JENNIFER GRACE

Of Celtic (Arthurian) origin, a Cornish form of the name of King Arthur's unfaithful Guinevere. At the beginning of the 20th century, the name was merely a Cornish curiosity, but since then it has become enormously popular all over the English-speaking world, partly due to the influence of the film star Jennifer Jones (b. 1919 as Phyllis Isley). Another factor in its rise was probably Bernard Shaw's use of it for the character of Jennifer Dubedat in The Doctor's Dilemma (1905). See also Gaynor. More recent well-known bearers include the American tennis player Jennifer Capriati (b. 1976) and the British comedienne Jennifer Saunders (b. 1958).

English: 1. nickname from Middle English, Old French grace ‘charm’, ‘pleasantness’ (Latin gratia). 2. from the female personal name Grace, which was popular in the Middle Ages. This seems in the first instance to have been from a Germanic element grīs ‘gray’ (see Grice 1), but was soon associated by folk etymology with the Latin word meaning ‘charm’.