History of Christian names

by Charlotte M. Yonge

English.	French.	German.	Danish.	Frisian.
Sophia	Sophie	Sophia	Saffi	Vye
Sophy		Fieke
Italian.	Russian.	Polish.	Lett.	Hungarian.
Sofia	Ssofija	Zofia	Sappe	Zsofia
	Ssonia	Zosia	Wike	Zsofe
	Ssoniuska

Section V.—Petros.

Great is the controversy that hangs on the form of Πέτρος, the surname divinely bestowed upon the faithful disciple Simon Barjona, when he made his great confession of faith in the Godhead and Messiahship of his Master.

“Thou art Petros (a stone), and on this Petra (a rock) I will build my Church,” are the words.

The apostle was sometimes called in his own lifetime by the Hebrew or Syriac equivalent Κηφᾶς, or Cephas; but Petros, or Petrus, being both Greek and Latin words, he went down to posterity thus distinguished. Many a Pietro was called after him in Italy, to be cut down into Piero or Pier, and amplified into Pietruccio, or Petruccio and Petraccio. The devout Spaniards caught up the name, and had many a Pedro, nay, three Pedros at once were reigning at a time in three Peninsular kingdoms, and the frequency of Perez as a surname shows how full Spain is of the sons of Pedro. France had many a Pierre, Pierrot, or, in Brittany, Perronnik. Perrault, a common surname, may be a derivation from it, as is St. Pierre, one of the territorial designations. Before the Revolution, La Pierre and La France were the unvarying designations of the two lackeys that every family of any pretension always kept in those days of display.

England had Peter, which Peter-pence, perhaps, hindered from being a favourite, and borrowed from the French, Piers and Pierce. Feories is the Irish version of Pierce. Pedder or Peer are both much used in the North, and Peter in Germany; while the great Muscovite made Petr notable in his empire. The Irish, regardless of the true history of Patricius, want to make St. Patrick a namesake of St. Peter, and therefore the Paddys own not only their national apostle, but the prince of apostles, for their patrons. The feminines of Peter are Petronilla, said to have been his daughter, and whence has come Petronilla in Spanish, Petronille shortened into Nille in Norway, Pernel or Parnel, once exceeding common, though now forgotten, in England; but other female names have been made direct from that of the saint, Peronetta in Italy, Perretta in France, and even Petrina in Scotland and Sweden.

English.	French.	Swedish.	Danish.
Peter	Pierre	Per	Peder
Piers	Pierrot
Pierce	Perrin
	Peire
Dutch.	Italian.	Spanish.	Portuguese.
Pieter	Pietro	Pedro	Pedro
Piet	Piero		Pedrinho
	Pier
	Pietruccio
Russian.	Polish.	Illyrian.	Lusatian.
Petr	Picti	Petai	Pjeti
Petruscha	Pies	Pero	Petsch
Petrinka		Petrica	Peto
		Pejo
Bulgarian.	Lett.	Esthonian.	Kelt.
Petur Petko	Peteris	Pedo Pet	Pétar Feoris	}	Erse
			Per Petrik	}	Breton
FEMININE.
English.	French.	Italian.	Portuguese.
Petrina	Perette	Petronilla	Petronilha
Petronella	Petronelle	German.	llyrian.
Pernel	Petrine	Petronille	Petra
		Nelle	Petrija
		Nillel	Petrusa

Section VI.—Names of Immortality.

Rejoicing that “life and immortality had been brought to light” quickly broke out in the very names given to Christians at their baptism, and full of import were the appellations invented in these early ages of the Church, to express the joyful hope of everlasting life.

Even in the Sanscrit, a-mrita expresses the elixir of life, “the amreeta cup of immortality,” which terminates the woes of Kailyal in the Curse of Kehama, and according to Hindoo myth was produced by the celebrated churning of the ocean. The name is traced to a privative and mri, a word to be met with again in mors, murder, &c., and the notion of a water of life continued to pervade all the Indo-European races. Among the Greeks this life-giving elixir was ἀμβροσία (ambrosia), immediately derived from ἄμβροτος (immortal), a word from the same source. In various legends this ambrosia served to express the human craving for heavenly and immortal food, until at length, in later times, ambrosia came to be regarded as the substantial meat of the gods, as nectar was their drink.