The bear was not in any remarkable favour at Rome; but the semi-Romans adopted Ursus as rather a favourite among their names. Ursus and Ursinus were early Gallic bishops; whence the Italian Orso and Orsino, the latter becoming the surname of the celebrated Roman family of Orsini. Ours is very common in Switzerland, in compliment to the bears of Berne.
An old myth of the little bear and the stars seems to have been turned into the legend of Cologne, of Ursula, the Breton maiden who, on her way to her betrothed British husband, was shipwrecked on the German coast, and slain by Attila, King of the Huns, with 11,000 virgin companions. Some say that the whole 11,000 rose out of the V. M. for virgin martyr; others give her one companion, named Undecimilla, and suppose that this was translated into the 11,000. Skulls and bones, apparently from an old cemetery, are shown at Cologne, and their princess’s name has been followed by various ladies.
| French. | Swiss. | Italian. | |||
| Ours | Ours | Orso | |||
| Orsvch | Ursilo | ||||
| Ursello | |||||
| FEMININE | |||||
| English. | French. | Spanish. | Portuguese. | ||
| Ursula | Ursule | Ursola | Ursula | ||
| Ursel | Dutch. | ||||
| Ursley | Orseline | ||||
| Nullie | |||||
| Italian. | German. | Swiss. | Russian. | ||
| Orsola | Ursel | Orscheli | Urssula | ||
| Urschel | Urschel | ||||
| Urschla | |||||
| Polish. | Slavonic. | Lusatian. | Hungarian. | ||
| Urszula | Ursa | Wursla | Orsolya | ||
| Bohemian. | Hoscha | ||||
| Worsula | Oscha | ||||
| DIMINUTIVE. | |||||
| Roman. | French. | Polish. | |||
| Ursino | Ursin | Ursyn | |||
Section XVIII.—Names from Places and Nations.
The fashion of forming names from the original birthplace was essentially Roman. Many cognomina had thus risen; but a few more must be added of too late a date to fall under the usual denominations of the earlier classical names.
The island of Cyprus must at some time have named the family of Thascius Cyprianus, that great father of African birth, who was so noted as Bishop of Carthage; but though Cyprian is everywhere known, it is nowhere common, and is barely used at Rome as Cipriano. In 1811, Ciprian was baptized in Durham cathedral; but then he was the son of the divinity lecturer, which accounts for the choice.
Neapolis, from the universal Greek word for new, and the Greek πόλις (a city), was the term bestowed as frequently by the Greeks as Newtown is by Keltic influence, or Newby and Newburgh by Teutonic. One Neapolis was the ancient Sychar, and another was that which is still known as Napoli or Naples.
From some of these ‘new cities’ was called an Alexandrian martyr, whose canonized fame caused him to be adopted as patron by one of the Roman family of Orsini, in the course of the twelfth century. Neapolion, Neapolio, or Napoleone, continued to be used in that noble house, and spread from them to other parts of Italy, and thence to Corsica, where he received it who was to raise it to become a word of terror to all Europe, and of passionate enthusiasm to France, long after, in school-boy fashion, at Brienne, its owner had been discontented with its singularity.
The city of Sidon formed the name Sidonius, which was borne by Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius, one of the most curious characters of the dark ages, a literary and married bishop of Clermont, in the fifth century, an honest and earnest man, but so little according to the ordinary type of ecclesiastical sanctity, that nothing is more surprising than to find him canonized, and in possession of the 23rd of August for a feast day. It is curious, too, that his namesakes should be ladies. Sidonie is not uncommon in France; and, in 1449, Sidonia, or Zedena, is mentioned as daughter to George Podiebrand, of Silesia; and Sidonia, of Bavaria, appears in 1488.
From the city of Lydia was named the seller of purple who hearkened to St. Paul at Thyatira, and to her is owing the prevalence of Lydia among English women delighting in Scriptural names.