ELAINE KING

Originally an Old French form of Helen, but now generally regarded as an independent name. The Greek and Latin forms of the name had a long vowel in the second syllable, which produced this form (as opposed to Ellen) in Old French. In Arthurian legend, Elaine is the name of one of the women who fell in love with Lancelot. The name occurs in this form in the 15th-century English Morte d'Arthur of Thomas Malory. In the 19th century it was popularized in one of Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1859). Most of the characters in Arthurian legend have names that are Celtic in origin, although subjected to heavy French influence, and it has therefore been suggested that Elaine may actually be derived from a Welsh word meaning ‘hind’ or ‘fawn’.

English and Scottish: nickname from Middle English king, Old English cyning ‘king’ (originally merely a tribal leader, from Old English cyn(n) ‘tribe’, ‘race’ + the Germanic suffix -ing). The word was already used as a byname before the Norman Conquest, and the nickname was common in the Middle Ages, being used to refer to someone who conducted himself in a kingly manner, or one who had played the part of a king in a pageant, or one who had won the title in a tournament. In other cases it may actually have referred to someone who served in the king's household. The American surname has absorbed several European cognates and equivalents with the same meaning, for example German König (see Koenig), Swiss German Küng, French Leroy. It is also found as an Ashkenazic Jewish surname, of ornamental origin.