I Spy, With My Little Eye, Some Extraordinary Names

Or at least, they were names I had not seen or noticed before. I saw these on my walk yesterday at the graveyard.

GIRLS

Christia - I'm wondering how it's pronounced. Is it just said like Christa? Or is it said like Christy? Is it 'chris tee ah' or is it 'christ yah'  or 'christ jah' or maybe even 'chris TEE ah'? Chris tee yah is my personal choice.

BOYS

Clagett - this is a surname around here but this was the first time I have seen it as a personal name.

To market, to market, to find some strange names, home again, home again, jiggety-james.

GIRLS

Victorina - Latin, meaning "victory", the mother of Victorinus, one of the Thirty Tyrants.

Wilella - English


Xenoveva - Asturian


BOYS

Yemelyan - Russian

Zagraeus - Greek

Adalbern - Germanic, from "adal", meaning "noble", and "bern", meaning "bear".

Rainy days and Names always cheer me up

GIRLS

Donda

Elander

Fan


BOYS

Greenbury

Holdridge

Iacchus

Names for the start of August

GIRLS

Xhuliana - Albanian form of Juliana. Juliana is a feminine form of the Roman 'cognomen' Julianus - cognomen being the third name given to a Roman citizen, initially it was a sort of nickname but eventually changed to serve as a way of identifying one branch of a family from another. Julianus is derived from the Roman surname Julian (which has since evolved into a first name) which means "of the gens Julia" or "a descendat of Julus". Julus or Iulus was supposed to be the son of the goddess Venus and one of the original inhabitants of Rome. The Julians were people who claimed descent from him. So Xhuliana would suggest someone who claimed descent from Julus/Iulus and by extension, from the goddess of love (Venus). Perhaps "descended from the offspring of the goddess of love" would be a good way of interpreting the name. Though I have not found what Julus or Iulus may have originally meant or referred to.

Yalda - Syriac, a form of Middle Aramaic, and the Nestorian Christian name for Christmas (it means "birth"), it is celebrated on the eve of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.

Zosine - Greek


BOYS

Abdulrahman

Buthyreus

Caraeus

A Bit of Both and Neither (or is it Either?)

GIRLS

Zelia - Hebrew, from "zelus" meaning "zealous" or "ardent". It is pronounced "ZEH lee uh".

Ajarae

Brickaney


BOYS

Deileon

Elim



NOT SURE WHICH GENDER

Calsey

1142

That's how many names we still need to learn in 2014 to reach our goal of learning 2,014 new names this year. We are learning 6 names today so that means we have 1,136 names left to learn. It also means that we have now (with today's names) learned 878 new names in 2014.

GIRLS


Prunelle -French diminutive for prune, which comes from the Latin 'prunum' which comes from the Greek "prounon" which is a form of "proumnon" which means "plum".


Rafaeline

Turid



BOYS


Ethric - Anglo-Saxon short form of Aethelric or Ethelric, from "aethel" meaning "noble" and "ric" meaning "rule" or "power".  

Falvey 



NOT SURE OF GENDER


Cathal

6 New Names

We've had a bit of a break in the month of May. So far I've introduced you to 800 names. That leaves 1214 names left to learn this year. Unless I'm doing my math wrong, that means you need to learn 5 to 6 names each day for the rest of the year.

Here are 6 for today

GIRLS

Henny

Kendallynn

Olithia- This is probably a variant spelling of Alethea, which derives from the Greek word 'aletheia' meaning 'truth'.



NOT SURE WHICH GENDER

Pollard  this seems to be English and may mean "shaved head". Polle meant head in Middle English and pollard refers to an animal with its horns removed and trees whose branches have been cut back.


Rafa

Shanika

Today is Wednesday, Though, These are for Thursday

GIRLS

Vanda - a form of Wanda in a few different languages. Wanda means "wanderer". Vanda is also a species of orchid.

Budingen

Zettie

Bedinger  this was the middle name of an American female poet, which is why I thought it was a female name. It is just a surname stuck in the middle after all. It is German and derives from the city of Budingen.

Budingen coat of arms

*side note genealogy-wise. This lends credence to my idea that the name Dellet is a surname indicating the town that family was from. I have now come across at least a few German surnames of this sort.

Add caption

Calceolaria- Latin, from 'calceolus' meaning 'small shoe', this is a genus of plants, a kind of orchid. I thought it might make a nice name. It's more commonly called lady's slipper.

BOYS

Elbert -  Old English, meaning "noble, bright.

Heman

NOT SURE WHICH GENDER

Dowdell - Old English, either from "dow", which derives from "dufe" meaning "a dove" or from "do" which derives from "da" meaning "a doe" and "dael" meaning "a valley". So the name either means "dove valley" or "doe valley", or more romantically "valley of doves" or "valley of does". Dowdell is an English surname, but I encountered it being used as a first name. I consulted the book Surnames of the United Kingdom: A Concise Etymological Dictionary by Henry Harrison for this information.

Begin the week with 7 new names!

GIRLS

Valaunta

Willa Mae

Yhoalibeth


BOYS


Anakin - according to Wikipedia the name of Luke Skywalker's father, Anakin, was based on the last name of a friend of George Lucas. But I also came upon the following trying to research this name. In the Old Testament a race of giants are called the Anakim - they are descendants of Anak and their name may come
from a root meaning "strength" or "stature". Personally I find this to be the perfect meaning to be associated with the Anakin in Star Wars, as Darth Vader is known for both his strength and stature. In addition the giant Goliath is supposed to be a descendant of the Anakim. The battle between Luke and Vader seems to me a David and Goliath type battle, in fact the entire rebellion could be seen as David and the Empire as Goliath. The Anakim were supposed to have dwelt in the Holy Land
before the Hebrews came there from Egypt.

Anak (the ancestor of the Anakim) is considered by some to be related to the Sumerian god Enki (who is also known as Ea among the Akkadians and Babylonians), patron god of the city of Eridu and also the god of crafts, mischief, water, seawater, lakewater, intelligence, and creation. He was associated with the southern band of constellations called the stars of Ea, and also the constellation As-Iku or "the field" (known as the Square of Pegasus in modern times) and he was also associated with the planet Mercury. He appears in the earliest texts - cuneiform - and was important at least 3,000 years before Christ. He was known as "Lord of Earth". He was considered the master shaper of the world and god of wisdom and all magic. Enki casts a spell on his grandfather, Abzu, the 'begetter' of the gods and then takes over his roles.

Anak is also associated with Anax. In Greek Anax means "king" or "lord" or "leader", in the sense of a tribal king or military leader. It comes from the stem 'wanakt' and sometimes appears as 'wanaka' or 'wanasa'. As the term is used in the ancient Greek texts, an anax (such as Agammemnon) is a kind of high king, or a king in charge of other lesser kings. Anax is also a term used to refer to Zeus who is the king of the gods and 'overlord of the Universe'. Even in the ancient Homeric writings Anax is not a term used for just any king, but reserved for legendary kings and gods. It is hypothesized that this term originates with the Proto-Indo-European 'wen-ag' meaning 'bringer of spoils'. It appears as part of other terms, Hipponax (king of horses), Anaxagoras (king of the agora), Pleistoanax (king of the multitude), etc. The plural, Anakes meaning "kings" was used to refer to the 'heavenly twins' Castor and Polydeuces whose temple was called the 

Anakeion and their festival the Anakeia.

Not that Georgie had any of this in mind when naming Anakin Skywalker. Still, it is interesting to me that the name could be seen to be related to these ancient figures.

Baldric -from the German roots "bald" meaning "brave" or "bold" and "ric" meaning "rule". This name was brought to England by the Norman invaders and was common in the Middle Ages.


Cicerón

Donofrio

Wednesday's Whatsits

GIRLS

Orlena

Petronella

Rella

BOYS


Shem

Teshonn

Zedidiah - Hebrew, meaning "justice of God".

Aias- Greek, perhaps derived from 'aiastes' meaning "mourner". Ajax is a form of Aias and so either can be used to refer to the famous hero of the Trojan war. Aias is pronounced 'eye us'.

Names #397-403

Beautiful urns in a Roman mosaic

GIRLS


Zuri - Swahili, meaning "beautiful".




silver and blessed

Arianwen - Welsh, meaning "silver and blessed". Pronounced "ar ee AHN when".

Burla - a Bulgarian Jewish name. Possibly means "storm".


storm over Utah Lake

BOYS

Carlese


Dule

Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego protected by an angel

Eliaphaz - Hebrew, meaning "My Elohim is strength". Elohim means God.

Fant

Do you see one or two names you would use?

I'm not saying they're all extremely usable. But, I think that Aljourn 'might' work on a boy these days and Xevera maybe on a girl. I wonder if there was ever more than one Zerubbabel??

GIRLS

Wilmet

Xevera

Yrsa - Swedish, possibly derived from 'ursa' meaning 'bear'.


BOYS

Zerubbabel - possibly Hebrew, derived from "Zerua Bavel" meaning "the one sown of Babylon" or "Zeruy Bavel" meaning "the winnowed one of Babylon". The one interpretation relates to the idea of child born in Babylon or conceived there and the second to living in Babylon as an exile. Wikipedia also suggests the possibility that this name derives from the Assyrian-Babylonian "Zeru Bavel" which means "one conceived in Babylon". They all seem the same to me.

Burgess Meredith, actor

Aljourn - a form of Algernon.

Burgess - English, derived from the French and indicating someone who lives in a town.

Cuthbert - Old English, meaning "famous".

oops, I posted this a bit early - these names are for Saturday

Names 218-224

GIRLS

Mehitabel - Hebrew, meaning "God rejoices". Often spelled Mehitable and also Mehetabel.

Nieves - Spanish, meaning "snows".


Osburga - a variant of Osburh

BOYS

Persifor

Race

Salathiel - Greek variant of the Hebrew name Shealtiel. This name means "I asked El" (referring to the child being named as the thing asked for). El means God.

Thelonius - Behind the Name lists the meaning as "ruler of the people" suggesting it is the Latin form of Tielo, a German nickname for people with names like Dietrich.