I have a (maybe kinda dumb) question for anybody who knows a lot about the history or names. People always talk about the meaning of names but I’ve always wondered… what does that actually mean? I’ve always felt a little confused by this, especially for names that are supposedly English in origin but whose meanings do not feel intuitive to me at all. Did all first names used to also be words in their own right (such as Noel, Summer, Carter, etc.) but the meanings just became obscured as language evolved? Or did they have some sort of symbolic meaning but were still seen exclusively as names rather than words, or are most meanings much less concrete than people let on and pretty much just made up for fun later? Or, is there something else I’m not getting? Also, why does it seem so rare for names, other than modern invented ones, to not have a specified meaning? To me it seems more logical for most names to have been just made up because they sound nice, and I’d expect ones with a specific meaning to be the the minority, though it’s obviously the opposite.
I’m mostly wondering about names that are well-known in the Anglo-sphere since that’s where the whole meaning thing doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t seem as weird in other traditions that might be more symbolism-heavy (such as, say, languages that include Kanji), and while these would certainly be interesting to learn about that’s not what I’m asking about right now. Thanks.
This is a very complex answer in part because modern [name_f]English[/name_f] is a very complex language that has borrowed from and been influenced by many other languages including but not limited to Greek, Latin, and Hebrew as well as various Germanic, Celtic, and Scandinavian languages. (This is also the reason our spelling rules are so complicated.)
[name_m]Even[/name_m] focusing just on [name_f]English[/name_f] many of the names in usr come from Middle [name_f]English[/name_f] and Old [name_f]English[/name_f] which are very different from what we speak today. You can look up untranslated versions of Canterbury Tales and [name_m]Beowulf[/name_m] if you want to see examples.
[name_m]Long[/name_m] story short, many names of [name_f]English[/name_f] origin likely come from archaic, obscure, extinct, or radically changed words and at least some may have had a layer of symbolism that influenced the meaning.
I think so, other than names that derived from other names and/or speech of the time.
Hebrew is also the extremely literal naming kind. I think most [name_f]English[/name_f] names don’t actually have [name_f]English[/name_f] origins if you go back far enough, even word names. And yes, all word names came from words, started from simpler times and when folk had to start having surnames - so they used descriptions of their work or land. Eventually that evolved into first names as well.
[name_f]Do[/name_f] you have any examples in your mind?
Etymology is a fun thing, the others have expressed much already but yes humans are people who care about meaning and have through the millennia. We have lost sight of names having real meanings in our culture or potentially the need for that given that the names we use do not necessarily correlate to our language any longer due to many factors such as use of international names etc. but it seems that in most cultures names have had very intrinsic meaning like that of [name_f]Grace[/name_f] or [name_f]Rose[/name_f] or [name_f]Summer[/name_f] throughout their use in history.
This is always such an interesting topic! I just wanted to share two websites you might be interested in that are really good at explaining meanings by breaking down names:
Most traditional [name_f]English[/name_f] names come from the Bible or saints’ names (a bit of an aside, but religion was incredibly important in medieval and early modern [name_u]England[/name_u] and Europe, and names often had to be approved by a priest/religious authority before they could be bestowed on a child, so made-up names were far less common back then compared to today).
Those names tend to be Anglicised forms of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Germanic, Celtic etc names. Usually they don’t mean (and never meant) anything in [name_f]English[/name_f] besides being a given name, but the original form of the name did mean something in the original language.