ELIZABETH ALLEN

The usual spelling of Elisabeth in English. It is recorded in the medieval period, but was made popular by being borne by Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603). In the 20th century it again became extremely fashionable, partly because it was the name of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (1900–2002), who in 1936 became Queen Elizabeth as the wife of King George VI, and after his death in 1952 achieved great public affection as Queen Mother for nearly half a century. Even more influentially, it is the name of her daughter Queen Elizabeth II (b. 1926).

English and Scottish: from a Celtic personal name of great antiquity and obscurity. In England the personal name is now usually spelled Alan, the surname Allen; in Scotland the surname is more often Allan. Various suggestions have been put forward regarding its origin; the most plausible is that it originally meant ‘little rock’. Compare Gaelic ailín, diminutive of ail ‘rock’. The present-day frequency of the surname Allen in England and Ireland is partly accounted for by the popularity of the personal name among Breton followers of William the Conqueror, by whom it was imported first to Britain and then to Ireland. St. Alan(us) was a 5th-century bishop of Quimper, who was a cult figure in medieval Brittany. Another St. Al(l)an was a Cornish or Breton saint of the 6th century, to whom a church in Cornwall is dedicated.