- Mother of Lancelot (spelled Elayne)
- The name of a main character on the TV show Seinfeld
- Lady Elaine was a popular puppet on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
History of the name Elaine
A southern favorite is Elaine, that most poetical and harmonious of feminine names.
Before the Civil War, every proud family of southern blood had an Elaine among its daughters, the Elaine Fitzhughs and Elaine Dulanys were legion, each a “belle of three counties,” and the despair of many a lovelorn southern gallant.
But Elaine was not born in the South by any matter of means. Her origin dates back to the days of beautiful Helen of Troy, when the name Helen, coming from the Greek helios, meaning light, was permitted to drop its initial “h” and become Ellen.
In Cambria, however, this was too lacking in poetry to be popular, and it was called Elayne.
It occurred under that spelling in the registers of early times and thus explains the gentle Lady Elayne, mother of Sir Galahad, whom Tennyson makes his Lady of Shalott.
The name came to prominence again as Lady Elayne of the Round Table, Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, Elaine the lily maid of Astolat, whose tragic fate is the source of song and story in the “Idylls of the King.”
Her Irish prototype was Elayne or Eileen O’Brien, who likewise met with a tragic end, taking her own life after being carried away to Castle Knock by Roger Tyrrel, one of the fierce Anglo-Normans.
Tennyson’s description of Elaine is exquisite:
Where could be found face daintier? Than her shape,
From forehead down to foot — perfect again
From foot to forehead exquisitely turned.
Fair she was, my king.
Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be,
To doubt her fairness were to want an eye.
To doubt her pureness were to want a heart.
Elaine’s talismanic gem is the pearl, giver of charm and love and purity — a fitting jewel for so lovely a name.
The lily is her flower, a fact which Tennyson uses with such touching pathos in describing the funeral bier of the dead Elaine. Monday is her lucky day, and 2 her lucky number.
