Entry № 2496 · French origin

Diane Diane — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ dee-AHN /
Gender
Girl
Origin
French
Meaning
"Royal mistress (Diane de Poitiers, Henry II's favorite)"
Syllables
1
First recorded
Medieval (French)

A name that means "royal mistress (diane de poitiers, henry ii's favorite)".

Diane is the French form of Diana — Roman goddess of the hunt. Diane de Poitiers (1500-1566) was the French noblewoman and lifelong mistress of King Henry II of France — twenty years his senior, she effectively shared power with the queen Catherine de' Medici. A famed beauty (whose reported daily golden-elixir routine fed the myth of her perpetual youth), she commissioned the Château d'Anet and is the model for some of the Fontainebleau School's most famous paintings. Among the most influential royal mistresses in French history.

Subject of countless French Renaissance paintings and biographies.

Diane de Poitiers. Henry II's lifelong mistress, twenty years his senior; effectively shared power with the queen.

The name in its native script.

Diane
Transliteration
Diane
Pronunciation
/ diˈɑːn /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Diane stands.

Diane does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Dianes before her.

Real people
Diane de Poitiers
French royal mistress.
1500 – 1566
Diane Arbus
American photographer.
1923 – 1971
In fiction
Diane
Featured in countless French Renaissance paintings.

Names connected to Diane.

The number behind Diane.

6

The Nurturer

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Diane reduce to 6, The Nurturer. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.