Florence (given name)
Florence is a feminine English given name. It is derived from the French version of (Saint) Florentia, a Roman martyr under Diocletian.[1] The Latin florens, florentius means "blossoming", verb floreo, meaning "I blossom / flower / I flourish". Florence was in olden times also used as a translation of the Latin version Florentius, and may be used in this context as a male given name.
 Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) inspired the use of the name, especially in English-speaking countries. | |
| Gender | Female |
|---|---|
| Origin | |
| Word/name | English < French < Latin |
| Meaning | blossoming in faith, in belief (mystic name) |
| Other names | |
| Related names | Fiorenza, Flo, Florance, Florencia, Florencita, Florentia, Florrie, Floss, Flossie, Flossy, Flora, Florella, Florentina, Florentine, Florian, Florina, Floria, Florinda |
A notable increase use of the name came in the aftermath of Florence Nightingale, 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, Nightingale was not the first person to be given this given name in the English speaking world. The wife of Richard de Wylughby, of London, was Florence, in 1349[2] A later example was Florence Wrey (d.1718), wife of John Cole of the Irish County of Fermanagh (married in 1707), who was herself named after her mother, Florence Rolle, the wife of Sir Bourchier Wrey, 4th Baronet (c. 1653–1696) of Tawstock, Devon, and the daughter of Sir John Rolle (d.1706) of Stevenstone,[3] by his wife and distant cousin Florence Rolle (1630–1705), an even earlier Florence, the daughter and heiress of Denys Rolle (1614–1638), of Stevenstone and Bicton in Devon. This name is also of note because John Cole built a large mansion in Northern Ireland which he named Florence Court after his wife. 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".[4]
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 England and Wales, where it was the 109th most popular name given to baby girls in 2007.
Name variants
Alternate forms include:
- Florance (English)
- Florentia (German)
- Fiorentina, Fiorenza (Italian)
- Florencia, Florencita, Floriana, Florinia (Spanish)
English nicknames for Florence include:
- Flo, Flor, Florie, Flory, Florrie, Florry, Floss, Flossey, Flossie, Flossy, Flozza
Florent and Florenz are masculine equivalents. Florence itself has also been used for boys (Latin Florentius), particularly in Ireland where it was used as an anglicisation of Irish Finnian or Flaithrí.[5]
Notable people
- Women
- Florence Auer (1880–1962), American actress
- Florence Austin (1884–1927), American violinist
- Florence Balgarnie (1856–1928), British suffragette, speaker, pacifist, feminist, temperance activist
- Florence Ballard (1943–1976), African-American singer
- Florence Bascom (1862–1945), American geologist
- Florence Beaumont (died 1967), one of eight Americans known to have set themselves on fire in protest of the Vietnam War
- Florence V. Brittingham (1856–1891), American poet, short story writer
- Florence Bjelke-Petersen (born 1920), politician, writer and wife of the longest serving premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen
- Florence Caddy (1837–1923), English writer
- Florence Loiret Caille (born 1975), French actress
- Florence Anderson Clark (1835–1918), American author, newspaper editor, librarian, university dean
- Florence Daysh (1908–1979), Barbadian social worker and politician
- Florence Delay (born 1941), French actress
- Florence Eid-Oakden, Lebanese-British economist
- Florence Eiseman (1899–1988), American children's clothing designer
- Florence Eshalomi (born 1980), British politician
- Florence Ezeh (born 1977), French-Togolese hammer thrower
- Florence Fang (born 1933/1934), American businesswoman, publisher and philanthropist
- Florence Hackett (1884–1954), American silent film actress
- Florence Harding (1860–1924), wife of American president Warren G. Harding
- Florence Hay, American baseball player
- Florence Henderson (1934–2016), American actress and singer
- Florence Hoath (born 1984), British actress
- Florence Sally Horner, the child whose kidnapping inspired and is referenced in Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita
- Florence Frances Huberwald, American singer, teacher, suffragist, national leader of the women's movement
- Florence Huntley (1861–1912), American journalist, editor, humorist, occult author
- Florence Carpenter Ives (1854–1900), American journalist
- Florence Foster Jenkins (1868–1944), American soprano
- Florence Fuller (1867–1946), Australian artist
- Florence Johnston, fictional character on the TV series The Jeffersons and Checking In
- Florence Griffith Joyner (1959–1998), American athlete in track and field
- Florence Kelley (1859–1932), American social reformist and feminist
- Florence King (1936–2016), Mississippi author
- Florence Knapp (supercentenarian) (1873–1988), American supercentenarian
- Florence E.S. Knapp (1875–1949), American politician
- Florence Knight, British chef and columnist
- Florence LaBadie (1888–1917), Canadian silent movie actress
- Florence Lawrence (1890–1938), inventor and actress, referred to as "The First Movie Star"
- Florence Littauer (1928–2020), American writer and public speaker
- Florence Marly (1919–1978), Czech film and television actress
- Florence Mills (1896–1927), actress in 1920s black theatre and the Harlem Renaissance
- Florence Newton (fl. 1661), Irish alleged witch
- Florence Nightingale (1820–1910), pioneer of modern nursing
- Florence Sillers Ogden (1891–1971), American columnist, segregationist, and white supremacist
- Florence Price (1887–1953), African-American composer and teacher
- Florence Pugh, (born 1996), English actress
- Florence Marjorie Robertson (1904–1986), British actress and singer
- Florence Sabin (1871–1953), anatomist and pathologist, first female professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School
- Florence Stephens (1881–1979), landholder and the main figure of the Huseby court case
- Florence M. Sullivan (born 1930), New York politician
- Florence Trail (1854–1944), American educator, writer
- Florence Turner (1885–1946), American actress
- Florence Signaigo Wagner (1919–2019), American botanist who served as president of the American Fern Society
- Florence Warfield Sillers (1869–1958), American historian and socialite
- Florence Welch (born 1986), British singer and frontwoman of indie rock band Florence and the Machine
- Florence Duval West (1840–1881), American poet
- Florence Hull Winterburn (1858–?), American author, editor
- Florence Wyman-Richardson (1855–1920), American suffragist
- Men
- Florence of Worcester (died 1118), medieval chronicler
- Florance Broadhurst (1861–1909), West Australian businessman
See also
- All pages with titles beginning with Florence
- All pages with titles containing Florence
References
- Albert Dauzat, Noms et prénoms de France, Librairie Larousse 1980, édition revue et commentée par Marie-Thérèse Morlet. p. 259b - 260a
- Plea Rolls of the court of Common Pleas; CP 40/357; http://aalt.law.uh.edu/E3/CP40no357/aCP40no357mm1toEnd/IMG_7603.htm ; in Yorkshire
- John Lodge & Mervyn Archdall, The Peerage of Ireland
- Thomas Pakenham, Meetings with Remarkable Trees, George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Press 1996
- Patricia Hanks and Flavia Hodges, A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford University Press 1990