In 2014 I featured a series of blog posts introducing you to 2,014 names. For the most part they were names that were brand new to me as well. Some names may be more familiar but I found the meaning or origin or some other aspect of the name made it worthy of inclusion here. You may love some of the names, you may hate some, but hopefully you enjoy learning about all of them.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Names 176-182

Girls

Willowdeana - a variation of Willowdean or Willowdene. I've found this as a place name and also as a given name combo. My theory is that it is a variant spelling of Willadina (or Willadine in the case of Willowdean and Willowdene). Willadine or Willadina would be forms of Willamina/Willamine, which comes from Wilhelmina and Wilhelmine. Wilhelmina is a feminine form of the German name Wilhelm which is itself a variant of the English Gwilliam. Willadeana would be possible as "willa" could be a short form of the name Wilhelm (also written as Willahelm), which comes from 'wil' meaning 'will' or 'desire', and 'helm' meaning 'helmet' or 'protection'.  If it is composed from willow and dean or deana, as a place name first and a personal name thereafter, willow comes from the Old English 'welig' for the name of the tree and Deana could come from the term used for a monk in charge of a group of monks, usually 10, this meaning of a Latin origin.

 Another blogger, Spastic Onomastic, has already tried to figure this name out, and seems to have come across a lot of the same information online that I have. Which has resolved nothing, so far as I can tell. Her research does not go back before the 19th century when the name use could easily have come from a name popularized in literature, music, art, or plays or just be popular due to that type of name being popular. I also came across at least one person who pronounced the last part of the name as 'dee ann uh'. That pronunciation seems unlikely to me given the various spellings of the name, and the use of Willowdene - which would exclude that pronunciation entirely.

Xaviera - feminine version of Xavier. In Spanish Xaviera is pronounced 'hah vee air uh'. It could also be spelled Javiera.
the Immortal Anna Pavlova, the definition of graceful

Yamileth -Arabic, from Jamila, the feminine form of Jamil, meaning "beautiful" or "graceful" or "handsome". In Spanish this is sometimes written Yamilet.

Boys

Zaccheus- from the Greek Zakkhaios which comes from the Hebrew "zakkay" meaning "pure" or "innocent" which comes from "zakhah" which means "was clean" or "was pure".


Ardghal - Irish, from "ard" meaning "high" and "gal" meaning "valor". Pronounced 'AR dahl'.



Beauregard - French meaning "beautiful outlook" and pronounced "BO reh gard".


Cadwallader - Welsh, from "cad" meaning "battle" and "gwaladr" meaning "leader". Dwalad seems to be a nickname for this in Welsh. 

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