[Facts] Re: Chanel and Chanalina
in reply to a message by Shaymin
Its likely from French Canel which was given to people who lived by a channel, itself deriving from latin Canalis. It was used as a surname and thus likely to be given as a forename, as early as the 1300s.
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Really, I thought the surname as a first name was mainly an English custom that only started in the 17th-century. That is interesting.