Girls
Quintessa - Latin, meaning "fifth born daughter".
Raisa - Old Greek, meaning "adaptable" or "easy-going" from the word 'rhadios'. It could also be used as a variant of Rachel or Rose.
Sigrid - Old Norse, meaning "victory" and "peace" or "beautiful" or "fair" (from sigr and fridr).
Tawny - English, meaning "tawny" or "tanned", originally from French "tane' " meaning someone with a tan complexion or tan-color hair. English 'gypsies' (Romany) use this to mean "small" or "tiny".
Uma - Sanskrit, meaning "flax".
Valda - Old Norse, meaning "ruler" or "governor".
Willabelle - a variation on the name Wilhelmina. Wil is a Germanic root meaning "will" or "desire" and belle is a Latin root meaning "beautiful".
Xenia - Greek, meaning "hospitable".
Ya - African-Twi, meaning "girl born on a Thursday"
Zaida - Arabic, meaning "to increase" or "lucky one", coming from the word 'zada' 'to increase'. In Spanish this is pronounced 'saw ee tha'.
Aberdeen - Gaelic, meaning "at the mouth of two rivers" - the two rivers being the river Dee and the river Don in Scotland. Aberdeen is the name of a city, a settlement that has existed for at least 8,000 years.
Bashabee - I'm not entirely certain what the origin is of this as a personal name. I did find that there was an Easter Abenaki leader named Bashabes who led his people at the time of the first contact with Europeans. One source on the origin or meaning of Bashabes as an Abenaki name suggested that it might be a name or a title. There seems to be a strong argument that Bashabes is a personal name, however. This source also had the name written as 'Betsabes'. The Indian leader was male but I have listed Bashabee under female names, as that is how I have encountered it before. As a female personal name it might have a different origin.
Circe - Latin, from the Greek name Kirke - may mean 'bird'. Circe was a witch and in The Odyssey she imprisons Odysseus and his men for 5 years by enchantment. Pronounced 'sur see' (the Greek Kirke would be pronounced 'ker kee'). Game of Thrones fans should notice many similarities between the Circe of the Odyssey and Queen Cersei of Westeros.
Dagmar - Old Norse, meaning "day" and "maid" (such as young girl, unmarried, virgin).
Boys
Elian Welsh, meaning "fawn" or "hind" (deer). Or a Hebrew variant of Elijah, meaning "my god is Yahweh". Or from Latin, coming from Aelianus, Elianus, or Helianus, all of which come from the Greek 'helios' "sun". Elian Gonzalez, a 6 year old boy rescued from the sea but then sent back to Cuba, was named for his parents, Elizabeth and Juan. Elizabeth means "consecrated to God" and Juan "Yahweh is gracious" or "Yahweh is merciful. Yahweh is the Hebrew name for God. Elian in Spanish is pronounced 'ell ee ahn'. In reading up on Elian Gonzalez on Wikipedia I was rather amazed that they have part of a museum dedicated to him, a statue of the boy, and have preserved the home he had first returned to after his stay in Florida. Wow. I remember how emotional the ordeal was - or at least, how emotional people became about it. It's the sort of thing you have strong feelings about, you know, whether a child should be returned to his father or 'given' to his extended relatives because they live in the U.S. and not Cuba. I was appalled that it would even be considered to not send the boy back to his father immediately. I'm sad if the Cuban government has become even more invasive in his life, but maybe he has received privileges as well. In any case, it seems much more important to me that he have that time with his father. Freedom and personal liberty are a great thing we offer here in the U.S. I would not choose it, though, over being raised by my parents.
Fallamhan - Gaelic, meaning "superiority" or "mastery".
Garnaliel - also written as Gamaliel, Hebrew, meaning "reward of God". Gamaliel is pronounced 'gam uh lee el" so I assume that Garnaliel is similar, perhaps "gar nuh lee el". I think Garnaliel is rather fabulous, personally. I don't know why, but Gamaliel does not have the same appeal. Maybe it sounds too much like camel. If I stop and think about it, and forget about Garnaliel, I do like it though, in comparison to many other names, it still has a 'fabulous' factor. Which might mean it's not remotely practical. Though I don't expect to post too many of those types of names for this series of posts.
The meaning makes sense, if you think about it, to an English speaker, anyhow, as 'garner' is another way of saying someone gains, earns, or is rewarded, like 'garnering favor'. Hmm. Maybe gain comes from the same origin?
Habakkuk - possibly Hebrew with a meaning related to a word which means "embrace, or related to the Akkadian word 'khabbaququ' - which was a fragrant plant.I also found a source that says rabbinic tradition sees this name as related to the root "habbac" which means "to enhance" and can mean "to wrestle with God" or "a comforter of people" or "one beloved of God". It also said that Martin Luther saw the name as meaning "hartener" or "one who takes another to his heart and arms as one who soothes a poor weeping child, telling it to be quiet".
Ivor - English, from the Old Norse name Ívarr, which came from the roots 'yr' meaning "yew" or "bow" and 'arr' meaning "warrior". LOVE the image here, of an archer (oh, notice the similar sound between archer and Ivor - which can be pronounced either 'eye vahr' or "ee vahr"). Though I want to say something more like 'eye vor' or "eye-ver", rather than 'eye-vahr')..
Jair - Hebrew, meaning "he enlightens" or "he shines", coming from the root "owr" which means 'to enlighten' and also 'to shine'. In English this would be pronounced as 'jay ahr'. In Spanish, though, this is said "yah ear', the y sound has a slight 'j' sound mixed with it. I am not sure why, but in 2003 the popularity of this name shot up. It had only been ranked in the top 1,000 names for boys in the U.S. once before 2001, and in 2001 it reappeared for the second time, this time a bit higher than before, at #735 (there were 734 names more popular than Jair that year for boys. But within 2 years it rose to 506. It was not a steady trend though, as with some names that continue to increase in popularity. Since 2006 it has been at #727 or lower (less popular). So I am curious why it was so popular in 2003 and also, what brought it to the charts in 1996 in the first place? I've only known one Jair, and he was Hispanic, so perhaps its appearance might relate to increasing births for Hispanic males. But why so popular for one year and then dropping back down quite low?
Kanye - Igbo, meaning "let's give".
Lamwell - an English form of the name Lanval, the name of a knight of the Round Table - it also appears as Launfal and Landeval. Lambewell is another English version of the same name. I have not had a lot of luck figuring out its meaning, however.
Mallion - possibly from French 'maille' which comes from the Latin 'macula' meaning "a net" or "a mesh" or "a coat of mail".
Naaman - a variant of the Hebrew name Noam which means "sweetness" or "pleasantness" or "my delight".
Oberon - Germanic, meaning "noble bear" or "elf ruler" or "supernaturally powerful". It may come from the root "adal" meaning "noble" or "honorable" or from the root 'alf' meaning "elf" or "supernatural being" and the root 'ber'. Oberon is the name of the king of the fairies in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.
Parthalón -an Irish variant of the Aramaic name Bartholomew which means "son of Talmai" or "son of the one who abounds in furrows". Parthalon is the name of the man in Irish myth that was the first to come to Ireland after the Biblical flood.
Quanah - means "good smelling". Quanah Parker was one of the last Comanche chiefs. He was chief of the Quahadi (or Kwahadi) band of Comanches. Quanah is pronounced 'kway nah''.
Rainier- French form of the name Rayner, which comes from the Germanic name Raganhar, which comes from 'ragin' which means "advice" and 'hari' which means "army", or "wise army". It can be pronounced 'ray NEER' or 'ren YEH'.
No comments:
Post a Comment