Alan (given name)

For a list of people with the given name, see List of people with given name Alan.
Alan
Pronunciation/ˈælən/[1]
GenderMale
Language(s)English, Old Breton, Celtic, Norman French
Other names
Variant form(s)Allan, Allen, Allyn, Alen, Alin, Alyn
Short form(s)Al, Allie, Ally, Ali
See alsoAlun

Alan is a masculine given name in the English and Breton languages. Its surname form is Aland.[2]

There is consensus that in modern English and French, the name is derived from the nomadic Iranian people known as the Alans, who settled in Western Europe during the Migration Period.[3]

Etymology and early history

Alan is a masculine given name in the English language.[4][5]

The modern English Alan, and French Alain, are derived from the name of the Alans.[6] Described by Roman authors as tall, blond, and warlike, the Alans were a nomadic Iranian people who lived on the Eurasian steppe and the Caucasus mountains.[7][8]

Related to the Scythians, the Alans were known to Classical authors in the 1st century BC.[6]

The Alans settled in Western Europe in the Early Middle Ages.[3] Because there is no recorded use of the ethnonym Alani prior to the 1st century, and because no location with a placename derived from Alani can be shown to be older than the 5th century, it is likely that the name was derived from the Iranian Alan people.[3] No other explanation of the origin of the name Alan has received any measure of acceptance by scholars.[3]

However, the Breton name Alan can not be a direct loan from the ethnic name of the Alans (rendered as Alānī or Halānī in Latin, from Scytho-Sarmatian *Al[l]ān-, derived from Old Iranian *aryāna, "noble people")[9] because the long vowel in the second syllable would produce Old Breton -o-, Middle Breton -eu- and Modern Breton -e- and not the attested spelling with an -a-.[10][11]

In Breton, alan is a colloquial term for a fox and may originally have meant "deer", making it cognate with Old Welsh alan (cf. Canu Aneirin, B2.28, line 1125: "gnaut i-lluru alan buan bithei", "it was usual for him to be fleet like a deer"[12]), Modern Welsh elain (plural alanedd) "young deer" (and the plant name alan "coltsfoot, elecampane"), coming from a Brittonic root *alan- or *elan (also attested in Celtiberian in personal names such as Elanus, Elaesus, and Ela[13]), ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *(H1)el-Hn- "deer, hind" (perhaps denoting an animal - generally cervids - with red or brown fur).[14][15][16]


In Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland, Alan may also be an Anglicisation of an Irish word (with diminutive suffix) meaning "rock".[4] For example, the modern Irish ailín means "little rock".[17] Similarly, according to Patrick Woulfe, the Irish name Ailín is derived from diminutive ail, which means "noble", "rock". Woulfe stated that this name is a pet form of some other name beginning with the first element Ail-.[18][19] Forms of the Gaelic name appear in early British records; the Latin form Ailenus was recorded by Adomnán (died 704).[5][20][note 1] Another similar-looking word in Irish is álainn and Scottish Gaelic àlainn, which means "beautiful".[23][24][25]

Variations of the name

There are numerous variations of the name in English. The variants Allan and Allen are generally considered to be derived from the surnames Allan and Allen.[4] The form Allan is used mainly in Scotland and North America.[26] In England, the given names Allan and Allen are less popular than Alan. However, in America all three are generally about the same in popularity.[4]

Alun is an old masculine given name in the Welsh language; although it is not directly related to Alan (it is derived from Proto-Celtic *alouno- meaning either "nourishing" or "wandering"[27][28]), today it is generally used as a variant form of the English name. An earlier bearer of this name is Alun of Dyfed, a character in the Mabinogion. The name became popular in modern times when it was adopted as a bardic name by John Blackwell, a 19th-century Welsh poet.[29]

Short forms

The short form of Alan is Al.[4] /æl/[30]

This name is a short form of numerous other etymologically unrelated names that begin with this syllable.[4] Note also the Cornish hypocoristic form Talan.

Feminine forms

There are numerous feminine forms of Alan. The form Alana is a feminisation of the name. Variants of Alana include: Alanah, Alanna, Alannah, Allana, and Ilana.[4] Another feminine form is Alaina, derived from the French Alain; a variant of this feminine name is Alayna.[4] A variant form of Alaina is Alaine, although it can also be a variant form of the etymologically unrelated Elaine.[4]

In other languages

Popularity and use

See also: List of people with given name Alan

The name was brought to England by Bretons who took part in the Norman Invasion in the mid-11th century. Forms of the name were in use much earlier in what is today Brittany, France. An early figure who bore the name was St Alan, a 5th-century bishop of Quimper. This saint became a cult figure in the Brittany during the Middle Ages. Another early bearer of the name was St Alan, a 6th-century Cornish saint, who has a church dedicated to his memory in Cornwall (for example see St Allen, a civil parish in Cornwall named after this saint).[17]

Today the use of the given name (and its variants) is due to its popularity among the Bretons who imported the name to England, to Cornwall, and later to Ireland.[4][17] The Bretons formed a significant part of William, Duke of Normandy's army at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Later many Bretons were granted lands throughout William's freshly conquered kingdom. The most notable Breton Alan, Earl of Richmond, a cadet of the ducal house of Brittany, who was awarded with a large swath of lands in England - specifically lands in what is today Lincolnshire and East Anglia. The Breton character in many English counties can be traced through Breton personal names still in use in the 12th centuries. The name ranked 8th in popularity in Lincolnshire in the 12th century, where it was about even with Simon and more numerous than Henry.[33] Early occurrences of the name in British records include: Alanus in 1066 (in the Domesday Book); and Alain in 1183.[33] The name became popular in Scotland in part through the Stewarts.[20] This family descends from Alan fitz Flaad, an Anglo-Breton knight, who possessed lands in what is modern day Shropshire, England.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The name appears within Adomnán's Vita Columbae as part of a patronym: "Colman Canis, filius Aileni".[21] This name is rendered into Old Irish as Colmán Cú mac Ailéni. Colmán belonged to the royal dynasty of Mugdorna; his brother, Mael Dúin, king of Mugdorna, died in 611.[22]

References

  1. ^ Alan, Dictionary.com, retrieved 20 November 2010 which cited: Dictionary.com Unabridged, Random House
  2. ^ "Aland History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms". House of Names. January 2000.
  3. ^ a b c d Bachrach, Bernard S. (1973). A History of the Alans in the West: From Their First Appearance in the Sources of Classical Antiquity Through the Early Middle Ages. University of Minnesota Press. p. 120-136. ISBN 978-1-4529-1215-8.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Hanks, Patrick; Hardcastle, Kate; Hodges, Flavia (2006), A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford Paperback Reference (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 6, ISBN 978-0-19-861060-1
  5. ^ a b Macbain, Alexander (1911), An etymological dictionary of the Gaelic language, Stirling: Eneas Mackay, p. 396
  6. ^ a b Bailey, H. W. (15 December 1984), Alans, Encyclopædia Iranica (www.iranica.com), retrieved 20 November 2010
  7. ^ Foltz, Richard (30 December 2021). The Ossetes: Modern-Day Scythians of the Caucasus. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-7556-1847-7.
  8. ^ Waldman, Carl; Mason, Catherine (2006), Encyclopedia of European Peoples, New York: Facts on File, pp. 12–14, ISBN 0-8160-4964-5
  9. ^ Alemany, Agustí, Sources on the Alans: A Critical Compilation, Handbook of Oriental Studies, section 8, vol. 5. Leiden, BRILL, 2000, p. 1ff.
  10. ^ Schrijver, Peter, Studies in British Celtic Historical Phonology, Rodopi, 1995, p. 209ff
  11. ^ Jackson, Kenneth H., A Historical Phonology of Breton, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1967, pp. 127-140.
  12. ^ Koch, John, The Gododdin of Aneirin, Celtic Studies Publications, 1997, p. 9
  13. ^ Kruta, Venceslas, Los celtas, EDAF, 1977, p. 195
  14. ^ Fleuriot, Léon, Les origines de la Bretagne: l'émigration, Payot, 1982, p. 204
  15. ^ Schrijver, Peter, Studies in British Celtic Historical Phonology, Rodopi, 1995, p. 78-79.
  16. ^ Adams, Douglas Q., "Designations of the Cervidae in Proto-Indo-European", in: Journal of Indo-European Studies, vol 13, 1985, pp. 269-282.
  17. ^ a b c Learn about the family history of your surname, Ancestry.com, retrieved 20 November 2010 which cited: Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4 for the surname "Allen".
  18. ^ a b Ailín, Library Ireland (www.libraryireland.com), retrieved 22 November 2010 which is a transcription of: Woulfe, Patrick (1923), Irish Names and Surnames
  19. ^ Ó hAilín, Library Ireland (www.libraryireland.com), retrieved 22 November 2010 which is a transcription of: Woulfe, Patrick (1923), Irish Names and Surnames
  20. ^ a b c Black, George Fraser (1946), The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning, and History, New York: New York Public Library, p. 14
  21. ^ Medieval Sourcebook: Adamnan: Life of St. Columba, [Latin Text: Book I and Book II, cc 1-30], Internet Medieval Source Book (www.fordham.edu)
  22. ^ Sharpe, Richard, ed. (1995), Life of St Columba, Penguin classics, Penguin, p. 305, ISBN 978-0-14-044462-9
  23. ^ Mark, Colin (2006), The Gaelic-English Dictionary, London: Routledge, p. 32, ISBN 0-203-22259-8
  24. ^ Learner's English-Irish Dictionary, Dublin: Educational Company of Ireland, Ltd, c. 1900, p. 8
  25. ^ Harrison, Henry (1996), Surnames of the United Kingdom: A Concise Etymological Dictionary (Reprint ed.), Genealogical Publishing Company, p. 6, ISBN 978-0-8063-0171-6
  26. ^ Hanks, Patrick; Hardcastle, Kate; Hodges, Flavia (2006), A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford Paperback Reference (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 10, ISBN 978-0-19-861060-1
  27. ^ Lambert, Pierre-Yves, La langue gauloise, Editions Errance, 1994, p. 42.
  28. ^ Delamarre, Xavier, Dictionnaire de la langue galoise, 2nd ed., Editions Errance, 2003, p. 37.
  29. ^ Hanks, Patrick; Hardcastle, Kate; Hodges, Flavia (2006), A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford Paperback Reference (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 12, 424, ISBN 978-0-19-861060-1
  30. ^ Al, Dictionary.com, retrieved 20 November 2010 which cited: Dictionary.com Unabridged, Random House
  31. ^ Hanks, Patrick; Hardcastle, Kate; Hodges, Flavia (2006), A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford Paperback Reference (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 302, ISBN 978-0-19-861060-1
  32. ^ Hanks, Patrick; Hardcastle, Kate; Hodges, Flavia (2006), A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford Paperback Reference (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 341, ISBN 978-0-19-861060-1
  33. ^ a b c d Reaney, Percy Hilde; Wilson, Richard Middlewood (2006), A Dictionary of English Surnames (3rd ed.), London: Routledge, pp. 40–41, ISBN 0-203-99355-1
  34. ^ Hanks, Patrick; Hardcastle, Kate; Hodges, Flavia (2006), A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford Paperback Reference (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 399, ISBN 978-0-19-861060-1