GLOSSARY OF CHRISTIAN NAMES.

The names here given are referred, as far as possible, first to the language in which the form occurs, then to their root.

The original names, in their primary form, are in capitals, the shapes they have since assumed are in Roman type, the contractions in italics. A table is here given of the main stems and branches, with the abbreviations used for them in the glossary.

Hebrew
(Heb.)		Modern Jew (Jew.)
Aramæan (Aram.)
Ancient Persian
(Zend)		Persian (Pers.)
Greek
(Gr.)		Modern Greek (Mod. Gr.)
Russian (Russ.)
Latin
(Lat.)		Italian (It.)
Venetian (Ven.)
Spanish (Span.)
Portuguese (Port.)
Provençal (Prov.)
Wallachian (Wall.)
French (Fr.)
Keltic
(Kelt.)		 Cymric
(Cym.)		Ancient British
(Brit.)
Welsh
Breton
(Bret.)
Cornish
(Corn.)
Gadhaelic
(Gad.)		Ancient Irish
(Erse)
Modern Irish Dialect
(Ir.)
Gaelic
(Gael.)
Scottish
(Scot.)
Manx
Teutonic
(Teu.)		 Northern
(Nor.)		Icelandic
(Ice.)
Norwegian
(Nor.)
Swedish
(Swed.)
Danish
(Dan.)
Norman
(Norm.)
Anglo-Saxon
(A.S.)		English
(Eng.)
Scottish
(Scot.)
Frisian
(Fris.)
Dutch
Irish
American
(Am.)
Old German
(O.G.)		German
(Ger.)
Bavarian
(Bav.)
Hamburgh
(Ham.)
Dantzig
(Dan.)
Swiss
Frank French
Gothic
(Goth.)		Spanish (Span.)
Portuguese
(Port.)
Lombardic
(Lomb.)
Italian
(It.)
SlavonicRussian (Russ.)
Slovak (Slov.)
Bohemian (Bohm.)
Polish
Hungarian (Hung.)
Lithuanian (Lith.)
Lettish (Lett.)
Illyrian (Ill.)

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

[1]. Sts. Gervasius and Protasius were martyrs disinterred by St. Ambrose, at Milan. The name is therefore probably from a classical source, unless it was originally that of a Teutonic slave.

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

[2]. This, one of the English missionary nun princesses in Germany, is the patroness of the celebrated Valpurgisnacht. She died at Heidenheim, and her right feast is on the 25th of February; but being translated to Crichstadt on the 1st of May, and minced into numerous relics, the latter day was also hers, and strangely became connected with the witches' sabbath.

X

Y

Z

[3]. Every form of every name given in the index is not to be found in the text; but in all cases where a reference is given, the history, as far as ascertainable, of the leading portion of the original name will be found.

HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN NAMES.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
THE SPIRIT OF NOMENCLATURE.

Much has been written upon the Surname, a comparatively modern invention, while the individual, or, as we term it, the Christian name, has barely received, here and there, a casual notice from English authors, and has seldom been treated of collectively or comparatively. Yet there is much that is extremely curious and suggestive in the rise and signification of the appellations of men and women, their universal or partial popularity, the alterations by which they have been adapted to different languages, their familiar abbreviations, the patronymics formed from them, and the places or articles called from them. In fact, we shall find the history, the religion, and the character of a nation stamped upon the individuals in the names which they bear.

It is to Christian names, properly so called, that our attention will chiefly be directed. Other names, not acknowledged at any time as baptismal, or only given so exceptionally as not to deserve notice, are here omitted, or only treated of when their analogy is needed to illustrate the history of a true Christian name.

The original proper names of men and women arose—

First, from some circumstance connected with the birth, such as Esau, hairy; Jacob, taking by the heel; Agrippa, born with the feet foremost.

Secondly, from the complexion, e. g., Edom, red; Flavius and Fulvius, yellow; Don, brown; Ruadh, red; Boidh, yellow; Blanche, fair.

Thirdly, from the qualities desired for the child, such as David, meaning beloved; the Persian Aspamitas and Greek Philippos, both lovers of horses; the Keltic Eochaidh, a horseman; the Teutonic Eadgifu, happy gift; the Slavonic Przemyszl, the thoughtful.

Fourthly, from an animal, Deborah, the bee; Jonah, Columba, Golubica, the dove; Zeeb, Lycos, Lupus, Ulf, Yuk, all signifying that strangely popular wild beast the wolf.

Fifthly, from a weapon, as the Teuton Gar, a spear.

Sixthly, from a jewel, Mote Mahal, in Persian, pearl of the harem; the Greek, Margarite, a pearl in Greek; the Teutonic Stein, a stone or jewel in Teutonic.

Seventhly, religious names, dedicating the child to the Divinity, such as Ishmael, heard of God; Elijah, God the Lord; and among idolaters, Artemidorus, gift of Artemis; Jovianus, belonging to Jupiter; Brighid, the Irish goddess of smiths and poets; Thorgils, Thor’s pledge.

To these we may add a few names of flowers, chiefly borne by women, and always indicating a poetical nation, such as Susanna, Lilias, Rhoda, Rose, and the Slavonic Smiljana, the amaranth, a description of name never found among the unimaginative Romans.

Also a few indicating a time of deep sorrow and distress, when the child was born, such as Beriah, son of evil, named when it went ill with his father Ephraim; Jabez, sorrow; Ichabod, the glory is departed. These being of ill omen, never prevailed among the joyous Greeks; but among the quick-feeling Kelts we find Una, famine, and Ita, thirsty, names recording, no doubt, times of sorrow. Also Posthumus and Tristan, though not originally bearing the meaning since attributed to them, and Dolores, a name of Spanish Roman Catholic growth, have all been applied to express the mournful circumstances of some “child of misery, baptized in tears.”

Natural defects have likewise furnished names, such as Balbus, the stammerer; the Irish Dorenn, the sullen; and Unchi, the contentious. These are most common among the Romans, owing to their habit of continuing a father’s name, however acquired, to the son. And the Romans likewise stand almost alone in their strange and uncomplimentary fashion of giving individual names from numbers, one in which they have not been imitated, except now and then, where the number of a family has become so remarkable as to be deemed worthy of commemoration in the names of the younger children. There is, however, said to be a family in Michigan where the sons are called One, Two, Three Stickaway, and the daughters First, Second, Third Stickaway.

The invention of original names usually takes place in the early stages of a people’s history, for a preference soon arises for established names, already borne by kindred, and as the spoken tongue drifts away, from the primitive form, the proper name becomes a mere appellative, with the original meaning forgotten, and often with a new one incorrectly applied to it. The names in popular use almost always belong to a more ancient language than that spoken by the owners; or else they are imported from some other nation, and adapted to the mouths of those who use them. Flexibility of speech is only acquired at a very early age, and persons who have never spoken any other than their mother tongue, have no power to catch foreign sounds, and either distort them, or assimilate them to words of their own. The ear catches the word imperfectly, the lips pronounce it after their own fashion, and the first writer who hears it, sets it down to the best of his ability, to be read, as it may chance, by others, ignorant of the sound the letters were meant to represent, and thus striking out absolute novelties. Even where it travels by the medium of writing, the letters of one language are so inadequate to express the sounds of another, that great changes take place in pronunciation, even while the spelling remains unaltered, and these become visible in the popular contractions.

Thus a foreign conquest, or the fusion of one nation into another, while introducing two orders of names to the same country, and in breaking up and intermixing their original forms of speech, yet leaves untouched the names belonging to the old language, though the spoken tongue goes on living, growing, and altering.

The Hebrew is an instance of this process. It was a living tongue up to the Babylonish captivity, and constantly formed new names from the ordinary speech of the people; but when the Jews returned they spoke the Aramean dialect; the old Hebrew was dead. They still called their children by mangled and contracted Hebraisms, inherited from their forefathers, but were in general not aware of their meaning, and were willing to give them Greek terminations to suit the literary taste of the East. That there was no vigour to throw out new names, is attested by the very scanty number of Aramean derivation. Yet it is these corrupted Hebrew names, marred by Aramean pronunciation, by Greek writing, and by the speech of every country, that are the most universally loved and honoured in every Christian land.

Greek may be said to have never died, and it has, from first to last, been the most vigorous of all languages in creating and spreading names, which are almost all easily explicable. Hellas, though frequently conquered, has by its glorious literature, both pagan and Christian, gained wide dominion for its language, and even the present vernacular of the peasant and sailor is not so decayed but that they can comprehend a line of Homer or a verse of St. John. Thus there is a long list of Greek names ever new, with comparatively few importations from other tongues, and for the most part conveying their meaning and augury.

On the contrary, before Latin was born, the dialects that had produced Latin names were decaying, and those who, by inheritance, bore the scanty stock that came down to them, were often at a loss for their meaning; nor in general is it so much the names actually borne by ancient Romans, as appellations formed out of the Latin language, that have been the Latin contribution to Christian nomenclature. The universal victors chiefly spread Roman names by adopting the conquered as their clients, and conferring their own nomina when they bestowed the right of citizenship.

Keltic still lives in its corners of the world, and its old names have for the most part continued in use, but usually each with a name by the side from some more fashionable tongue, supposed to translate it to the civilized ear. For instance, Tadhg, which means, in Erse, a poet, is called in English speech, Teague or Thady; and then further transformed into the Aramean Thaddeus (praise); or the Greek Timothy (honour God); with an utter loss of the true association.

The Teutonic names are taken from the elder branches of the Teuton languages, before they became commingled in different degrees with the later progeny of Latin, and with one another. We here use the word Teutonic, because it is the most convenient term by which to express the class of languages spoken by the great Germanic family, though we are aware that it is not absolutely correct as a class-appellation including the whole. Iceland and Scandinavia use their ancient tongue, but slightly altered, and there may be found the true forms and interpretations of the greater number of the appellations in common use. Modern German continues the old High German, but it is no safe guide to the meaning of names which belong to a much earlier form than that in which we now see it, and it has only created a few modern ones of its own. Anglo-Saxon explains most of its own names, but it cannot be safely trusted without comparison with the other branches. It was a language deteriorated by the Norman conquest, just as the Norse of the invaders had been previously smothered by their conquest of Neustria, and the English which grew up among them used more of the High Dutch names adopted by the Normans in France, than of its own Anglo-Saxon ones; and only after the Reformation was there an attempt, and that not a very successful one, at the fabrication of native English names. France kept Dutch names, and clipped them, while High Dutch minced Latin. Lombardy, too, used the old heroic names of the fair-haired barbarians, even while its speech was constant to the flowing Latin; and Spain has much more of the nomenclature than of the tongue of her Goths.

The Slavonic has corrupted itself, but become Christian, and has sent a few names of great leaders into the general stock of nomenclature, which has been formed by contributions from these six original branches, with a few chance additions from other quarters.

Each nation had a stock of its own at first, but as tribes became mixed, their names were interchanged, and varied by the pronunciation of those who adopted them; and when Christianity produced real union, making the saint of one country the glory and example of the entire Church, the names of the holy and the great became a universal link, and a token of the brotherhood established from land to land.

It was not at first, however, that this fusion of names commenced. The first Christians were Jews, with Hebrew, Aramean, Greek, or Latin names of their own, and their converts already bore Greek or Latin appellations, which were seldom altered. In the case of the Romans, children almost necessarily succeeded to family names, and the Greeks alone could at first exercise any choice, forming words of Christian meaning for their children, or adopting those of their revered instructors in the faith; and afterwards, persons using the Latin tongue, but not encumbered with the numerous names of a citizen, followed their example. The Teutons, when converted, were baptized by the names they already bore, and gave the like to their children; nor does it seem to have been till the older forms of the languages were expiring, that the introduction of old saintly names became by any means frequent. When names were mere appellations, not descriptions, a favourite character was sought for in the legends of the saints, and the child was dedicated to, or placed under the protection of, the patron whose name he bore. The theory was, that the festival in the calendar on which the birth took place, established the claim of the infant to the care of the patron, and thus fixed the name, an idea which still prevails in the Greek Church, but it was more usual to select a favourite patron, and instead of keeping the child’s birth-day, to feast him upon the holy day of the saint, a custom still observed in Roman Catholic countries.

The system of patron saints was greatly established by the veneration of relics. It was the presence of a supposed fragment of the body that was imagined to secure the protection of the saint to country, to city, to village, or family; and often the ‘translation’ of a relic can be traced as the cause of the nationality of a name, as the Diego of Spain, the Andreas of Flanders, the Marco of Venice, the Adrianus of Holland, the Radegonde of Poitiers, the Anne of Prague. Or the prominence of a fresh doctrine is shown in nomenclature, as by the outburst of Scripture names in all Calvinist countries; so that in French pedigrees, Huguenotism may be traced by the Isaacs and other patriarchal apparitions in the genealogy, and Puritanism has in England produced the quaint Old Testament appellations to be found in every parish register. On the other hand, the increasing devotion to the Blessed Virgin is indicated by the exaggerated use of Mary in Roman Catholic lands, the epithets coupled with it showing the peculiar phases of the homage paid to her, and almost gauging the amount of superstition in the country.

Religion has thus been in general the primary guide to individual nomenclature, and next in order must be ranked the family feeling that renders Christian names almost hereditary. In many places where primitive customs are kept up, it was an almost compulsory token of respect to call the eldest son after his paternal grandfather. This has indeed been almost universal. The ancient Greeks always did so unless the grandfather were alive, in which case the child was thought to take his place by bearing his name, and thus to bring death upon him.

In Scotland and in the north of England, the paternal grandfather and grandmother have namesakes in the eldest son and daughter, then comes the turn of the grand-parents on the mother’s side, then of the parents themselves, after which fancy may step in. In Germany the same practice prevails as regards the two eldest; and likewise in the south of France, where the child, whatever its sex, bears the grandfather’s name, thus accounting for various uncouth feminines; but though thus christened, the two eldest children are never so called, but always by the diminutive of their surname.

However, distinguished, or wealthy, or beloved godparents interfered with these regular successions, and in this manner queens have been the great conductors of female names, bestowing them on their nobility, from whom they spread to the commonalty.

Literature requires considerable cultivation before it spreads many names. It gave some in the latter days of Greece, and more after the old hereditary customs of Rome were broken up; then, during the dark ages, its influence was lost, except at Byzantium; and only when the chivalrous romance became fashionable, did a few poetic knights and dames call their children after the heroes of the Round Table, or the paladins of Charlemagne, and then it must have been in defiance of the whole system of patron saints until the convenient plan of double names, first discovered by the Germans and French, accomplished the union of fancy and dedication, or compliment.

The revival of learning in the fifteenth century, however, filled Italy with classical names, some of which spread into France, and a few into Germany; but as a general rule in modern times, France, England, and America have been the countries whose nomenclature has been most affected by literature; France, especially so, the prevalence of different tastes and favourite novels being visible from the fifteenth century downwards, through its Arcadian, its Augustan, its Infidel, its Revolutionary periods; while England, since the Reformation, has slightly partaken of all these tastes in turn, but with her own hereditary fashions and religious influences mingling with them; and America exaggerates every variety in her mixed population.