Elaine (given name)
{{Infobox name
| name = Elaine
| image= File:The Lady of Shalott (John William Waterhouse, 1888) (Tate Britain).jpg
| imagesize=
| caption=The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse.
| pronunciation= {{IPAc-en|iː|ˈ|l|eɪ|n}}
| gender = Female
| language =English
| languageorigin= 1. {{llink|grc}}
2. {{llink|cy}}
| meaning = 1. 'ray'
2. 'young deer'
| related names = Elaina, Elayne, Helen, Lainey
| footnotes =
}}
Elaine is a feminine given name, an Old French form of the name Helen used for a character in the 15th Century Arthurian romance Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Malory. However, the name Elaine was popularized in the Anglosphere by its use by Alfred, Lord Tennyson for a character in his 1859 Arthurian romance Idylls of the King. It has also been suggested that the name might actually be derived from a Welsh word meaning 'young deer'.{{cite book|last1=Hanks|first1=Patrick|last2=Hodges|first2=Flavia|title=A Dictionary of First Names|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2003|isbn=0-19-860764-4}} {{cite web
| url= https://omaha.com/lifestyles/evans-mining-for-names-and-striking-goldie/article_fea81cdf-8e59-50a8-99b0-dfe8411dddcb.html
| title= Lainey's cool again, as country star drives name's new popularity
| last= Evans
| first= Cleveland Kent
| date= 3 November 2024
| website= omaha.com
| publisher= Omaha World Herald
| access-date= 18 November 2024
| quote = }}
Notable people with the name include:
Arts and entertainment
- Elaine Brown (born 1943), American singer, writer, and former Black Panther Party chairwoman
- Elaine Crombie, Australian actress
- Elaine Duran (born 1998), Filipino singer and actress
- Elaine Fifield (1930–1999), Australian ballerina
- Elaine Fine (born 1959), American musician and composer
- Elaine Goble (born 1956), Canadian visual artist
- Elaine M. Goodwin, British mosaic artist
- Elaine Hamilton-O'Neal (1920–2010), American artist
- Elaine Hendrix (born 1970), American actress
- Elaine May (born 1932), American film director, screenwriter and actress
- Elaine Mukheli (born 1999), South African singer
- Elaine Murphy (playwright), Irish playwright
- Elaine Paige (born 1948), English actress and singer
- Elaine Stritch (1925–2014), American actress
- Elaine Yiu (born 1980), Hong Kong actress
Others
- Elaine Sweital Avner (1938-2017), American astronomer
- Elaine Brody (1922–2014), American gerontologist and sociologist
- Elaine Brown (born 1940), involved with a dispute with the US government
- Elaine Campione, Canadian woman who murdered her two children
- Elaine Chan, Hong Kong Olympic swimmer
- Elaine Chao (born 1953), United States Secretary of Labor
- Elaine Cheris (born 1946), American Olympic fencer
- Elaine Denniston (born 1939), American lawyer
- Elaine Esposito (1934–1978), American who had held the record for longest coma
- Elaine French, American politician
- Elaine Gumbs-Vlaun (born 1944), St Maartener social worker and politician
- Elaine Holt (born 1966), British businesswoman
- Elaine Ingham, American microbiologist and soil biology researcher
- Elaine Luria (born 1975), American politician
- Elaine E Moura (born 1982), Brazilian football (soccer) player
- Elaine Marshall (born 1945), American politician
- Elaine McCoy (1946–2020), Canadian politician
- Elaine Murray (born 1954), British politician
- Elaine Murphy, Baroness Murphy (born 1947), British politician
- Elaine Nolan (born 1981), Irish cricketer
- Elaine Ron (1943–2010), American epidemiologist
- Elaine Thompson-Herah (born 1992), Jamaican sprinter
Fictional characters
- Elaine, the Holy Maiden of the Fountain of Youth in the anime The Seven Deadly Sins
- Elaine (legend), several Arthurian-legend characters, including:
- Elaine of Astolat
- Elaine of Corbenic
- Elaine Belloc, a character in the Lucifer comic series
- Elaine Benes, Seinfeld character
- Elaine Howard, a character in the 1980 American disaster movie The Night the Bridge Fell Down
- Elaine Jarvis, EastEnders character
- Elaine Lefkowitz-Dallas, a character on the TV sitcom Soap
- Elaine Marley, Monkey Island character
- Elaine Miller, character in Almost Famous
- Elaine Nardo, Taxi character
- Elaine Peacock, EastEnders character
- Elaine Pownall, recurring character of the 2018–2019 show Siren
- Elaine Robinson, character in The Graduate
- Elain Archeron, character from the A Court of Thorns and Roses fantasy series by Sarah J. Maas
See also
- Lo Po Bia Elaine, character in Tower of God