Blanchard as a Baby Name. Meaning and Origin of Blanchard

What is the meaning of the name Blanchard ?

The baby name Blanchard is a boy name , 2 syllables long and is pronounced BLAN-cherd.

Blanchard is French, Germanic, Old French in Origin.

Blanchard is a French surname adopted as a masculine given name. Its root is Old French blanchart, also recorded as blancard; the earliest English evidence is Latinized Robertus Blancardus in 1086. The form joins blanc, white, pale, fair, to the productive -ard suffix of Germanic origin, often forming nicknames. The literal sense is a white or fair person, probably referencing pale hair, complexion, or a light-colored animal.

Medieval records place the name in Norman and Anglo-French settings, with Blaunchard and Blanshard among English spellings shaped by scribal practice. It remained chiefly a hereditary surname in France, England, Quebec, Acadia, and later North America, but appears occasionally as a transferred first name. U.S. Social Security data show rare, almost entirely male use from 1883 to the mid-1960s, with peaks of 18 births in 1917 and 1925 and little recent revival.