her parents.

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The fact is, we cannot credit William and Aenor with "creating" Alienor, as the name was already in use beforehand. Aenor's own paternal grandmother was Alienor de Thouars (c.1054-c.1093) and she herself also had a paternal grandmother of the same name: Aenor de Blois (b.c.990).

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Alienor de Thours is contemporarily recorded as Adenordis, Adenors, Aenoris, Ainors, Ainora and Adenorde.* Her grandmother was listed by the names Adenordis, Adamardis, Aynor and Ainor(a).

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Adenorde almost certainly looks to be a Germanic name, composed of either adal "noble" or alda "ancient" and nord "north." The curious form of Adamardis may simply be a spelling mistake, but it is very suggestive of a feminine form of Ademar (Audamar), from aud "wealth, fortune" and meri "famous."

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However, let's not dismiss Helen just yet. St Helena (or St Helen) was a very popular saint in medieval times, especially in Britain, and we do know that Elena was used as an Occitan form of Helen in Aquitaine. It was brought over to Britain by the Normans and for centuries Helen, Ellen and Eleanor were interchangeable.

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Eleanor itself was perhaps used by the Normans themselves pre-Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor of Normandy (c.1011) was an aunt of William the Conqueror [though there is some doubt about her name as there is no record of it in contemporary accounts] and Eleanor of Champagne (1104-1147) was a granddaughter of William the Conqueror. Eleanor of Aquitaine was also recorded by the name Helienordis during her lifetime and other Eleanor's are later listed as Helienor, showing how easily Hel- could also be El- and Al- in medieval France.

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It is interesting to note that most of the early Aenors/Adenordes -- who were never recorded as Alienor/Eleonore/Eleanor etc in their lifetimes -- have been known almost exclusively by these later forms since the 13th century, indicating a definite conflation between the two names.

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It is quite possible that Eleanor of Aquitaine's nearly extinct family name Adenordis/Aenor became merged with the more usual Provencial forms of Helen during her lifetime and thanks to her fame, the two have been intertwined ever since."