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 Engle Vanessa Engle Vanessa Engle is a British documentary filmmaker who has been making films for BBC Television since 1988. For the first fifteen years of her career, she made arts documentaries, including spending four years (1989 - 1993) working for BBC2's late night arts magazine programme, The Late Show. Her three-part series 'Britart', about Britain's Young British Artists, was commissioned for the launch of BBC4 in 2002 and was followed by another three-part series 'Art & the 60s' (2004), which had a tie-in exhibition at Tate Britain. Her film about Charles Saatchi launched the 'Imagine' strand on BBC1 in 2003.