Some of the best Unusual names

GIRLS

Unelma

Ventla

Yazgülü - Turkish, meaning "summer rose, from the elements "yaz" meaning summer and gul meaning "rose". Pronounced "YAHZ-gew-LEW".


BOYS

Winwaloe Breton

Xicu - Asturian, a form of Francis, which means "Frenchman".

Zaia - Aramaic, Assyrian, and Syrian, a short form of the Hebrew name Isaiah, which means "Yahweh is salvation".

Ahead of the curve

Trying to stay ahead of the curve by posting Friday's names today.

GIRLS

Hermina Greek, it may come from the name of the messenger god Hermes or from the word 'herma' meaning 'heap of stones' or 'cairn'.

Jazzabella  -it seems like an invented smooshed up name from Jazz and Bella. However, it is close to the Biblical name Jezebel, which means "where is the prince?" according to The Oxford Guide to People & Places of the Bible. Jezebel was an evil queen and so it is unfortunate the similarity between Jazzabella and Jezebel.

Keeva - Irish, though this is a spelling that is easier on English-speakers than the Irish Caiomhe. In northern Ireland this is pronounced as 'kee va'. In the rest of Ireland it is said 'quee va' and so the spelling Keeva wouldn't adequately address the name.


BOYS

 

Hieroglyphic expression of Edom

Edom Hebrew, meaning "red".


Fenon - perhaps French or African


Gandalf - the name of the gray wizard in J.R.R. Tolkien's books about Middle Earth, The Hobbit and the 3 books of The Lord of the Rings.




Ilias a form of Elias, which is the form of Elijah used in the Greek Bible. Elijah is from the Hebrew Eliyyahu, which means "my god is Yahweh".

In 2014 I have introduced you to 473 Names as of today.

GIRLS



Samoan woman. Perhaps Queen Salamasina looked like this.

the Princess of Wales as a girl, certainly
one of the most 'darling' girls, well beloved
by people in Great Britain and everywhere, really.
Doesn't she also look just how you might imagine a Tegan would look?

Salamasina Samoan, name of a queen of that country.

Tegan - Welsh, a nickname derived from the word 'teg' which means 'fair' and according to behindthenames.com means essentially 'darling' or 'loved one' or 'pet' or 'favorite'.

sunrise

Usha - Sanskrit, meaning 'sunrise'.

Varsha - Sanskrit, meaning 'rainfall.

monsoon rain in India

Woden 

BOYS

Woden - according to wikipedia.com this comes from the 'Proto-Germanic' theonym "wodanaz" and would have developed from the word 'wodaz'. It seems to have a meaning related to 'madness' or 'insane' or 'rage' as well as a religious component, such as prophet or faith. I couldn't exactly pin down the meaning. I'll update this when I do. Woden was a Norse god, THE Norse god, one eyed, who had visions. Woden's Day is the day we call Wednesday.

Yancy- from the Dutch surname Jansen. In America this converted to Yancy. Jansen means "son of Jan" which is a nickname for Johan or Johannes, which comes from Yhonatan, a Hebrew name meaning "God has given".

Jan Gies, one of the great heros of WWII, hider of Anne Frank and many others, who did have a son, but did NOT name him Yancy. I hardly expected to be able to show the two levels of meaning of the name with one picture. I am sure that the Franks and the others they hid, felt that Jan certainly had been given to them from God. And to think, that in the midst of Hitlers and Stalins we still have heros of such stature!!

Zedekiah - Hebrew, meaning "my righteousness is Yahweh", according to Wikipedia.

 Zedekiah and other captives before Nebuchadnezzar

1,769 names left to learn

Sudanese woman

With these 7 names under your belt, you only need to learn 1,769 more names this year!!

GIRLS

Ismeria - ? unsure of origin, but one possibility is Arabic. This name was featured on britishbabynames.com as part of their Name of the Week series. You can read more in depth about it here. BBN (britishbabynames.com) connects it to a legend and some history from Picardy, France (the town of Liesse), with a woman named Ismeria from Sudan, during the time of the Crusades. Ismenia and Ismérie, pronounced 'EEZ mer ee', according to BBN) are two names that BBN finds may be connected to Ismeria's origin. To keep it interesting, she suggests Isma, an Arabic name meaning 'protection' or Asma, also Arabic and meaning 'supreme', could potentially be names which gave rise to Ismeria. Ismérie appears to be the version of the name generally used in France. It seems, according to the BBN article, that a Spanish play may have helped spread the name a bit after the Middle Ages.  There are quite a few variants on this name on britishbabynames.com, so I encourage you to visit the article for all of them, plus quite a bit more of interest on the name and its usage. My favorites were Ismary and Ismeriette.

How adorable is this little Mexican girl?
She could easily be named 'Jesusa'. 
Susie or Sue would be easy nicknames, or Hazy. 

Jesusa - Spanish feminine form of Jesus, which is the English form of the Greek Iesous, which is a form of the Aramaic name Yeshu'a, which is a short form of Yehoshu'a meaning "Yahweh is salvation". Jesusa is pronounced "hay SU sah".


Kjersten - Danish, meaning "follower of Christ".

Painting by the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi 

Queen Boudiccea, a neighbor of the Trinovantes
 clan, as imagined by the artist John Opie,
 who lived in the late 18th century. 

Landora - Uncertain the language of origin of the name. However, Landora is used as the name of the female love interest in the play Fuimos Troes written in English and published in England in 1633. In the play the character is a native Briton, a member of the Trinovantes, one of the Celtic tribes that inhabited England at the time of the Roman invasion of Britain. However, a key concept of the play is that the British were descended from ancient Troy, just as the Romans were thought to have come from that nation. It also appears nearly the same as the name Pandora, which is Greek.

BOYS

This image of Melchizedek painted on the wall of a church in Romania is
well-preserved. He is worshipped as a saint in the Orthodox and Catholic churches. 

Melchizedek - Hebrew, meaning 'king of righteousness". In the Bible, Melchizedek is a high priest of God. He was also the king of Salem, and the meaning of Salem is 'peace', so he is considered a king of both righteousness and peace. There are arguments that Melchizedek is Michael the archangel and that he is Shem, the grandson of Noah. Jesus Christ, according to the Bible, became a priest forever in Melchizedek's priesthood order. The priesthood of Melchizedek is said to be greater than the priesthood which was given to Abraham and some say that his is a heavenly priesthood (i.e. only practiced in heaven, and not on earth).

In the Bible, Nimrod is known as a great hunter.

Nimrod - possibly Akkadian. It may mean "rebel" in Hebrew.



Osten - German, from 'ostan' or 'ost'  meaning 'east', which comes from the Proto-Germanic root 'austra' and is related to the 'word 'ausos' meaning 'dawn' (according to Wikipedia. I haven't searched more than that yet).

2, 014 Names 21 + 7 = 28

7 more names for you to meet. That will make 28 names so far, of our 2,014.

Roman woman
 

Valeria - the feminine form of Valerius, which was a Roman surname. It came from the Latin word 'valere' "to be strong". Pronounced 'vuh lair ee uh' in English.

Wilhelmine - The feminine form of the German name Wilhelm, which came from the name Willahelm. Wil meaning "will, desire" and helm meaning "helmet, protection". Pronounced "wil hel meen".

Ximena -Spanish or Basque, feminine form of Ximeno, which is possibly a form of Simon or may come from the Basque word 'seme' which means "son". Simon is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Shim'on which means "he has heard". In Spanish this is pronounced 'hee may nuh'. It can also be spelled Jimena.

Yaroslav -the Russian form of Jaroslaw. It is pronounced 'yah roe slahf'. Jaroslaw  is Polish and comes from the Slavic roots 'jary' which means 'fierce' or 'strong' and 'slawa' which means 'glory'.

Zephaniah- this comes from the Hebrew name Tzefanyah, which means "Yahweh has hidden". In English Zephaniah is pronounced 'zef uh nye uh' where 'nye' sounds like the word 'nigh' in English (long i sound).

Abdiel - a Hebrew name which means "servant of God", coming from the roots 'ebed' 'servant' and 'el' 'god'.

Bartolo - Spanish form of the Greek name Bartholomeos, which came from an Aramaic name that meant 'son of Talmai'.