Vanessa (name) Vanessa (name) Vanessa is a feminine given name, especially popular in the United States, Germany and Brazil. It was invented by the Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift for Esther Vanhomrigh, whom Swift had met in 1708 and whom he tutored. The name was created by taking "Van" from Vanhomrigh's last name and adding "Essa", a pet form of Esther. In 1726 the name Vanessa appeared in print for the first time in "Cadenus and Vanessa", an autobiographical poem about Swift's relationship with Vanhomrigh. Swift had written the poem in 1713, but it was not published until three years after Vanhomrigh died.
Vanessa Collingridge Radio 4's "Making History" whilst studying. Vanessa Collingridge Vanessa Jane Collingridge (born 12 January 1968) is a British author and broadcaster. Youngest of the five children of Gordon Ernest Collingridge (1926-2007) and his wife Irene (born Irene Keeping), Collingridge was born and brought up in Woking, Surrey in England. She read Geography at Hertford College, Oxford, where she earned a first class MA in 1990, despite contracting viral encephalitis in her second year which caused an almost fatal swelling of her brain. It was also at Oxford that she met her husband Allan Watt. After graduating, Collingridge moved immediately to