When ideas fail, words come in very handy (Goethe)

Our name is almost always given to us by our parents and we bear it throughout our lives. We are identified by our names therefore naming your child is of great importance. Why are most of us so fussy about their names? Why are we annoyed when our name is mispronounced? Why do many people take great care to make sure they pronounce another person’s name correctly, especially in introductions?

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There are people who believe that there is much more to a name than just its sound, origin/meaning, or numerology. Some even go as far a believing that when you name your baby, you are creating the baby’s future. This is a hell of a responsibility, isn’t it?

The sense of personal identity and uniqueness that a name gives us is at the heart of why names interest us and why they are important to us as individuals and to our society as a whole. In spite of their importance, though, most people know very little about names. In a very real sense, we are consumers of names, and we sometimes have a need to know about the psychological, magical, legal, religious, and ethnic aspects of our names.

There are people who love their names and there are those who don’t. I personally know people who actually hated their names and even believed their name harmed them, so they have decided to change it.

The study of names is called onomastics, a field which touches on linguistics, history, anthropology, psychology, sociology and more, although one should bear in mind that not all names are historically traceable.

When people refer to the “meaning” of a name, they most likely refer to its literal meaning.

So let’s look at six names and their meanings:

Benazir (Bhutto) - “without comparison” (Urdu)

Condoleezza (Rice) - Condoleezza (from the Italian musical expression, Con dolcezza, meaning “with sweetness”)

Golda (Meir) - “gold” (Yiddish)

Hanan (Ashrawi)  “mercy, compassion” (Arabic)

Hillary (Clinton) - “cheerful” (Greek)

Indira (Gandhi) - “beauty” (Sanskrit)

This is our way of paying respect to these prominent women.  

We all know that many names derive from the Bible like Joseph, Rachel, Matthew, Jonathan, Mary and God forbid Judas (Greek: Ιούδας) which is the anglicized Greek rendering of the Hebrew name Yehudah (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה).

Ancient mythologies are also sources of many names, for instance: Brigit – anglicized form of the Irish name Brighid which means “exalted one”. In Irish mythology, she was the goddess of fire, poetry and wisdom; Dylan - in Welsh mythology Dylan was a god of the sea. The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and the musician Bob Dylan (real name Robert Zimmerman) are famous bearers of this name. Aurora - from Latin, meaning “dawn”, the Roman goddess of the morning and  Jason - from Greek, meaning “to heal”. Last and probably most adored is Venus, the name of the Roman goddess of love (equal to the Greek goddess Aphrodite).

Names affiliated with nature such as flowers and plants: Iris, Daisy, Rose, Violet, Jasmine and Daphne; natural phenomena: Yam (sea in Hebrew), Agni (fire in Sanskrit) and Aputsiaq (snowflake in Greenlandic); gems: Crystal, Pearl, Achlama (Hebrew) and Sapphire.

Names meaning feelings: Joy, Amy (beloved – from Old French), Baruch (blessed – Hebrew).

Each generation has its popular names. Women in today’s maternity wards whose names are Loren, Karen, Linda, Lisa, Hillary, Michelle and Kimberly - and whose mothers are Barbara, Mary, Jane, Helen, Dorothy and Betty - name their daughters Megan, Alyssa,
Hannah, Brittany, Haley and Jasmine.

In recent years androgynous names have become quite popular, in English (Taylor, Madison and Cameron) as well as in Hebrew (Tal, Ophir, Lior, Daniel). This trend can make our world a more equal place: it’s harder for employers to tell a job applicant’s gender when reading a résumé.

Looking for a gift for a newborn baby? Play it safe by picking androgynous colors (white is good, yellow is optional) adding some humor to it and you have the perfect original gift.

Having said this we assume that next time someone is introduced to you, you’ll: a)  Pay extra attention to the pronunciation of their name. b)  Appreciate the choice made by their parents: they probably had a good reason for choosing it.  c)  Refer them to our blog to read this article….. :-) 

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Etymology probably sounds like a disease to you, unless you are a Linguistics graduate. In fact, Etymology is the study of the origin (history) of words which is based on scientific tools. Linguists do that because it’s part of their job  and it’s important for better understanding the nature of languages.

The word hazard(n.) danger; (vb.) to risk or expose to danger, for example, evolved from the Arabic al zahr, which means the dice. This word made a long way until it settled into English. In Western Europe the term came to be associated with a number of games using dice, which were learned during the Crusades whilst in the
Holy Land. The term eventually took on the connotation of danger because, from very early on, games using dice were associated with the risky business of gambling and con artists using corrupted dice.

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As for Malaria (n.) (infectious disease characterized by chills and fever and caused by the bite of an infected anopheles mosquito). This word comes from the medieval Italian mal (=bad) and aria (=air), describing the miasma from the swamps around
Rome. This ‘bad air‘ was believed to be the cause of the fever that often developed in those who spent time around the swamps. In fact the illness, now known as malaria, was due to certain protozoans present in the mosquitoes that bred around these swamps, and which caused recurring feverish symptoms in those they bit.

Pedigree (n.) A line of ancestors; genealogy. Believed to be derived from the French ped de gru, which meant crane’s foot (the modern French equivalent is pied de la grue). The crane’s foot is said to resemble the /|\symbol on genealogical trees. It has also been suggested that it comes from par degrés, the French for by degrees. A pedigree chart records the relationship of families by degrees.

Folk Etymology  is a commonly held misunderstanding of the origin of a particular word. Language is  dynamic and  in the course of history, certain words were misheard or misunderstood. As a result,  people made the wrong analogy and another word was born.   Needless to mention that folk etymology exists in every language and is not unique to any language in particular.We may look into the spelling of the English word lethal which reflects a belief that it is derived from Lethe, the river in the mythological kingdom of the dead. In fact it comes from the unconnected Latin word letum, meaning death. 
 

The word cockroach was created  when English native speakers heard the Spanish word for beetle: cucaracha. What they processed in their minds were sounds familiar to them, which is what humans tend to do when they hear sounds they are not accustomed to. So, by analogy they started saying ’cockroach’ (combining the two different animals: cock & roach.)  

By now I am getting hungry, so let me end this article by mentioning the English word ‘hamburger’, which is originated from the German hamburger, meaning someone or something originally from Hamburg (a city in North Germany). English speakers thought, mistakenly, that hamburger is comprised of two words: ham + burger. Therefore, it did not take long until cheese burger entered the language and of course double-cheese burger…..