Jocelin

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A masculine personal name of Old French and Germanic origin, a variant spelling of Jocelyn
2. A given name for men, derived from an older continental European form and spelled as a variant of Jocelyn
3. Used as a male first name, an alternative spelling of Jocelyn with roots in medieval French and Germanic naming

Etymology: Jocelin is best known as a personal name, and the form most readers meet is the Old French "Jocelin," brought to England by the Normans. It is generally traced to a Germanic name, "Gautsilo" or similar, built on an element connected with the Goths, the people whose name also survives in "Gothic." The name passed into French as a diminutive-style form and then back into English, where it spread among medieval families and appears in the records of the period. The most famous bearer of the name is Jocelin of Brakelond, a monk of Bury St Edmunds whose chronicle of his abbey gives one of the richest surviving pictures of daily monastic life and politics in medieval England. Because so many people shared the name, "Jocelin" and its variants such as "Joscelin" and "Jocelyn" became common across both France and England, and the spellings still vary today.