Delaine

Meaning of Delaine

Pronounced duh-LAYN (/dəˈleɪn/), Delaine is a rare unisex given name whose etymology is best understood as a confluence of French, Irish, and Middle English influences: on one hand it echoes the French textile term “délain(e)” (“woolen cloth”), a word that entered Anglo-American commerce in the mid-nineteenth century, while on the other it functions as a streamlined phonetic cousin of the Irish surname Delaney and, by extension, of the Arthurian heroine Elaine. The result is a name that evokes both craftsmanship and literary romance without committing to a single cultural narrative—an ambiguity that has likely sustained its measured but steady presence on U.S. birth records. Social Security data show Delaine appearing as early as the 1920s, never breaching the top 500 yet persisting in the 700-950 range for over nine decades; such statistical resilience, despite modest annual counts, suggests that families who choose it value distinctiveness over trend conformity. Because its vowel-heavy cadence is neither overtly masculine nor distinctly feminine, Delaine fits comfortably within contemporary preferences for genuinely gender-neutral appellations while retaining an undercurrent of historical texture.

Pronunciation

English

• Pronunced as duh-LAYN (/dəˈleɪn/)

• Delanie
• Delia
• Delilah
• Delaney
• Delaina
• Delara
• Delana