ANNE TAYLOR

English form (via Old French, Latin, and Greek) of the Hebrew girl's name Hanna ‘He (God) has favoured me (i.e. with a child)’. This is the name borne in the Bible by the mother of Samuel (see Hannah), and according to non-biblical tradition also by the mother of the Virgin Mary. It is the widespread folk cult of the latter that has led to the great popularity of the name in various forms throughout Europe. The simplified form Ann was much more common in the 19th century but the form with final -e grew in popularity during the 20th century, partly perhaps due to L. M. Montgomery's story Anne of Green Gables (1908), and partly due to Princess Anne (b. 1950). See also Anna.

English and Scottish: occupational name for a tailor, from Old French tailleur (Late Latin taliator, from taliare ‘to cut’). The surname is extremely common in Britain and Ireland, and its numbers have been swelled by its adoption as an Americanized form of the numerous equivalent European names, most of which are also very common among Ashkenazic Jews, for example Schneider, Szabó, and Portnov.