Blanche

Infobox Given Name Revised
name = Blanche


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Blanche is a female name, meaning "white" (in its feminine form) in French (English and French: "Blanche"; Italian: "Bianca"; Spanish: "Blanca"; Portuguese: "Branca").

It became common in the last medieval centuries in the Western European cultural sphere. Apparently the name, possibly invented at that time, received a boost when king García Ramírez of Navarre and his French-born wife Marguerite de L'Aigle named one of their daughters Blanca. Many of their descendants, who rapidly spread to royal families all around Western Europe, named one of their daughters Blanche.

The name's popularity might be related to aesthetic concepts current at the time, whereby "a skin white as milk" was considered as an ultimate mark of female beauty. Such idealised depictions of beautiful women - of beautiful princesses in particular - are attested in in numerous works of prose and poetry of this period.

The Welsh female name "Gwen" also means "White".

People

There have been several persons named "Blanche" or "Blanca":

The Navarrese royal family

*Blanca Garcés of Navarre, daughter of García Ramírez of Navarre, wife of King Sancho III of Castile, died 1156
*Blanca Sánchez of Navarre, also Blanche de Navarre, died 1229, countess of Champagne and regent of Navarre
*Blanche of Artois, also Blanche de Navarre, died 1300, regent of Navarre
*Blanche of Navarre, wife of duke John I of Brittany
*Blanche I of Navarre (1385-1441), Queen Regnant of Navarre
*Blanche of Navarre, daughter of the previous. Pretender of Navarre, divorced queen of Castile.
*Blanche II of Navarre (1391-1441), (same as Blanche I ?), wife of John II of Aragon and Sicily
*Blanca of Navarre (1420-1464), first wife of Henry IV of CastileThe name vanished from use by the royals of Navarre after the 1460s.

Other nobility

*Blanche of Castile, queen of France, granddaughter of Blanca of Navarre (daughter of Garcia VI)
*Blanche of Namur, queen of Norway and Sweden
*Duchess Blanche of Lancaster
*Blanche of Brittany, mother of Robert III of Artois
*Blanche of Sicily, wife of Robert III of Flanders
*Bianca of Naples, wife of James II of Aragon
*Blanche of Burgundy
*Blanche d'Évreux, queen of France
*Blanca of France, wife of Fernando, the eldest son of Alfonso X of Castile
*Blanche of France, wife of Rudolf III of Austria, eldest son of Holy Roman Emperor Albert I
*Blanche of France, 1st Duchess of Orleans
*Blanche de Bourgogne
*Blanche of Valois, wife of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
*Blanka Teleki, Hungarian countess, reformer of women's education

Other people

*Blanche Baker, actress
*Blanche Bruce, first black to serve a full term in the United States Senate
*Blanche Calloway, 1930s African-American jazz singer
*Blanche Douglass Leathers, first female steamboat captain
*Blanche Lincoln, the senior Senator from Arkansas
*Blanche Ravalec, actress
*Blanche Roddick, mother of tennisman Andy Roddick
*Blanche Stuart Scott, aviatrix
*Bartolomé Blanche, Provisional President of Chile

Fictional characters

*Blanche, Kaede Saitou's angel in the anime and manga series "Angelic Layer"
*Blanche Devereaux, character on "The Golden Girls" and "The Golden Palace"
*Blanche DuBois, character in "A Streetcar Named Desire"
*Blanche Hunt, character in "Coronation Street"
* Blanche Ingram, a character from "Jane Eyre"
* Blanca, a faceless character from "Animal Crossing"
*Blanka, a character in the Street Fighter II video games
*Madamoiselle Blanche De Cominges, a character from Dostoevsky's novel The Gambler
*Blanca, a character in the web comic "Sugar Stars"
*Blanche White, one of the six suspects in the board game Clue

Arts

* "La dame blanche", an opera
* "Blanca", a 1971 film by Walerian Borowczyk, named after its title character
* Blanche (band), an alternative-country band

Places

* Blanche Harbor, in the Solomon Islands
* Blanche Rock, Tasmania
* Blanca, Colorado, a town in the United States
* Blanche Ely High School, in Pompano Beach, Florida
* Blanch, North Carolina, formerly called "Blanche"
* Blanche (Guinea), an island in the Iles de Los

Other uses

* Blanching, to cook by brief immersion in boiling water
* "Blanche de Navarre", premium asparagus from Navarre
* "Blanche" (French), "Bianca" (Italian) and "Blanca" (Spanish), alternative names for a half note or minim
* Dames Blanches (folklore), female spirit in France
* Blanca, the name of 6 tropical cyclones, including:
**Hurricane Blanca that swept the American Continent in 1966
* blanche, a command-line utility for managing Moira mailing lists in Project Athena