A female name. the f. form of Julian (q.v.). St Juliana was said to have been martyred at Nicomedia under Galienus and her relics were preserved at Brussels and Sablon. Her name was consequently a favourite in the Low Countries, and it was probably from there that it reached England towards the end of the 12th C. The usual English form was Julian, Julyan, or Gillian, together with the diminutive Gill, Jill, Gillot, Juliet, Juet. It was one of the commonest girl’s names from the 12th to 15th C, and there are many surnames, derived from it e.g. Julian, Julien, Julyan, Jolyan, Juet, Jewett, Jowett, Gill, Gilson, Gillett, Gillott, &c. By the 16th C Jill had become a synonym for a flirt or worse (cf. Shakespeare’s ‘flirt-gill’), and the word jilt comes from Gillot. Another sign of the former frequency of the name is the common expression ‘Jack and Jill’, which survives in the well-known nursery rhyme. This was no doubt the reason why the name went out of fashion in the 16th and 17th C. In the 18th C the Latin form Juliana came in and continued to be used in the 19th C. The older Gillian has been revived in the present century, and Jill is also now used as an independent name.

Juliana Curia Regis Rolls 1196-1220, Hundred Rolls 1273. Gillian Hundred Rolls 1273. Gille Hundred Rolls 1273. Gylle Coventry Mysteries 15th C. Juet Hundred Rolls 1273. Jelyan Cocke Lorelle's Bote c. 1515.

The f. of the preceding, q. v.; its Latinity was effectively disguised in Gillian, q. v. The anchoret Juliana of Norwich (d., a centenarian, in 1443) influenced later medieval England by her XVI Revelations of Divine Love. (Harvey.) Cf. Juliet.

A female name derived from Julian.