Origin and history of Janet

fem. proper name, from French Jeanne, Old French Jehane, from Medieval Latin Johanna (see John). As a generic name for "girl, girlfriend" it is attested from 1906 in U.S. slang. Never a top-10 list name for girls born in the U.S., it ranked in the top 50 from 1931 to 1956. It may owe its "everywoman" reputation rather to its association with the popular boy's name John.

c. 1300, steue, "a closed vessel for cooking" (a sense now obsolete); also "heated room," especially for hot-air or steam bathing (mid-14c., especially in plural, steues); from stew (v.). The meaning "meat slowly boiled," generally with vegetables, is recorded by 1756. The colloquial sense of "state of agitation or worry" is by 1806.

The obsolete slang meaning "brothel" (mid-14c., usually, stews) is from a sense of "public bath house" (mid-14c.), from Old French estuve "bath, bath house; bawdy house" (Anglo-French estouve), reflecting probably the reputation of medieval bath houses.

word-forming element, originally a diminutive suffix but not now always felt as one, Middle English, from Old French -et (fem. -ete; Modern French -et, -ette), from Vulgar Latin *-ittum/*-itta (source also of Spanish -ito/-ita, Italian -etto/-etta), of unknown origin. The French forms are reduced to -et in English, but later borrowings of French words in -ette tend to keep that ending.