Her name is the feminine of Gabriel, from the Hebrew, which means "messenger of God". That is the name of the chief of Archangels, and during the show, Gabrielle becomes an Archangel. While Gabrielle is typically a French given name, it has a grammatically correct Greek feminine ending and contains no anti-Greek sounds (pronounced as Gab-ree-el-lay). Also, the Greek version of "Gabrielle" is Γαβριήλα, (Gavrila).