Fanny (name)

Fanny is a feminine given name. Its origins include diminutives of the French name Frances meaning "free one", and of the name "Estefanía", a Spanish version of Stephanie, meaning "crown".

Fanny

Other names
Related names	Frances, Fannie, Stephanie

The popularity of the name has been steadily declining since the end of the 19th century. In British English, fanny has been a vulgar slang term for vagina or vulva since the 1830s. In American English, fanny is a slang term for the buttocks in use since World War I. In New Zealand, the Registrar of Births will no longer accept the name for a baby's birth certificate.

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People

Given name

• Fanny Adams (1859–1867), English murder victim
• Fanny Ardant (born 1949), French actress
• Fanny Yarborough Bickett (1870-1941), American social worker and political hostess
• Fanny Blankers-Koen (1918–2004), Dutch track and field athlete, Olympic and world champion and world record holder
• Fanny Brice (1891–1951), stage name for the American comedian, actress and singer Fania Borach
• Fanny Brownbill (1890–1948), Australian pioneering politician
• Fanny Cano (1944–1983), Mexican actress and producer
• Fanny DuBois Chase (1828–1902), American social reformer and author
• Fanny Chmelar (born 1985), German alpine skier
• Fanny Clar (1875-1944), French journalist, writer, and socialist intellectual
• Fanny Jackson Coppin (1837–1913), African-American educator and missionary
• Fanny Cory (1877–1972), American artist and illustrator best known for her comic strip Little Miss Muffet
• Fanny Cottençon (born 1957), French actress
• Fanny Crosby (1820–1915), American mission worker, poet, lyricist, and composer
• Fanny Curtis (1908–2003), American sportswoman
• Fanny Davenport (1850–1898), Anglo-American stage actress
• Fanny Davies (1861–1934), British pianist
• Fanny Murdaugh Downing (1831–1894), American author and poet
• Fanny Elssler (1810–1884), Austrian ballerina
• Fanny Elsta (1899–1978), Norwegian opera singer
• Fanny Farmer, American candy manufacturer and retailer
• Fanny Fischer (born 1986), German sprint canoer
• Fanny Furner (1864–1938), Australian activist for the rights of women and children
• Fanny Hertz (1830–1908), British educationalist and feminist
• Fanny Hjelm (1858-1944), Swedish visual artist.
• Fanny Holland (1847–1931), English singer and comic actress
• Fanny Howe (born 1940), American poet, novelist, and short story writer
• Fanny Kaplan (1890–1918), Russian would-be assassin of Vladimir Lenin
• Fanny Kekelaokalani (1806–1880), member of the royal family of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and mother of a Queen consort
• Fanny Lam Christie (born 1952), Hong Kong sculptor
• Fanny Law (born 1953), Hong Kong civil servant
• Fanny Létourneau (born 1979), Canadian synchronized swimmer
• Fanny Lewald (1811–1889), German author and feminist
• Fanny Loy (1917-unknown), Argentine actress, dancer and singer
• Fanny Lu (born 1973), Colombian singer-songwriter and actress
• Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847), German composer and pianist, sister of composer Felix Mendelssohn
• Fanny E. Minot (1847–1919), American public worker
• Fanny Murray (1729–1778), English courtesan
• Fanny Purdy Palmer (1839–1923), American author, lecturer and activist
• Fanny Peltier (born 1997), French sprinter
• Fanny Huntington Runnells Poole (1863–1940), American writer, book reviewer
• Fanny Ramos (born 1995), French kickboxer
• Fanny Raoul (1771-1833), French feminist writer, journalist, philosopher and essayist
• Fanny Rinne (born 1980), German field hockey player
• Fanny Rozet (1881–1958), French sculptor
• Fanny Searls (1851–1939), American doctor and botanical collector
• Fanny Smith (born 1992), Swiss freestyle skier
• Fanny Stål (1821–1889), Swedish pianist
• Fanny Sunesson (born 1967), Swedish golf caddie
• Fanny Tercy (1782-1851), French historical novelist
• Fanny Vágó (born 1991), Hungarian footballer
• Fanny Waterman (1920–2020), English musician, founder of the Leeds International Piano Competition
• Fanny Westerdahl (1817–1873), Swedish dramatic stage actress

Pet form of Frances

• Fanny Allen (1784–1819), first woman from New England to become a Catholic nun
• Fanny Brawne (1800–1865), engaged to poet John Keats
• Fanny Brough (1852–1914), British stage actress
• Frances Burney (1752–1840), English novelist, diarist and playwright
• Fanny Crosby (1820–1915), American Methodist rescue mission worker, poet, lyricist and composer
• Fanny Durack (1889–1956), Australian swimmer
• Fanny Fitzwilliam (1801–1854), English stage actress and theatre manager
• Fanny Imlay (1794–1816), illegitimate daughter of the British writer and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft
• Fanny Kemble (1809–1893), English actress, writer and anti-slavery figure
• Frances Nelson (1761–1831), wife of Admiral Horatio Nelson
• Frances Sargent Osgood (1811–1850), American poet
• Fanny Stevenson (1840–1914), wife of writer Robert Louis Stevenson
• Frances Wimperis (1840–1925), New Zealand artist

Others

• Fanny Altendorfer, Austrian luger who competed in the late 1920s
• Fanny Anitùa (1887–1969), Mexican contralto opera singer
• Baroness Franziska Fanny von Arnstein (1758–1818), leader of society in Vienna, born Vögele Itzig
• Fanny Balbuk (1840–1906), prominent Noongar Whadjuk woman who lived in Perth, Western Australia
• Fanny Amelia Bayfield (died 1891), English-born Canadian artist and educator
• Fanny de Beauharnais (1737–1813), French lady of letters and salon holder, born Marie-Anne-Françoise Mouchard
• Fanny Bendixen (1820–1899), hotelier and saloon keeper during the gold-rush period in British Columbia
• Fanny Blood (1758–1785), English illustrator and educator and longtime friend of Mary Wollstonecraft
• Fanny Bornedal (born 2000), Danish actress
• Fanny Bouvet (born 1994), French diver
• Fanny Brennan (1921–2001), French-American surrealist painter
• Fanny Britt (born 1977), Canadian playwright and translator living in Quebec
• Fanny Buitrago (born 1943), Colombian fiction writer and playwright
• Fanny Cadeo (born 1970), Italian showgirl, model, television personality and singer
• Fanny Calder (1838–1923), promoter of education in domestic subjects in Liverpool
• Fanny Carby (1925–2002), British actress
• Fanny Carlsen, German screenwriter of the silent era
• Fanny Carrió (fl. 1879–1949), Uruguayan liberal feminist
• Fanny Cerrito (1817–1909), Italian ballet dancer and choreographer born Francesca Cerrito
• Fanny Chamberlain (1825–1905), wife of Joshua Chamberlain
• Fanny Churberg (1845–1892), Finnish landscape painter
• Fanny Clamagirand (born 1984), French classical violinist
• Fanny Colonna (1934–2014), French-Algerian sociologist and anthropologist
• Fanny Corbaux (1812–1883), British painter and biblical commentator
• Fanny Cornforth (1835–1909), model and mistress of painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, real name thought to be Sarah Cox
• Fanny Corri-Paltoni, English operatic soprano active in Europe between 1818 and 1835
• Fanny Cradock (1909–1994), English restaurant critic, television cook and writer
• Fanny Currey (1848–1917), Irish horticulturalist and watercolour painter
• Fanny Deakin (1883–1968), politician from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England
• Fanny Deberghes (born 1994), French swimmer
• Fanny Duberly (1829–1903), English soldier's wife who wrote a journal of her experiences
• Fanny Carter Edson (1887–1952), American petroleum geologist
• Fanny Fern (1811–1872), pen name of Sara Willis, American newspaper columnist, humorist, novelist, and author of children's stories
• Fanny Garrido (1846–1917), Spanish writer
• Fanny Chambers Gooch (1842–1913), American author
• Fanny Heldy (1888–1973), Belgian operatic soprano born Marguerite Virginie Emma Clémentine Deceuninck
• Fanny Bury Palliser (1805–1878), English writer on art, and lace
• Fanny Addison Pitt (1847–1937), English actress
• Fanny Rubio (born 1949), Spanish academic
• Fanny Cochrane Smith (1834–1905), Aboriginal Tasmanian
• Princess Fanny von Starhemberg (1875–1943), Austrian politician born Franziska Gräfin von Larisch-Mönnich
• Fanny Tarnow (1779–1862), German writer born Franziska Christiane Johanna Friederike Tarnow
• Frederick Fanny Walden (1888–1949), English footballer and cricketer

Fictional characters

• Fanny Hill, the protagonist of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, an erotic novel by John Cleland
• Fanny Price, heroine of Jane Austen's 1814 novel Mansfield Park
• Fanny (Guilty Gear), video game character
• Fanny (Sesame Street), children's television character
• Flapper Fanny, cartoon character
• Lord Fanny, from the DC Comics series The Invisibles
• Madame Fanny La Fan, in the BBC sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!
• Aunt Fanny, a comic character played by Fran Allison on the radio show Don McNeill's Breakfast Club
• Aunt Fanny, in Enid Blyton's The Famous Five novel series
• Fanny Ekdahl, in Ingmar Bergman's 1982 film Fanny and Alexander
• Fanny, the main character in Marcel Pagnol's 1931 play Fanny and the 1932 film adaptation Fanny
• Francine "Fanny" Fulbright (Numbuh 86), from the Cartoon Network animated series Codename: Kids Next Door
• Lady Stephanie 'Fanny' Button from the BBC sitcom Ghosts

Animals

• Fanny (elephant) (born 1940s), female Asian elephant who spent the majority of her life in a small zoo in Pawtucket, Rhode Island