Origin
Blanc : 1: French and Catalan: descriptive nickname for a man with light blond hair or a pale complexion from Old French Catalan blanc ‘white’. Compare French Deblanc and Leblanc and also Blan and White.2: Jewish (Ashkenazic): variant of Blank.3: English (southern): variant of Blank or Blong.4: West Indian (mainly Haiti): nickname possibly ironic of the same origin as 1 above. Compare Leblanc.
Bianco : Italian: from bianco ‘white’ (of ancient Germanic origin; compare Old High German blanc ‘bright shining white beautiful’) originally applied as a nickname for a man with white or fair hair or a pale complexion or for someone who habitually wore white especially in jousting or other competitions and later used as a personal name. Compare Lo Bianco.
Blampey : reduced form of Blampin from Old French blanc pain ‘white bread’ which was a luxury product in medieval times so the name may have been given to a high class baker. In modern times the surname may sometimes have been confused with Blampied.
Blampied : from Old French blanc ‘white’ + pied ‘foot’.
Blanch : 1: English (of Norman origin): nickname from Old French blanche ‘fair white’ feminine form of blanc. Compare French Blanche.2: Catalan and southern French: variant of Blanc.
Blanche : 1: French: nickname from Old French blanche ‘fair white’ feminine form of blanc (see Blanc compare Blanch). The surname may also be from the female personal name Blanche with the same meaning.2: English: variant of Blanch 1.3: English: variant of Blong.
Blanchett : 1: Variant of Blanchette 1 a surname of French origin.2: English (of Norman origin): usually a variant of Blanchard. Perhaps occasionally an occupational name for a maker or seller of a white or undyed woollen cloth from Middle English blankett blanchet (Old French blankete) or perhaps for a person with white hair from Old French blanc ‘white’ + Middle English hed ‘head’ (Old English hēafod).
Blanchflower : from Old French and Middle English blanche ‘white’ + Old French flur flour Middle English flour flower denoting both ‘flower’ and ‘flour white powder’. The 1300 example cited below seems to imply a comparison with a white flower as a symbol of beauty but so was white flour which was a traditional epithet in medieval romances for someone whose skin was perfectly smooth and white. Alternatively Blancheflour might have been given to a flour miller or to a baker of white bread (Old French and Middle English blanc pain) either of whom will have had their hair and body covered in flour dust.
Blanck : 1: German: nickname for a man with white or fair hair or a pale complexion from Middle High German blanc ‘bright shining white beautiful’.2: French (Alsace and Lorraine): variant of Blanc of German origin (see above).
Blanco : 1: Spanish: nickname for a man with white or fair hair or a pale complexion from blanco ‘white’.2: Italian (Sicily): variant of Bianco perhaps influenced by French blanc or Spanish blanco (see 1 above).
Blank : 1: German and Dutch: nickname for a man with white or fair hair or a pale complexion from Middle Low German and Middle High German blanc ‘bright shining white beautiful’ Middle Dutch blank ‘fair white’.3: Jewish (Ashkenazic): artificial name from German blank ‘bright shiny’ (compare 1 above).2: English (Devon): nickname for someone with fair hair or a pale complexion from Middle English blaunk ‘white fair’ (Old French blanc).
Le Blanc : from Old French le blanc ‘the white’ for someone with fair hair or a pale complexion. Compare Blank and White (1).
Plank : 1: English (Wiltshire and London): from Middle English plank(e) plaunke ‘plank stiff board; footbridge’ (from Late Latin planca). The surname may be topographic for someone who lived by a footbridge or it may refer to their appearance or occupation such as a tall thin person or a carpenter.2: North German: nickname for a cantankerous person from Middle Low German plank ‘quarrel discord’.3: North German: metonymic occupational name from Middle Low German plank ‘measure for liquids’.4: South German: topographic name from Middle High German plank ‘plank palisade’.5: South German: nickname for a fair-haired man from a variant of Middle High German blanc ‘light shining’.6: Dutch (also Van der Plank): topographic name for someone living by a plank ‘footbridge’.
Polyblank : perhaps for someone with white hair from Old French poil ‘hair’ + blanc ‘white’ with a linking vowel -e- characteristically appearing in Devon speech as /ɪ/ spelled -i- or -y-.alternatively Coates argues that Polyblaunk might be a reduced form of Old French pulain blanc ‘white foal’ with dissimilatory loss of -n- though the reason for such a nickname is less obvious.
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Source : DAFN2 : Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, ©2022 by Patrick Hanks and Oxford University Press
FANBI : The Oxford Dictionary if Family Names in Britain and Ireland, ©2016, University of the West of England
FANBI : The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain, ©2021, University of the West of England
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