ANCELOT -- from Celtic, "Mael-was" -- etymythology: "lance"

Speranza

ANCELOT.  Arthurian.  French name meaning "the servant."  A translation of the Celtic.  See note below.  And see Lancelot.

"maélwas", a servant boy, was translated into old Romance French as the former, by the word

"ancel", or "ancelot", otherwise "l'ancelot".

Villemarqué quotes a mention of the 'fable Ancelot et Tristan,'
from the romance of Ogier, to show that in earlier days

"Mael", or "ancelot", was mentioned without the article, which has since become incorporated with it, so that "Lancelot"
has grown to be the accepted name, and so
universally supposed to mean a "lance", that the Welsh themselves, re-importing his history, called him "Palladr", a shivered lance.

(History of Christian Names, Yonge, 1884)