Fanny (name)
Fanny is a given name. A diminutive of the French name Frances meaning “free one”, and of the name “Estefany”, the Spanish version of Stephanie meaning “crown”. The meaning of the name Fanny is different in several countries, languages and cultures, meaning “free” or “one who is free” in some countries, and “crowned” or “crowned in victory” in others. Sometimes the name Fanny derived from Yiddish, as an anglicized Feigel, Feigele, or Feiga, Fejga.
People
Given name
- Fanny Adams, English murder victim
- Fanny Ardant, French actress
- Fanny Blankers-Koen, Dutch track and field athlete, Olympic and world champion and world record holder
- Fanny Brice, stage name for the American comedian, actress and singer
- Fanny Brownbill, Australian pioneering politician
- Fanny Cano, Mexican actress and producer
- Fanny Chmelar, German alpine skier
- Fanny Jackson Coppin, African-American educator and missionary
- Fanny Cory, American artist and illustrator best known for her comic strip Little Miss Muffet
- Fanny Cottençon, French actress
- Fanny Crosby, hymn writer
- Fanny Davenport, Anglo-American stage actress
- Fanny Davies, British pianist
- Fanny Elssler, Austrian ballerina
- Fanny Farmer, American candy manufacturer and retailer
- Fanny Fischer, German sprint canoer
- Fanny Furner, Australian activist for the rights of women and children
- Fanny Hertz, British educationalist and feminist
- Fanny Holland, English singer and comic actress
- Fanny Howe, American poet, novelist, and short story writer
- Fanny Kaplan, would-be assassin of Vladimir Lenin
- Fanny Kekelaokalani, member of the royal family of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and mother of a Queen consort
- Fanny Lam Christie, sculptor
- Fanny Law, Hong Kong former civil servant
- Fanny Létourneau, Canadian synchronized swimmer
- Fanny Lewald, German author and feminist
- Fanny Lu, Colombian singer-songwriter and actress
- Fanny Mendelssohn, composer, pianist and sister of composer Felix Mendelssohn
- Fanny Murray, English courtesan
- Fanny Huntington Runnells Poole, American writer, book reviewer
- Fanny Ramos, French kickboxer
- Fanny Rinne, German field hockey player
- Fanny Smith, Swiss freestyle skier
- Fanny Stål, Swedish pianist
- Fanny Sunesson, Swedish golf caddie
- Fanny Vágó, Hungarian footballer
- Fanny Westerdahl, Swedish dramatic stage actress
Pet form of Frances
- Fanny Allen, first woman from New England to become a Catholic nun
- Fanny Brawne, engaged to poet John Keats
- Fanny Brough, British stage actress
- Frances Burney, English novelist, diarist and playwright
- Fanny Crosby, American Methodist rescue mission worker, poet, lyricist and composer
- Fanny Durack, Australian swimmer
- Fanny Fitzwilliam, English stage actress and theatre manager
- Fanny Imlay, illegitimate daughter of the British writer and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft
- Fanny Kemble, English actress, writer and anti-slavery figure
- Frances Nelson, wife of Admiral Horatio Nelson
- Fanny Stevenson, wife of writer Robert Louis Stevenson
Others
- Fanny Altendorfer, Austrian luger who competed in the late 1920s
- Fanny Anitùa, renowned Mexican contralto opera singer
- Baroness Franziska Fanny von Arnstein, leader of society in Vienna, born Vögele Itzig
- Fanny Balbuk, prominent Noongar Whadjuk woman who lived in Perth, Western Australia
- Fanny Amelia Bayfield, English-born Canadian artist and educator
- Fanny de Beauharnais, French lady of letters and salon-holder born Marie-Anne-Françoise Mouchard
- Fanny Bendixen, hotelier and saloon–keeper during the gold–rush period in British Columbia
- Fanny Blood, English illustrator and educator and longtime friend of Mary Wollstonecraft
- Fanny Bornedal, Danish actress. Fanny is the daughter of Ole Bornedal
- Fanny Bouvet, French diver
- Fanny Brennan, French-American surrealist painter
- Fanny Britt, Canadian playwright and translator living in Quebec
- Fanny Buitrago, Colombian fiction writer and playwright
- Fanny Cadeo, Italian showgirl, model, television personality and singer
- Fanny Cagnard, French former competitive figure skater
- Fanny Calder, promoter of education in domestic subjects in Liverpool
- Fanny Carby, British actress
- Fanny Carlsen, German screenwriter of the silent era
- Fanny Carrió, Uruguayan liberal feminist
- Fanny Cerrito, Italian ballet dancer and choreographer born Francesca Cerrito
- Fanny Chamberlain, wife of Joshua Chamberlain
- Fanny Churberg, Finnish landscape painter
- Fanny Clamagirand, French classical violinist
- Fanny Colonna, French-Algerian sociologist and anthropologist
- Fanny Corbaux, British painter and biblical commentator
- Fanny Cornforth, model and mistress of painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, real name thought to be Sarah Cox
- Fanny Corri-Paltoni, celebrated English operatic soprano active in Europe between 1818 and 1835
- Fanny Cradock, English restaurant critic born Phyllis Nan Sortain
- Fanny Currey, Irish horticulturalist and watercolour painter
- Fanny Deakin, politician from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England
- Fanny Deberghes, French swimmer
- Fanny Duarte, Dominican Republic female badminton player
- Fanny Duberly, English soldier's wife who wrote a journal of her experiences
- Fanny Carter Edson, American petroleum geologist
- Fanny Fern, pen name of Sara Willis, American newspaper columnist, humorist, novelist, and author of children's stories
- Fanny Garrido, Spanish writer
- Fanny Chambers Gooch, American author
- Fanny Heldy, Belgian operatic soprano born Marguerite Virginie Emma Clémentine Deceuninck
- Fanny Bury Palliser, English writer on art, and lace
- Fanny Addison Pitt, English actress
- Fanny Rubio, Spanish academic
- Fanny Cochrane Smith, Aboriginal Tasmanian
- Princess Fanny von Starhemberg, Austrian politician born Franziska Gräfin von Larisch-Mönnich
- Fanny Tarnow, German writer born Franziska Christiane Johanna Friederike Tarnow
- Frederick Fanny Walden, 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, a video game character
- Fanny
- 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
Animals
- Fanny , female Asian elephant who spent the majority of her life in a small zoo in Pawtucket, Rhode Island