History of Christian names

by Charlotte M. Yonge

Even the “hound that was there biside, yclept Hodain,” who licked up the drops that were spilt of the philtre, became attached to the knight and lady with the same magic love.

Bronwen or Brengwain has since been in use as a Welsh female Christian name.

The names of the granddaughters of the Irish King Lear were Aine and Aoidheal, a spark, and their dispute was whose husband was the best hunter. Aine means joy or praise, and also fasting. Friday is Diah-Aoine, or fasting day in Irish. Aine, the daughter of Eogah-hal, was looked on as queen of the fairies of South Munster, and her abode was said to be Cnoc Aine or Knockany, the Hill of Aine, in county Limerick; Aoibhinn was queen of the fairies in Thomond or North Munster; Una, of those in Ormond.

Aine continued to be a favourite name in Ireland for many centuries; but in later times it has become the practice to Anglicize it as Anna and Hannah, and possibly Anastasia, though this may have come more directly from the Greek. In 705 reigned a Scottish king called Ainbhceallach the Good. He is turned by different authors into Arinchellar, Armkelleth, Amberkelletus, etc., and his right one is either joyful war, or agile war, or if with the b, ferocious war. He was too good for his savage people, and was dethroned at the end of a year, and is usually mentioned by the few historians, who name him, as Amberkelleth.

It is evident then that Aine had come to Scotland with other Gaelic names, and it is probable that this is the word that had come forth as Anaple or Annabell in Scotland long before the period of devotion to St. Anne. In 1158 Annabel Fitz Duncan, daughter to Duncan, Earl of Moray, carried the name into the Lucie family; Annabella of Strathern appears in 1244; Annaple Drummond was wife to King Robert III. of Scotland, about 1390; and thenceforth Anaple has been somewhat common in Scotland, while Anabla and Anabella are equally frequent in Ireland, and Annabella is occasionally used in England as Anna made a little finer.

Aoiffe was more generally used than Aine, but most likely is the origin of the Effie of Scotland, now always used as short for Euphemia, though the Highland version of this name is now Aoirig, or Oighrigh. In other places Aoiffe seems to have been turned into Affrica. In the beginning of the twelfth century ‘Affrica,’ daughter of Fergus of Galway, married ‘Olaus’ the Swarthy, King of Man, and her daughter ‘Effrica’ married Somerled, Thane of Argyle and Lord of the Isles, by whose genealogists she seems to have been translated into Rachel. Africa is still used as a female name in the Isle of Man and in Ireland. Aoiffe was the wife of Cuchullin in the Ossianic poetry, and Evir Allin and Evir Coma, properly Aoibhir Aluin and Aoibhir Caomha, the pleasantly excellent and pleasantly amiable, both appear there.

The recognized equivalent for Aoiffe was, however, Eva, beginning almost from the first Christian times, so that, until I found Aoiffe in such unquestionably heathen company as Lear and Mănănnán[Mănănnán], I had made up my mind that she was the Gadhaelic pronunciation of our first mother.

Eva is found in the oldest documents extant in Scotland, and high in their genealogies: Eva O'Dwhine carried the blood of Diarmaid to the Anglo-Norman Campbells; Eva of Menteith married one of the first Earls of Lennox; and Alan, the first High Steward of Scotland, married Eve of Tippermuir, and made her the ancestress of the Stuarts; about the same time that the Irish Aoiffe or Eva, for she at least is known to have borne both names, was being wedded to stout Earl Strongbow.

Aevin, or Evin, is occasionally found in the house of Kennedy, but Eveleen is by far the most common form of both names in Ireland, and has held its ground unchanged. Eibhlin in Irish.

To our surprise, however, Aveline or Eveline make their appearance among the Normans long before the marriage of the Earl of Pembroke. Aveline was the name of the sister of Gunnar, the great-grandmother of William the Conqueror; and Aveline or Eveline was so favourite a Norman name that it well suits the Lady of the Garde Douloureuse in the Betrothed. Avelina de Longo-Campo, as the name is Latinized in old chronicles, married the last Earl of Lancaster, and was the mother of that heiress Avelina or Eveline, who, though short-lived and childless herself, carried to her husband, Edmund Crouchback, and the sons of his subsequent marriage, the great county of Lancaster, which made the power of the Red Rose formidable.