CHAPTER VI
.
MODERN NAMES FROM THE LATIN.
There still remain a class of names derived from the Latin, being chiefly Latin words formed into names. Some of them answer to the class that we have called Christian Greek, being compound words assumed as befitting names by early Roman Christians, such as Deusvult.
There are fewer of these than of the like Greek designations, both from the hereditary system of nomenclature, and from the language being less suitable for such formations than the Greek, which was so well known to all educated Romans that a Greek appellation would convey as much meaning as a Latin one, and in that partially veiled form that always seems to have been preferred in nomenclature in the later ages of nations. Some, however, either from sound, sense, or association, have become permanent Christian names in one or more nations; and with these, for the sake of convenience, have been classed those formed from Latin roots, and which, though coined when their ancestral language was not only dead but corrupt, are too universal to be classed as belonging to any single country of modern Europe, though sometimes the product of a Romance tongue rather than of genuine Latin, or appearing in cognate languages in different forms; cousins, in fact, not brethren, and sometimes related to uncles sprung from the elder tongue.
SECTION I.—_From Amo._
Of these are all the large class of names sprung from _amo_, which has descended into all the Southern languages of Western Europe nearly unaltered. The Gallic Christians seem to have had a particular delight in calling their children by derivatives of this word; for in their early times there occur in the calendar, Amabilis (loveable), Amator (a lover), Amandus (about to be loved), and Amatus and Amata (loved); Amadeus (loving God) seems to have been still older. Out of this collection, St. Amand has survived as a territorial surname; whilst Amanda, from its meaning, was one of the complimentary _noms de plume_ of the eighteenth century; and Amandine is sometimes found in France. Amabilis was a male saint of Riom, known to France as St. Amable; nevertheless, his name passed to Aimable, the Norman heiress of Gloucester, who so strongly protested against accepting even a king’s son without a surname. Her name became on English lips Amabel, which has been handed down unchanged in a few old English families, though country lips have altered it into Mabel, in which form it is still used among the northern peasantry. Ignorant etymologists have tried to make it come from _ma belle_ (my fair one), and lovers of false ornament turn it into Mabella.
Nothing is known of the female saint, Amata, or Aimée, but that the people of Northern France used to honour her, and she had namesakes in old French pedigrees, so that there can be little doubt that Norman families brought in the pretty simple Amy that has never been entirely disused, and has been a frequent peasant name in the West of England. St. Amatus, or Amé, was about the end of the seventh century a hermit in the Valais, and afterwards became Bishop of Sion, and was persecuted by one of the Merovingian kings. He thus became the patron saint of Savoy, and for a long succession the Counts were called Amé; but after a time, they altered the name to Amadeus, Amadée, or Amadeo, as it was differently called on the two sides of the mountain principality, and as it has continued to the present time. Amyot and Amyas in England, and in Romance the champion Amadis de Gaul, drew their names from this Savoyard source. This notable knight is believed to have been invented in Spain, and the Italians call him Amadigi. It is possible, however, that he may come from the Kymry, for Amaethon, son of Don, appears in the _Mabinogion_, and was a mystic personage in Welsh mythology. His name meant the husbandman, another offshoot from the universal Amal. He must have been the Sir Amadas of the Round Table.
The old English Amicia, so often found in old pedigrees, is probably a Latinizing of Aimée. The most notable instance of it is Amicia, the daughter of the Earl of Leicester, who brought her county to the fierce old persecutor, Simon de Montfort, and left it to the warlike earl, who imprisoned Henry III. His sister carried Amicie into the Flemish family of De Roye, where it continued in use, and it descended again into Amice in England. Amadore was in use in Florence, cut into Dore.[76]
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Footnote 75:
Max Müller, _Science of Language_; Keightley; Ruskin; Grimm; Michaelis.
Footnote 76:
Butler; Pott; Dugdale; _Mabinogion_; Lady C. Guest; Dunlop, _Fiction_.
SECTION II.—_Names from Beo._
The old verb _beo_ (to make happy or bless) formed the participle _beatus_ (happy or blessed), which was applied by the Church to her departed members, and in time was bestowed on the living. Indeed, in France, _béate_ was so often applied to persons who lived in the profession of great sanctity, that _une vieille béate_ has now come to be used in the sense of a hypocritical pretender.
St. Beatus, or Béat, was an anchorite near Vendôme, in the fifth century; but we do not find instances of his patronage having been sought for men, though in England Beata is a prevailing female name in old registers and on tombstones up to the seventeenth century, when it dies away, having, I strongly suspect, been basely confounded with Betty. Beata and Bettrys are however still used in Wales. This last stands for Beatrice (a blesser), which seems to have been first brought into this island as a substitute for the Gaelic Bethoc (life), of which more in its place.
The original Beatrix, the feminine of Beator (a blesser), is said to have been first borne by a Christian maiden, who, in Diocletian’s persecution, drew the bodies of her martyred brothers from the Tiber, and buried them: afterwards she shared their fate, and her relics were enshrined in a church at Rome, whence her fame spread to all adjacent countries; and her name was already frequent when Dante made the love of his youth, Beatrice Portinari, the theme of his _Vita Nuova_, and his guide through Paradise. Thus it was a truly national name at Florence; and Shakespeare used the Italian spelling for his high-spirited heroine, thus leading us to discard the old Latin _x_. It has been a queenly name in Spain, but less common here than it deserves.
┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ Welsh. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ │Beatrix │Bettrys │Béatrix │Beatrice │Beatriz │ │Trix │ │ │Bice │ │ │Beatrice │ │ │ │ │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤ │Portuguese. │ German. │ Russian. │ Slavonic. │ │ │Beatrix │Beatrix │Beatriks │Beatrica │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
This same _beo_ is said to be the source of _benus_, the old form of _bonus_, which survives in the adverb _benè_. Both adjective and adverb are familiar in their many derivatives in the southern tongues, as well as in the _bonnie_ and _bien_ that testify to the close connection of France and Scotland when both alike were the foes of England.
The feminine Bona, or Bonne, was probably first invented as a translation of the old German Gutha; for we find a lady, in 1315, designated as Bona, or Gutha, of Göttingen. Bona was used by the daughters of the Counts of Savoy, and in the House of Luxemburg, and came to the crown of France with the daughter of the chivalrous Johann of Luxemburg, the blind King of Bohemia.
St. Benignus, whose name is from the same source, was a disciple of St. Polycarp, and is reckoned as the apostle of Burgundy, where he was martyred, and has been since commemorated by the splendid abbey of St. Benigne, at Dijon, whence it happens that Benin has been common among the peasantry in that part of France, and Benigne is to be found among the string of Christian names borne by the French gentry of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Servia has the feminine form, Benyma, shortening it into Bine.
_Benedico_ (to speak well) came to have the technical sense of to bless; and the patriarch of the Western monks rendered Benedictus (blessed) so universally known that different forms of it prevail in all countries, lesser luminaries adding to its saintly lustre.
┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Breton. │ Italian. │ │Benedict │Benoît │Bennéad │Benedetto │ │Bennet │ │Bennéged │Betto │ │ │ │ │Bettino │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Spanish. │ Portuguese. │ German. │ Swedish. │ │Benedicto │Benedicto │Benedikt │Bengt │ │Benito │Bento │Dix │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Norse. │ Swiss. │ Russian. │ Polish. │ │Benedik │Benzel │Venedict │Benedykt │ │Benike │Benzli │ │ │ │Bent │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Slavonic and │ Lusatian. │ Lithuanian. │ Lapp. │ │ Illyrian. │ │ │ │ │Benedikt │Beniesch │Bendzus │Pent │ │Benedit │ │Bendikkas │Penta │ │Benko │ ———————— │ ———————— │Pint │ │ │Lett. │Hungarian. │Pinna │ │ │Bindus │Benedik │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘
There was a Visigothic nun in Spain canonized as Benedicta, but most of the feminines were meant in devotion to the original founder of the Benedictine rule. Indeed, in France, Benedicte must have been far more often assigned on the profession of a nun than have been given in baptism, except when the child was destined from her birth to a conventual life.
┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ German. │ │Benoîte │Benedetta │Benita. │Benedikta │ │ │Betta │ │Benedictine │ │ │Bettina │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘
How the localities of these feminines mark the extent of monasticism in modern times!
The sister of St. Benedict bore the strange name of Scholastica, a scholar, from _schola_ (school). Monasticism spread the name, but it was never much in vogue, though England shows a Scholastica Conyers, in 1299.
Bonifacius (good-worker) was the name of a martyr; then of a pope; and next was assumed by our Saxon Wilfred, when in the sixth century he set out to convert his continental brethren. Perhaps, if he had kept his native name, it would have been more followed, both at home and in Germany; but in both, Boniface has withered away out of use, though Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight, is a contraction of the Church of St. Boniface, that having probably been the last English ground beheld by the saint when he sailed on his mission. In Italy, however, Bonifacius was a papal name. Bonifazio prevailed among the Alpine lords of Monferrat, and thus is still found in Italy. It has become one of the stock names for the host of an inn, and has named the straits between Sardinia and Corsica.
┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ Italian. │ Russian. │ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ │Boniface │Bonifacio │Bonifacij │Bonifacij │Bonifac │ │ │Facio │ │ │ │ │ │Bonifazio │ │ │ │ │ │Fazio │ │ │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
Of modern Italian date and construction is Bonaventura. Its origin was the exclamation of St. Francis on meeting Giovanni de Fidenza, the son of a dear friend: _O buona ventura_ (happy meeting). These words became the usual appellation of young Fidenza, and as he afterwards was distinguished for holiness and learning, and was called the seraphic doctor, he was canonized as San Bonaventura, and has had sundry namesakes in Italy and France; in the latter country being called Bonaventure. Benvenuto Cellini may perhaps be reckoned as one, unless his name be intended to mean welcome without reference to the saint.
SECTION III.—_From Clarus._
Clarus (bright or clear) was used by the Romans in the sense of famous, and St. Clarus is revered as the first bishop of Nantes in Brittany, in A.D. 280. Another Clarus, said to have been a native of Rochester, was a hermit, near Rouen, where he was murdered at the instigation of a wicked woman who had vainly paid her addresses to him. Two villages of St. Clair, one on the Epte, the other near Coutance, are interesting as having (one or the other of them) named two of the most noted families in the history of Great Britain, besides the various De St. Clairs of France, who came either from thence or from a third St. Clair in Aquitaine.
A Norman family, called from one of these villages, became the De Clares. ‘Red De Clare,’ stout Glo’ster’s earl, the foe of Henry III., was one of them; and his son marrying into the house of Geraldin, in Ireland, received from Edward I. a grant of lands in Thomond, now known from his lordship as County Clare. His heiress carried the county to the De Burghs, and their heiress again marrying Lionel, son of Edward III., the county becoming a dukedom and royal appanage, was amplified into Clarence, and gave title to Clarencieux—king-at-arms, when Thomas, brother of Henry V., was Duke of Clarence—unless this be from Clare, in Suffolk. Clarence as a male Christian name did not solely arise when William IV. was Duke of Clarence, but began as early as 1595, when Clarence Babbington was christened at Hartlepool.
Spanish ballad lore gives a daughter, Clara, to Charlemagne, and a son, Don Claros de Montablan, to Rinaldo, and of course marries them; but it is to Italy that the feminine name, so much more universal, is owing. The first Chiara on record was the devoted disciple of St. Francis, who, under his direction, established the order of women following his rule, and called, poor Clares, or sisters of St. Clara. From them the name of Clara spread into the adjoining countries, little varied except that the French used to call it Claire, until recently, when they have added the terminal _a_, just as the English on the other hand are dropping it, and making the word Clare. The Bretons use both masculine and feminine as Sklear, Skleara; and the Finns have the feminine as Lara.
The old Latin feminine of words ending in _or_, meaning the doer, was _ix_—_nutor_, _nutrix_—and this became _ice_ in modern Italian. Thus Clarice was probably intended to mean making famous. A lady thus named was the wife of Lorenzo de Medici, and France learnt it probably from her, but made the _c_ silent; and England, picking it up by ear, obtained Clarissa, which, when Richardson had so named the heroine of his novel, was re-imported into France as Clarisse. Clarinda was another invention of the same date.
Esclairmonde, a magnificent name of romance, the heroine of _Huon de Bourdeaux_, walked into real life with a noble damsel of the house of Foix, in the year 1229, and was borne by various maidens of that family; but who would have thought of two ladies called Clarimond, in Devonshire, in 1613 and 1630?
SECTION IV.—_Columba._
Columba is one of the sweetest and most gentle of all words in sound and sense, yet it has not been in such universal use as might have been expected from its reference to the dove of peace.
A virgin martyr in Gaul, and another in Spain, were both called Columba; and Columbina must at one time have prevailed in Italy, as a peasant name, since from the waiting damsel in the impromptu comedies that the poetical Italians loved to act, it passed to the light-footed maiden of modern farce, and now is seldom used save for her and the columbine, the dove-flower, so called from the resemblance of the curled spurs of its four purple petals to doves drinking.
It was from his gentle character that Crimthan, the great and admirable son of the House of Neill, was called Columba, a fitting name for him who was truly a dove of peace to the wild Hebrides. In Ireland this good man is generally called St. Columkill, St. Columb of the cell, or monastery, because of the numbers of these centres of Christian instruction founded by him, and he is thus distinguished from a second Columb, called after him. He has, indeed, left strong traces on the nomenclature of the country that he evangelized. Colin, so frequent among the Scots of all ranks, is the direct descendant of Columba, though it is often confounded with the French Colin, from Nicolas, who is the chief Colin of modern Arcadia, and perhaps has the best right to the feminine invention of Colinette. Besides this, it was the frequent custom to be called Gillie-colum and Maol-colm, the disciple, or shaveling, of Columb, from whence arose Malcolm, one of the most national of Scottish names. Colan, probably called after the patron saint of the place, was married at St. Columb Magna, in Cornwall, in 1752; but earlier it was Columb for men, Columba for women, both now disused.
Columbanus, another great Irish missionary saint, was probably called, after old Latin custom, by the adoptive formed from Columba. His influence on the Continent, newly broken and almost heathenized by the Teutonic invasions, was so extensive, reaching as it did from Brittany to Switzerland, and still marked by the relics of Irish art in the books of the monasteries of his foundation, that we wonder not to find more traces of his name. His day, November 1st, is called by the Germans St. Colman’s, and it is thought that the surnames Kohl and Kohlmann are remains of his name, as well as the French Coulon. So, too, the Genoese Colon was by historians identified with Columbus, when they Latinized the mariner who “gave a new world to Spain.” Two spots in that new world bear his name, that in Terra Firma, where he landed on his third voyage, and the bishopric newly founded in Vancouver’s Isle.
The Slavonian dove is Golubica, a cognate word to this and sometimes used as a name.[77]
SECTION V.—_Durans._
Durans (enduring, or lasting) formed the name which no reader of _Don Quixote_ can forget as that of the enduring hero, lying on his back on the marble tomb, in the cave of Montesinos, who uttered that admirable sentiment, “Patience, cousin, and shuffle the cards!”
The name of Durandus prevailed in other countries; and Durand, to our surprise, figures constantly in Domesday Book, probably having belonged to French immigrants. A Durand and Marta, who jointly owned a house at Winchester in the reign of Stephen, were almost certainly Provençal, since St. Martha was hardly known except in the scene of her exploit with the dragon. Durand Grimbald is a specimen of a French Christian and English surname then prevailing. Durandus is the Latinized surname of the great French lawyer of the middle ages; and Durandus again is familiar to the lover of mediæval symbolism; but none of these can approach in honour the great Florentine Durante Alighieri, whose glory, _lasting_ like that of Homer and Shakespeare, has made his contracted appellation of Dante stand alone and singly.
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Footnote 77:
Butler; Hanmer, _Ireland_; Chalmer, _Caledonia_; Montalembert; _Ossianic Society_; Pott; Michaelis.
SECTION VI.—_Names of Thankfulness._
A great race of Christian names were fabricated, in Latin, after the pattern of the Greek Theophilus, Theophorus, &c., though hardly with equal felicity, and chiefly in the remoter provinces of the West, where Latin was, probably, a matter of scholarship. Thus, in the province of Africa, we find, just before the Vandal invasion, Quodvultdeus (what God wills) and Deogratias (thank God), neither of which had much chance of surviving. Deusvult (God wills), Deusdedit (God gave), and Adeodatus, lived nearer to Italy; indeed, Deusdedit was a pope. Adeodatus or Deodatus (God given) was a Gallic saint, called, commonly, St. Die, and with the other form, Donum Dei, continued in use for children whose birth was hailed with special joy. When Louis VII. of France at length had a son, after being “afflicted with a multitude of daughters,” he called him Philippe Dieudonné; but this grateful name was discarded in favour of the imperial Auguste, by which he is distinguished. Deodati di Gozo, the Knight of Rhodes who slew the dragon, better kept his baptismal name, and it often occurs in Italian history, and is an Italian surname. Deodatus is an occasional name only found in England. The old French knightly name, Dudon, called in Italian romantic poetry Dudone, is, probably, a contraction of Dieudonné, as the surnames Donnedieu, Dondey, Dieudé, can hardly fail to be. Deicola (a worshipper of God) was invented for a pupil of St. Columbanus, who followed his master to France, lived as a hermit, and became the patron-saint of Franche Comté, where boys are still called, after him, Diel or Diez, and girls, Dielle. There is likewise an Italian name Diotisalvi, or God save thee, only to be paralleled by some of our Puritan devices.
To these may be added Donatus (given), which evidently was bestowed in the same spirit, though not mentioning the giver. It occurs, like most of this class, in the African province, and belonged to the bishop of Numidia, whose rigour against the penitent lapsed made him the founder of the exclusive schismatical church named after him. Another Donatus was St. Jerome’s tutor; and, before his time, several martyrs had been canonized by his name, and it seems to have prevailed in Gaul and Britain. In Wales it was pronounced Dynawd; and, by the time St. Augustine came to England and disputed with the Cymric clergy, the history of the word had been so far forgotten that Dynawd, abbot of Bangor-Iscoed, was Latinized into Dionothius. Donat, or Donath, is found in Ireland, but it was probably there adopted for the sake of its resemblance to the native Gaelic Don, meaning brown-haired. Donato, likewise, at one time prevailed in Italy, and produced the frequent surname, Donati. Donnet was a feminine in Cornwall in 1755.
Desiderius, or Desideratus, was of the same date, and given, in like manner, to express the longing desire or love of the parents towards the child. In fact the word _desiderium_, in Latin, more properly means affection than wish, as we explain its derivatives in modern languages. The Desiderius of history was a brother of Magnentius, the opponent of Constantine, and the Desiderius of the calendar was a bishop of Bourges, in the seventh century; but, in the mean time, the last Lombard king of Italy either had become so Italianized as to adopt it, or else used it as a translation of one of the many Teuton forms of Leofric, Leofwin, &c., for he was known to Italy as Desiderio, to France as Didier; and his daughter, whom Charlemagne treated so shamefully, was Desiderata, Desirata, or Desirée. The latter has continued in use in France, as well as Didier and Didiere; and the masculine likewise appears in the Slavonic countries as Zljeko, and among the Lithuanians as Didders or Sidders.
The most learned men were not perfect philologists in the sixteenth century, when they played the most curious tricks with their names. Erasmus began life as Gerhard Gerhardson, signifying, in fact, firm spear, a meaning little suited to his gentle, timid nature. He was better pleased to imagine _ger_ to be the German all, and _ard_ to be _erd_ (earth or nature); of this all-nature he made out that affection embraced all, therefore he called himself Desiderius, and then, wanting another equally sounding epithet, he borrowed Erasmus from the Greek, where it had named an ancient bishop. It came from ἐράω (to love); and thus Desiderius Erasmus, the appellation by which he has come down to posterity, was an ingenious manufacture out of the simple Gerard.[78]
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Footnote 78:
Pott; Butler; Sismondi; _Life of Erasmus_.
SECTION VII.—_Crescens, &c._
The verb _cresco_ (to increase or grow) has descended into all our modern languages. It has formed the French _croître_ (to grow), our _increase_ and _decrease_, and our _crescent_. Its participle was already adopted as a name in St. Paul’s time, at least it is thus that his companion, Κρήσκης, is rendered, who had departed to Dalmatia; and a later Crescens is said to have brought about the death of Justin Martyr, in the second century. The occasion, however, of the modern name was one of the many holy women of Sicily—Crescentia, a Christian nurse, who bred-up her charge, the infant Vitus, in her own faith, fled with him to Italy, and was there seized and martyred, under Diocletian. Crescenzia, and the masculine, Crescenzio, prevail in both Naples and Sicily; and the election of the Angevin-Sicilian Carobert, to the throne of Hungary, carried the former thither as Czenzi; whence Bavaria took it as Cresenz, Zenz, Zenzl.
SECTION VIII.—_Military Names._
In the slender thread of connection with which we try to unite names given in the same spirit, we put together those that seem to have accorded with the tastes of the Roman army.
Thus _eligo_ (to choose), which originally caused the title of Legion, was in the participle _electus_, and thus led to words most familiar to us in the state as political terms, to the theological term elect or chosen for salvation.
There is some doubt whether St. John’s third epistle be indeed to a lady called Electa, or to an elect lady, as it is in our version; but when a name from this source next appears, it is among the cultivated Gallo-Romans, when they had gradually worked their way to consideration among the rude Franks, who had nearly trodden out civilization in the conquered country. Eligius was the great goldsmith bishop who designed King Dagobert’s throne, made shrines for almost all the distinguished relics in France, and doubtless enjoyed the fame of having made many more than could have come from his hand. He is popularly called St. Eloy, and some derive from him the Provençal Aloys; but this is far more probably a southern form of Hlodweh, or Louis.
The Roman veterans were termed _emeriti_ (having deserved) from _mereor_ (to deserve). From these old soldiers must have come the name Emerentius, which is to be found as Emerenz in Germany, and Emérence in France.
St. Emerentiana was said to have been a catechumen, who was killed by soldiers who found her praying on the tomb of St. Agnes. Her name (probably her relics) passed to Denmark, and to Lithuania, where it is called Marenze, and Embrance is the old English feminine.
The very contrary, Pacifico (peaceful), is a modern Italian and Spanish name—as Peace is Puritan.
Here, too, we place that which the soldier most esteems—_honos_, or _honor_. Honor was a deity in later Rome, but no old classical names were made from him, and Honorius first appears as one of the appellations of the Spanish father of the great Theodosius; then again inherited by that imbecile being, his grandson, the last genuine Roman emperor; also by a niece, called Justa Grata Honoria, who dishonoured all her three honourable names. Yet some lingering sense of allegiance to the last great family that gave rulers to the empire perpetuated their names in the countries where they had reigned; and the Welsh Ynyr long remained as a relic of Honorius, in Wales. Honorine was a Neustrian maiden, slain in a Danish invasion, and regarded as a martyr; so that Honorine prevails in France and Germany, and one of the favourite modern Irish names, is Onora, Honor, or in common usage, Norah.
Russia has the masculine as Gonorij; Lithuania, the feminine cut down into Arri. There were two Gallic bishops named Honoratus, whence the French Honoré, which has named a suburb of Paris, and we had one early archbishop of Canterbury so called, from whom we have derived no names, though Honor was revived in England in the days of names of abstract qualities, and Honoria was rather in fashion in the last century, probably as an ornamental form of the Irish Norah.[79]
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Footnote 79:
Butler; Smith, _Antiquities_; Le Beau.
SECTION IX.—_Names of Gladness._
A large class of names of joy belonging to the later growth of the Latin tongue may be thrown together; and first those connected with the word _jocus_, which seems to have arisen from the inarticulate shout of ecstasy that all know, but none can spell, ἰουας (in Greek), and with us joy, the French _joie_, and Italian _gioia_.
The original cry is preserved in the Swiss _jodel_, or shout of the mountaineers, and this indeed seems to be the sound naturally rising from the cries that peal from one hill to another, for here the Eastern meets the Western tongue. The sound at which the walls of Jericho fell, was called the Yobêl; and the fifty years' festival of release, inaugurated with trumpet sounds, was the Yobêl (the jubilee). _Jubilo_ (to call aloud), already a Latin word, also from the sound of the shout and exultation, had been connected with it even before the _annum jubileum_ had come in from the Hebrews.
_Giubilare_ and _Giubileo_ made themselves at home in Italian, while German, either from the Latin or its own resources, took its own word _jubel_. Giubileo was probably born in the year of a jubilee.
From _jocus_ came Jodocus, an Armorican prince, belonging to a family which migrated from Wales. He refused the sovereignty of Brittany, to live as a hermit in Ponthieu, where he is still remembered as St. Josse, and named at least three villages, perhaps also forming Josselin; but in his native Brittany, Judicael, an old princely name, seems to have been the form of his commemoration. In _Domesday Book_ we find Judicael _Venator_ already a settler in England before the conquest, probably brought by the Confessor. Germany accepted this as a common peasant name, as Jost, or Jobs; Bavaria, as Jobst, or Jodel; Italy, as Giodoco; and the feminine, Jodoca, is not yet extinct in Wales.
Neither is the very similar Jocosa, once not uncommon among English ladies, by whom it was called Joyce. The contractions of this name are, however, almost inextricably confused with those of Justus. Joy stands alone as one of our abstract virtue names.
Another word very nearly related to our own glad, is _gaudium_ (joy), still preserved in the adjective gaudy, and in gaudy (the festival day) of a college. It named St. Gaudentius, whence the Italian Gaudenzio, and the old German name of Geila.
_Hilaris_ (cheerful) formed Hilarius, whence was called the great doctor of the Gallican Church, known to us as St. Hilary, of Poitiers; and to France, as St. Hilaire. A namesake was the Neustrian hermit who made Jersey his abode, and thus named St. Helier; and moreover the Welsh called those who traditionally had been named Hilarius, first Ilar, then Elian; and then thought they had found their patron in the Greek Ælianus.
┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Russian. │ Frisian. │ │Hilary │Hilaire │Ilario │Gilarij │Laris │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
Portugal likewise has Hilariāo, and Russia Hilarion; and the feminine, Hilaria, was once used in England, and is still the Russian Ilaria, and Slovak Milari.
_Lætus_ (glad) formed the substantive _lætitia_, which was turned into a name by the Italians as Letizia, probably during the thirst for novelty that prevailed in the Cinque-cento; and then, likewise, Lettice seems to have arisen in England, and must have become known in Ireland when Lettice Knollys was the wife of the Earl of Essex. Thence Letitia, or Letty, have been common among Irishwomen.
Prosperus, from the Latin _prosper_, formed of _pro_ and _spero_, so as to mean favourable hope, formed the mediæval Roman Prospero, of which Shakespeare must have heard through the famous condottiere, Prospero Colonna, when he bestowed it upon his wondrous magician Duke of Milan.[80]
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Footnote 80:
Kitto, _Bible Cyclopædia_; Butler; Pott; Michaelis; Dugdale; Petre Chevalier.
SECTION X.—_Jus._
_Jus_ (right), and _juro_ (to swear), are intimately connected, and have derivatives in all languages, testifying to the strong impression made by the grand system of Roman law.
_Justus_, the adjective which we render as just, named the Gallic St. Justus, or St. Juste, of Lyons; also the Dutch Jost; Italian Giusto; and Portuguese Justo.
Justa was a virgin martyr, but her fame was far exceeded by that of Justina, who suffered at Padua, and became the patron saint of that city, whose university made its peculiarities everywhere known. The purity of St. Justina caused her emblem to be the unicorn, since that creature is said to brook no rule but that of a spotless maiden; and poison always became manifest at the touch of its horn, for which the twisted weapon of the narwhal did duty in collections. The great battle of Lepanto was fought on St. Justina’s day, and the victory was by the Venetians attributed to her intercession; so that Giustina at Venice, Justine in France, came for the time into the foremost ranks of popularity.
The noted Justinus, whom we call Justin Martyr, was one of the greatest of the early writers of the Church, meeting the heathen philosophers upon their own ground in argument, and bequeathing to us our first positive knowledge of Christian observances. From him the name was widely spread in the Church; and Yestin was one of the many old Roman names that lingered on long among the Welsh. Justin was frequent in France and Germany, and has become confused in its contractions with Jodocus. Josse and Josselin seem to have been used for both in France; and from the latter we obtained the Joscelin, or Joycelin, once far more common in England than at present. The Swiss Jost and Jostli are likewise doubtful between the two names.
In Ireland, the name of Justin has been adopted in the M'Carthy family, as a translation of the native Saerbrethach (the noble judge).[81]
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Footnote 81:
Cave, _Lives of the Fathers_; Jameson; _Irish Society_.
SECTION XI.—_Names of Holiness._
The infants whom Herod massacred at Bethlehem were termed in Latin _innocentes_, from _in_ (not), and _noceo_ (to hurt). These harmless ones were revered by the Church from the first, and honoured on the third day after Christmas as martyrs in deed. The relics of the Holy Innocents were great favourites in the middle ages, and are to be found as frequently as griffins' eggs in the list of treasures at Durham; but names taken from them are almost exclusively Roman. A lawyer of the time of Constantine was called Innocentius, and a Pope contemporary with St. Chrysostom handed it on to his successors, many of whom have subsequently assumed this title, and are called by their subjects Innocenzio.
Pius, applied at first to faithful filial love, as in the case of Æneas, assumed a higher sense with Christianity, and from being an occasional agnomen, became the name of a martyr Pope, under Antoninus Pius, and thus passed on to be one of the papal appellations most often in use, called Pio at Rome, and generally left to the pontiffs, though the feminine Pia is occasionally used in Italy. The Puritans indulged in Piety, and it still sometimes occurs in England, as well as Patience and Prudence, though the givers are little aware that there were saints long ago thus called, St. Patiens, of Lyons, and St. Prudentius, the great Christian poet of primitive times.
In like manner we have Modesty, or Moddy, as a Puritan name in England, taken from the abstract virtue, while the peasant women of Southern France are christened Modestine, probably in honour of a Roman martyr called Modestus, who was put to death at Bezières. Indeed, Modestinus and Modestus were both in use even in the earlier Roman times, and were understood by those who first bore them not in the sense of ‘shamefastness,’ but of moderation or discretion, the word coming from _modus_ (a measure).
To these, perhaps, should be added that which Italy and Spain have presumed to form from that title of the Blessed Saviour, Salvatore, or Salvador, the latter more common in South America than in the Old World.
_Cœlum_ (heaven) formed, in late Latin, _Cœlestinus_, the name of one of the popes who was martyred, and afterwards canonized, and imitated by several successors, whence the French learned the two modern feminines, Celeste and Celestine.
_Restitutus_ (restored), from _re_ and _sisto_, seems as if it could be given only in a Christian sense, as to one restored to a new life; yet its first owner known to us was a friend of Pliny, and an orator under Trajan. It came to Britain, and is found in Wales as Restyn.
Melior (better), is a Cornish female name, probably an imitation of some old Keltic one. It is found as early as 1574.
SECTION XII.—_Ignatius._
Ignatius is a difficult name to explain. Its associations are with the Eastern Church; but it occurs at a time when Latin names prevailed as much as Greek ones in the Asiatic portions of the Roman empire, and thus the Latin _ignis_ (fire) is, perhaps, the most satisfactory derivation, though it is not unlikely that the word may come from the source both of this and of the Greek ἁγνός, purity and flame being always linked together in Indo-European ideas.
The birth-place of the great St. Ignatius is unknown, but tradition has marked him as the child whom our Lord set in the midst of His disciples, and he is known to have been the pupil of St. John, ordained by St. Peter, and at the end of his long episcopate at Antioch, he was martyred at Rome by command of Trajan, writing on his last journey the Epistles that are among the earliest treasures of the Church. So much is his memory revered in his own city, that to the present day the schismatic patriarchs of Antioch of the Monophysite sect uniformly assume the name of Ignatius on their election to their see.
The Greek Church has continued to make much use of this name, called in Russia Ignatij, Eegnatie, or Ignascha; and in the Slovak dialect cut short into Nace. The Spanish Church likewise adopted it in early times, and among the Navarrese counts and lords of Biscay, as far back as 750, we encounter both men and women called Iñigo and Iñiga, or more commonly Eneco and Eneca, used indifferently with the other form, and then Latinized into Ennicus and Ennica.
Navarre preserved the name, and it was a Navarrese gentleman, Don Iñigo Loyola, who, while recovering from his wounds, after the siege of Pampeluna, so read the lives of the saints as to become penetrated with enthusiasm as fiery as his name. Where the Jesuits have had their will may be read in the frequency of this renewed Iñigo, or Ignace, as it was in France, Ignaz in Roman Catholic Germany. It is Bohemia, where the once strong spirit of Protestantism was trodden out in blood and flame, that Ignaz is common enough to have turned into Hynek, and in Bavaria that it becomes Nazi and Nazrl.
Our English architect, whose name is associated with the unhappy medley of Greek and Gothic which was the Stuart imitation of the Cinque-cento style, was a Roman Catholic, and was no doubt christened in honour of Loyola. The few stray specimens of Inigo to be found occasionally in England are generally traceable to him; one occurs at St. Columb Major, in 1740.[82]
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Footnote 82:
Michaelis; Cave; Stanley, _Lectures on the Eastern Church_; Mariana, _Istoria de España_; Anderson, _Royal Genealogies_.
SECTION XIII.—_Pater._
The word _pater_, which, as we have already shown, is one of those that make the whole world kin, was the source of _patria_ (the father-land), and of far too many words in all tongues to recount. _Patres Conscripti_ was the title of the senators, and the _patricii_, the privileged class of old Rome, were so called as descendants from the original thirty _patres_. _Patricius_ (the noble) was as a title given half in jest to the young Roman-British Calpurnius, who was stolen by Irish pirates in his youth, and when ransomed, returned again to be the apostle of his captors, and left a name passionately revered in that warm-hearted land. The earlier Irish, however, were far too respectful to their apostle to call themselves by his name, but were all Mael-Patraic, the shaveling, or pupil of Patrick, or Giolla-Patraic, the servant of Patrick. This latter, passing to Scotland with the mission of St. Columba, turned into the Gospatric, or Cospatrick, the boy (gossoon or _garçon_) of Patrick, Earls of Galloway; and in both countries the surname Gilpatrick, or Kilpatrick, has arisen from it.
Afterwards these nations left off the humble prefix, and came to calling themselves Phadrig in Ireland, Patrick in Scotland; the former so universally as to render Pat and Paddy the national soubriquet. Latterly a bold attempt has been made in Ireland to unite Patrick and Peter as the same, so as to have both patron saints at once, but the Irish will hardly persuade any one to accept it but themselves. The Scotch Pate, or Patie, is frequent, though less national; and the feminine, Patricia, seems to be a Scottish invention. The fame of the curious cave, called St. Patrick’s Purgatory, brought pilgrims from all quarters, and Patrice, Patrizio, and Patricio, all are known in France, Italy, and Spain, the latter the most frequently. Even Russia has Patrikij.
Paternus (the fatherly) was the Latin name of two Keltic saints, one Armorican, the other of Avranches, where he is popularly called Saint Pari.[83]
SECTION XIV.—_Grace, &c._
The history of the word _grace_ is curious. We are apt to confuse it with the Latin _gracilis_ (slender), with which it has no connection, and which only in later times acquired the sense of elegant, whereas it originally meant lean, or wasted, and came from a kindred word to the Greek γράω (grao), to consume.
_Grates_, on the contrary, were thanks, whence what was done _gratiis_, or _gratis_, was for thanks and nothing else, according to our present use of the word—whence our gratuitous. So again _gratus_ applied to him who was thankful, and to what inspired thanks; and _gratia_ was favour, or bounty, and was used to render the Greek χάρις; and thus have the Greek Charities come down to us as Graces. Then, too, he was _gratiosus_ who possessed the free spirit of bounty and friendliness, exactly expressed by our gracious; but, in Italy, it was degraded into mere lively good-nature, till _un grazioso_ is little better than a buffoon; and _gracieux_ in France means scarcely more than engaging.
_Gratia_ was used by early Latin writers for divine favour, whence the theological meaning of grace. And from _grates_ (thanks) comes our expression of “saying grace before meat.”
The English name of Grace is intended as the abstract theological term, and was adopted with many others of like nature at the Reformation. Its continuation after the dying away of most of its congeners is owing to the Irish, who thought it resembled their native _Grainé_ (love), and thereupon adopted it so plentifully that Grace or Gracie is generally to be found wherever there is an Irish connection.
Spain likewise has Engracia in honour of a maiden cruelly tortured to death at Zaragoza, in 304; and Italy, at least in Lamartine’s pretty romance, knows Graziella.
Gratianus (favourable) rose among the later Romans, and belonged to the father and to the son of the Emperor Valens, and it left the Italians Graziano for the benefit of Nerissa’s merry husband.
_Pulcher_ (fair) turned into a name in late days, and came as Pulcheria to that noble lady on whom alone the spirit of her grandfather Theodosius in all his family descended. She was canonized, and Pulcheria thus was a recognized Greek name; but it has been little followed except in France, where Chérie is the favourite contraction.
_Spes_ (hope) is the only one of the Christian graces in Latin who has formed any modern names; and these are the Italian Sperata (hoped for), and Speranza (hope). Esperanza in Spain, and Espérance in France, have been made Christian names.
_Delicia_ (delightful) is an English name used in numerous families, and Languedoc has the corresponding Mesdelices, shortened into Médé, so that Mademoiselle Mesdélices is apt to be called Misé Médé in her own country. In Italy, Delizia is used.
_Dulcis_ (sweet, or mild) is explained by Spanish authors to have been the origin of their names of Dulcia, Aldoncia, Aldonça, Adoncia, all frequent among the Navarrese and Catalonian princesses from 900 to 1200, so that it was most correct of Don Quixote to translate his Aldonça Lorenço into the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso. Probably the Moorish article was added by popular pronunciation in Spain, while Dulcia lingered in the South of France, became Douce, and came to England as Ducia in the time of the Conqueror, then turned into Dulce, and by-and-by embellished into Dulcibella, and then by Henry VIII.’s time fell into Dowsabel, a name borne by living women, as well as by the wife of Dromio. Dousie Moor, widow, was buried in 1658, at Newcastle.[84]
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Footnote 83:
Arnold; Hanmer; _Irish Society_; Lower.
Footnote 84:
Facciolati; Butler; Bowles, _Don Quixote con Annotaciones_.
SECTION XV.—_Vinco._
The verb _vinco_ (to conquer), the first syllable the same as our _win_, formed the present participle _vincens_, whence the name Vincentius (conquering), which was borne by two martyrs of the tenth persecution, one at Zaragoza, the other at Agen; and later by one of the great ecclesiastical authors at Lerius, in Provence. Thus Vincent, Vincente, Vincenzio, were national in France, Spain, and Italy, before the more modern saints, Vincente Ferrer, and Vincent de St. Paul, had enhanced its honours.
┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Italian. │ German. │ │Vincent │Vincent │Vincente │Vincenzio │Vincenz │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤ │ Bavarian. │ Russian. │ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ Hungarian. │ │Zenz │Vikentij │Vincentij │Vincenc │Vincze │ │Zenzel │ │ │ │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
Even the modern Greeks have it as Binkentios.
Conquest is a word found in all classes of names,—the Sieg of the Teuton, the Nikos of the Greek.
The past participle is _victus_; whence the conqueror is Victor—a name of triumph congenial to the spirit of early Christianity, and borne by an early pope as well as by more than one martyr, from whom Vittore descended as rather a favourite Italian name, though not much used elsewhere till the French Revolution, when Victor came into fashion in France. Tollo is the Roman contraction, as is Tolla of the feminine.
The original Victoria was a Roman virgin, martyred in the Decian persecution; whence the Italian Vittoria, borne by the admirable daughter of the Colonne, from whom France and Germany seem to have learned it, since after her time Victoire and Victorine became very common in France; and it was from Germany that we learnt the Victoria that will, probably, sound hereafter like one of our most national names.
SECTION XVI.—_Vita._
_Vita_ (life) was used by the Roman Christians to express their hopes of eternity; and an Italian martyr was called Vitalis, whence the modern Italian Vitale and German Veitel.
Vitalianus, a name formed out of this, is hardly to be recognized in the Welsh form of Gwethalyn.
Vivia, from _vivus_ (alive), was the first name of Vivia Perpetua, the noble young matron of Carthage, whose martyrdom, so circumstantially told, is one of the most grand and most affecting histories in the annals of the early Church. Her other name of Perpetua has, however, been chosen by her votaresses.
Vivianus and Viviana were names of later Roman days, often, in the West, pronounced with a _B_, and we find a Christian maiden, named Bibiana, put to death by a Roman governor, under Julian the Apostate, under pretence of her having destroyed one of his eyes by magic, a common excuse for persecution in the days of pretended toleration. A church was built over her remains as early as 465, and, considering the accusation against her, it is curious to find Vyvyan or Viviana the enchantress of King Arthur’s court.
Vivian has been a name for both sexes, and a Scottish Vivian Wemyss, bishop of Fife in 615, was canonized, and known to Rome as St. Bibianus.
Vitus was the child whom St. Crescentia bred up a Christian, and who died in Lucania with her. His day was the 15th of June, and had the reputation of entailing thirty days of similar weather to its own.
Vitus is Vita, in Bohemia; Vida, in Hungary; Veicht and Veidl, in Bavaria; and is used to Latinize Guy; but it is probable that this last is truly Celtic, and it shall be treated of hereafter.[85]
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Footnote 85:
Fleury, _Histoire Ecclesiastique_; Butler; Villemarque, _Romans de la Table Ronde_; Roscoe, _Boiardo_; Brand, _Popular Antiquities_; Grimm; Michaelis.
SECTION XVII.—_Wolves and Bears._
The Roman _lupus_ had truly a right to stand high in Roman estimation, considering the good offices of the she-wolf to the founder, and the wolf and the twins will continue an emblem as long as Rome stands, in spite of the explanation that declared that the nurse was either named Lupa, or so called, because the Roman word applied to a woman of bad character, and in spite of the later relegation of the entire tale to the realms of mythology. Lupus was accordingly a surname in the Rutilian gens, and was borne by many other Romans, thus descending to the three Romanized countries. St. Lupus, or Loup of Troyes, curiously enough succeeded St. Ursus, or Ours, and was notable both for his confutation of the Pelagian heresy, and for having saved his diocese by his intercession with Attila. Another sainted Lupus, or Loup, was Bishop of Lyons. Italy has the Christian name of Lupo; Portugal, Lobo; Spain, Lope. The great poet, Lope de Vega, might be translated, the wolf of the meadow.
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 │ —————————— │ │ │ │Ursley │ Dutch. │ │ │ │Nullie │Orseline │ │ │ ├────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┤ │ Italian. │ German. │ Swiss. │ Russian. │ │Orsola │Ursel │Orscheli │Urssula │ │ │Urschel │Urschel │ │ │ │ │Urschla │ │ ├────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┤ │ Polish. │ Slavonic. │ Lusatian. │ Hungarian. │ │Urszula │Ursa │Wursla │Orsolya │ │ —————————— │ │Hoscha │ │ │ Bohemian. │ │Oscha │ │ │Worsula │ │ │ │ ├────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┴────────────────┤ │ 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.
To these should be added, as belonging to the same class, though the word is Greek, Anatolius, meaning a native of Anatolia, the term applied in later times by the Greeks to Asia Minor, and meaning the sunrise. St. Anatolius, of Constantinople, was one of the sacred poets of the Greek Church; and after his death, in 458, his name and its feminine, Anatolia, became frequent in the countries where his hymns were used.
A Phocian is the most probable explanation of the name of Φοκας (Phocas), though much older in Greece than the date of most of those that have been here given. To us it is associated with the monster who usurped the imperial throne, and murdered Maurice and his sons; but it had previously belonged to a martyred gardener, under Diocletian, whose residence in Pontus made him well known to the Byzantine Church; and thus Phokas is still found among Greeks, and Foka in Russia.
The Romans called their enemies in North Africa Mauri, from the Greek ἀμαυρός, which at first was twilight or dim, but came afterwards to signify dark, or black.
Maura was a Gallican maiden of the ninth century, whose name, it would seem highly probable, might have been the Keltic Mohr (great), still current in Ireland and the Highlands. She led a life of great mortification, died at twenty-three, was canonized, and becoming known to the Venetians, a church in her honour named the Ionian island of Santa Maura, which had formerly been Leucadia. There was, however, a genuine Greek St. Maura, the wife of Timothy, a priest, with whom she was crucified in the Thebaid, under Maximian. She is honoured by the Eastern Church on the 3rd of May, and is the subject of a poem of Mr. Kingsley’s. From her, many Greek girls bear the name of Maura, and Russian ones of Mavra and Mavruscha.
Mauritius was naturally a term with the Romans for a man of Moorish lineage. The first saint of this name was the Tribune of the Theban legion, all Christians, who perished to a man under the blows of their fellow-soldiers, near the foot of the great St. Bernard. To this brave man is due the great frequency of Maurits, in Switzerland, passing into Maurizio on the Italian border, and Moritz on the German. The old French was Meurisse, the old English, Morris; but both, though still extant as surnames, have as Christian names been assimilated to the Latin spelling, and become Maurice. The frequent Irish Morris, and the once common Scottish Morris, are the imitation of the Gaelic Moriertagh, or sea warrior.
Meuriz is in use in Wales, and appears to be the genuine produce of Maurice; but it is very difficult to disentangle the derivations from the Moor, from ἀμαυρός, and from the Keltic _mohr_ (large) and _mör_ (the sea).
The Saxon Moritz, who played a double game between Charles V. and the Protestant League, was brother-in-law to the great William the Silent, and thus his name was transmitted to his nephew, the gallant champion of the United Provinces, Maurice of Nassau, in whose honour the Dutch bestowed the name of Mauritius upon their island settlement in the Indian Ocean, and this title has finally gained the victory over the native one of Cerine, and the French one of the Isle of Bourbon.
┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Welsh. │ Breton. │ French. │ │Morris │Meuriz │Noris │Meurisse │ │Maurice │ │ │Maurice │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ German. │ Danish. │ │Maurizio │Mauricio │Moritz │Maurids │ │ │ │ │Morets │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Russian. │ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ Hungarian. │ │Moriz │Maurycij │Moric │Moricz │ │Mavrizij │ │ │ │ │Mavritij │ │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘
Germanus cannot be reckoned otherwise than as one of the varieties of names from countries given by the Romans. It does indeed come from the two Teutonic words _gher_ (spear) and _mann_; but it cannot be classed among the names compounded of _gher_, since the Romans were far from thus understanding it, when, like Mauritius, it must have been inherited by some ‘young barbarian’ whose father served in the Roman legions.
St. Germanus was greatly distinguished in Kelto-Roman Church history, as having refuted Pelagius, and won the Hallelujah victory, to say nothing of certain unsatisfactory miracles. We have various places named after him, but it was the French who chiefly kept up his name, and gave it the feminine Germaine, which was borne by that lady of the family of Foix, who became the second wife of Fernando the Catholic by the name of Germana. Jermyn has at times been used in England, and became a surname.[86]
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Footnote 86:
Cave; Butler; _Revue des deux Mondes_; Le Beau, _Bas Empire_; Liddell and Scott; Lower; _Les Vies des Saints_.
SECTION XIX.—_Town and Country._
Urbanus is one who dwells in _urbs_ (a city), a person whose courtesy and statesmanship are assumed, as is shown by the words civil, from _civis_ (a city), and polite, politic, polish, from the Greek πὸλις of the same meaning; and thus Urbane conveys something of grace and affability in contrast to rustic rudeness.
Urbanus is greeted by St. Paul; and another Urbanus was an early pope, from whom it travelled into other tongues as Urbano, Urbani, and Urban.
┌──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Roman. │ Russian. │ Slovak. │Hungarian.│ │Urban │Urbain │Urbano │Urvan │Verban │Orban │ │ │ │ │ │Banej │ │ └──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┘
In opposition to this word comes that for the rustic, _Pagus_, signifying the country; the word that in Italian becomes _paese_, in Spanish _pais_, in French _pays_. The Gospel was first preached in the busy haunts of men, so that the earlier Christians were towns-folk, and the rustics long continued heathen; whence Paganus, once simply a countryman, became an idolater, a Pagan, and poetized into Paynim, was absolutely bestowed upon the Turks and Saracens in the middle ages. In the mean time, however, the rustic had come to be called _paesano_, _pays_, _paysan_, and _peasant_, independently of his religion; and Spain, in addition to her _payo_ (the countryman), had _paisano_ (the lover of his country); and either in the sense of habitation or patriotism, Pagano was erected into a Christian name in Italy, and Payen in France; whence England took Payne or Pain, still one of the most frequent surnames.
The two Latin words, _per_ (through) and _ager_ (a field), were the source of _peregrinus_ (a traveller or wanderer), also the inhabitant of the country as opposed to the Roman colonist. The same word in time came to mean both a stranger, and above all, one on a journey to a holy place, when such pilgrimages had become special acts of devotion, and were growing into living allegories of the Christian life. This became a Christian name in Italy, because a hermit, said to have been a prince of Irish blood, settled himself in a lonely hut on one of the Apennines, near Modena, and was known there as _il pellegrin_, as the Latin word had become softened. He died in 643, and was canonized as St. Peregrinus, or San Pellegrino; became one of the patrons of Modena and Lucca, and had all the neighbouring spur of the Apennines called after him. Pellegrino Pelligrini is a name that we find occurring in Italian history; and when a son was born at Wesel, to Sir Richard Bertie and his wife, the Duchess of Suffolk, while they were fleeing from Queen Mary’s persecution, they named him Peregrine, “for that he was given by the Lord to his pious parents in a strange land for the consolation of their exile,” as says his baptismal register, and Peregrine in consequence came into favour in the Bertie family; but in an old register the names Philgram, Pilgerlam, and Pilggerlam, occur about 1603.
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To these may perhaps be added the Italian Marino and Marina, given perhaps casually to sea-side dwellers; and their Greek equivalents, Pelagios and Pelagia, both of which are still used by the modern Greeks. Pelagius was used by the Irish, or more properly Scottish, Morgan, as a translation of his own name, and thus became tainted with the connection of the Pelagian heresy; but it did not become extinct; and Pelayo was the Spanish prince who first began the brave resistance that rendered the mountains of the Asturias a nucleus for the new kingdom of Spain.
Some see in his name a sign that the Arian opinions of the Visigoths had some hereditary influence, at least, in nomenclature; and, indeed, Ario occurs long after as a Christian name; others consider Pelago’s classical name to be a sign that the old Celto-Roman blood was coming to the surface above the Gothic.
Switzerland likewise has this name cut down to Pelei, or Poli.[87]
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Footnote 87:
Butler; Michaelis.
SECTION XX.—_Flower Names._
Flower names seem to have been entirely unknown to the ancient Romans, but the Latin language, in the mouths of more poetical races, has given several graceful floral names, though none perhaps are quite free from the imputation of being originally something far less elegant.
Thus, _oliva_ (the olive), the sign of peace and joy, is closely connected with the Italian Oliviero; but it is much to be suspected that it would never have blossomed into use, but for the Teutonic Olaf (forefather’s relic). Oliviero, or Ulivieri, the paladin of Charlemagne, may be considered as almost certainly a transmogrified Anlaf, or Olaf (ancestor’s relic); and perhaps it is for this reason that his name is one of the most frequently in use among all those of the circle of paladins. He was a favourite hero of Pulci, and seems to have so nearly approached Orlando in fame, as at least to be worthy of figuring in the proverb of giving a Rowland for an Oliver. The middle ages made great use of his name in France and England. Olier, as it was called at home by the Breton knights, whom the French called Olivier, was the name of the favourite brother of Du Guesclin, as well as of the terrible Constable de Clisson. Oliver was frequent with English knights, and of high and chivalrous repute, until the eminence of the Protector rendered ‘old Noll’ a word of hate and would-be scorn to the Cavaliers—an association which it has never entirely overcome. The feminine was probably first invented in Italy, but the Italian literature that flowed in on us in the Tudor reigns brought it to us, and we were wise enough to naturalize Olivia as Olive, a form that still survives in some parts of the country.
Whether it is true that the “rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” never appears to have been tried, for all countries seem to express both the flower and its blushing tint by the same sound; and even the Syriac name for the oleander (the rose-laurel), “the blossoms red and bright” of the Lake of Tiberias, is _rodyon_.
The Greeks had their Rhoda, but the Romans never attained such a flight of poetry as a floral name, and the rose-wreath would hardly deserve to be relegated to a Latin root, were it not that the branches spread so widely, that it is more convenient to start from this common stem, to which all are bound by mutual resemblance; besides which, both the saints of this name were of Romance nations. Still, I believe, that though _their_ names were meant for roses when given to them, that the first use of _hrôs_ among the Teutons was a meaning sometimes fame, sometimes a horse—not the flower.
Rohais, or Roesia, most probably the French and Latin of _hrôs_ (fame), or else from _hros_ (horse), is the first form in which the simple word appears in England. Rohais, wife of Gilbert de Gaunt, died in 1156; Roese de Lucy was wife of Fulbert de Dover, in the time of Henry II.; Roesia was found at the same time among the De Bohuns and De Veres; and some of these old Norman families must have carried it to Ireland, where Rose is one of the most common of the peasant names. Rosel and Rosette both occur at Cambrai between 900 and 1200.
During the twelfth century, probably among the Normans of Sicily, lived Rosalia, “the darling of each heart and eye,” who, in her youth, dedicated herself to a hermit life in a mountain grotto, and won a saintly reputation for her name, which is frequent in her island, as is Rosalie in France, and at the German town of Duderstadt, where it is vilely tortured into Sahlke.
St. Dominic arranged a series of devotions, consisting of the meditations, while rehearsing the recurring _aves_ and _paters_ marked by the larger and smaller nuts, or berries, on a string. These, which we call beads from _beden_ (to pray), formed the _rosarium_, or rose garden, meaning originally the delights of devotion. This _rosarium_ has a day to itself in the Roman calendar, and possibly may have named the Transatlantic saint, Rosa di Lima, the whole of which appellation is borne by Peruvian señoras, and practically called Rosita.
Rosa is found in all kinds of ornamental forms in different countries, and the contractions, or diminutives, of one become the names of another. Thus Rosalia, herself, probably sprang from the endearment Rosel, which together with Rosi is common in Switzerland and the Tyrol; the German diminutive Roschen is met again in the Italian Rosina, French Rosine, English Rosanne; the Rasine, or Rasche, of Lithuania; and Rosetta, the true Italian diminutive, is followed by the French Rosette.
These may be considered as the true and natural forms of Rose. Others were added by fancy and romance after the Teuton signification of fame had been forgotten, and the Latin one of the flower adopted.
Of these, are Rosaura, Rosaclara; in English, Roseclear, Rosalba (a white rose), Rosabella, or Rosabel, all arrant fancy names.
Rosamond has a far more ancient history, but the rose connection must be entirely renounced for her. The first Hrosmond (famous protection, or horse protection) was the fierce chieftainess of the Gepidæ, who was compelled by her Lombard husband to drink to his health in a ghastly goblet formed of the skull of her slaughtered father, and who avenged this crowning insult by a midnight murder.
Even from the fifth century, the period of this tragedy, hers has remained a favourite name among the peasantry of the Jura, the land of the Gepidæ, but it does not appear how it came from them to the Norman Cliffords, by whom it was bestowed upon Fair Rosamond, whose fate has been so strangely altered by ballad lore, and still more strangely by Cervantes, who makes his Persiles and Sigismunda encounter her in the Arctic regions, undergoing a dreary penance among the wehr wolves. Her name, in its supposed interpretation, gave rise to the Latin epigram, _Rosa mundi, sed non Rosa munda_ (the rose of the world, but not a pure rose). The sound of the word, and the popular interest of the ballad, have continued her name in England.
Hroswith, the poetical Frank nun, is certainly famous strength, or famous height, though when softened into Roswitha, she has been taken for a white rose, or a sweet rose.
Rosalind makes her first appearance in _As You Like It_, whether invented by Shakespeare cannot be guessed. If the word be really old, the first syllable is certainly _hrôs_, the last is our English _lithe_, the German _lind_, the Northern _lindre_, the term that has caused the Germans to call the snake the _lindwurm_, or supple worm. The Visigoths considered this litheness as beauty, and thus the word survives in Spanish as _lindo_, _linda_, meaning, indeed, a fair woman, but a soft effeminate man. Yet, the _linda_, meaning fair in Spanish, was reason enough in the sixteenth century for attaching it to many a name by way of ornament, and it is to be apprehended that thus it was that Rosalind came by her name, and possibly Rosaline, whom Romeo deserted for the sake of Juliet. However she began, she has ever since been one of the English roses.
Rosilde, or Roshilda, a German form, is in like manner either really the fame-battle, or else merely _ilda_ tacked by way of ornament to the end of the rose.
Violante is a name occurring in the South of France and the North of Italy and Spain. Whence it originally came is almost impossible to discover. It may very probably be a corruption of some old Latin name such as Valentinus, or, which would be a prettier derivation, it may be from the golden violet, the prize of the troubadours in the courts of love.
The name of the flower is universal; it is _viola_, in Latin, _vas_ in Sanscrit; and in Greek anciently Γιον, but afterwards ἴον, whence later Greeks supposed it to have been named from having formed a garland round the head of Ion, the father of the Ionians.
That _V_ is easily changed to _Y_, was plain in the treatment received by Violante, who was left to that dignified sound only in Spain; but in France was called Yolande, or for affection, Yolette; and in the confusion between _y_ and _j_, figures in our own English histories in the queer-looking form of Joletta. The Scots, with much better taste, imported Yolette as Violet, learning it probably through the connections of the Archers of the Royal Guard, or it may be through Queen Mary’s friends, as Violet Forbes appears in 1571, and I have not found an earlier instance. At any rate, the Scottish love of floral names took hold of it, and the Violets have flourished there ever since. Fialka is both the flower and a family name in Bohemia; as is Veigel in the Viennese dialect. Eva Maria Veigel was the young _danseuse_, called by Maria Theresa, la Violetta, under which designation she came to England, and finally became the excellent wife of Garrick. Whether Viola has ever been a real Italian name I cannot learn, or whether it is only part of the stage property endeared to us by Shakespeare. The masculine Yoland was common at Cambrai in the thirteenth century; Yolante was there used down to the sixteenth.
Viridis (green, or flourishing) was not uncommon among Italian ladies in the fourteenth century, probably in allusion to some romance.
It is much to be feared that the lily, is as little traceable as the rose. There was a Liliola Gonzaga in Italy in 1340, but she was probably a softened Ziliola, or Cecilia. Lilias Ruthven, who occurs in Scotland, in 1557, was probably called from the old romantic poem of _Roswal and Lillian_, which for many years was a great favourite in Scotland. The Lillian of this ballad is Queen of Naples, and thus the name appears clearly traceable to the Cecilias of modern Italy, though it is now usually given in the _sense_ of Lily; the English using Lillian; the Scots, Lillias. Indeed, it is quite possible that these, like Lilla, may sometimes have risen out of contractions of Elizabeth. Leila is a Moorish name, and Lelia is only the feminine of Lælius. On the whole, it may be said that only the Hebrew and Slavonic tongues present us with names _really_ taken from individual flowers.[88]
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Footnote 88:
Michaelis; Munch; Pott; Roscoe, _Boiardo_; Anderson, _Genealogies_; Douglas, _Peerage of Scotland_; Ellis, _Specimens of Early English Poetry_; Butler, _Cervantes_; Sismondi.
SECTION XXI.—_Roman Catholic Names._
The two names that follow are as thorough evidences of the teachings of the Roman Church as are the epithets of the Blessed Virgin, before mentioned, and can, therefore, only be classed together, though it is rather hard upon good Latin to be saddled with them, compounded as they are of Latin and Greek.
The Latin _verus_ (true), and the Greek εἰκών (an image), were strangely jumbled together by the popular tongue in the name of a crucifix at Lucca, which was called the _Veraiconica_, or Veronica; and was that Holy Face of Lucca by which William Rufus, having probably heard of it from the Lombard Lanfranc, his tutor, was wont to swear. Another Veronica is the same countenance upon a piece of linen, shown at St. Peter’s. Superstition, forgetting the meaning of the name, called the relic St. Veronica’s handkerchief, accounted for it by inventing a woman who had lent our Blessed Saviour a handkerchief to wipe His Face during the passage of the _Via dolorosa_, and had found the likeness imprinted upon it.
In an old English poem on the life of Pilate, written before 1305, it appears that the Emperor of Rome learnt that a woman at Jerusalem named ‘Veronike’ possessed this handkerchief, which could heal him of his sickness. He sent for her, and
“Anon tho the ymage iseth, he was whole, anon, He honoured wel Veronike, heo ne moste fram him gon; The ymage he athuld that hit ne com nevereft out of Rome, In Seint Peteres Church it is.”
Thence Veronica became a patron saint; and in the fifteenth century a real monastic Saint Veronica lived near Milan.
Véronique is rather a favourite name among French peasant women, and Vreneli in Suabia. Pott and Michaelis suggest that Veronica may be the Latin form of Berenice, or Pherenike (victory-bringer); but the history of the relic is too clear to admit of this idea. The flower, Veronica, appears to have won its name from its exquisite blue reflecting a true image of the heavens; and the Scots, who have a peculiar turn for floral names, thus seem to have obtained it.
In 1802 an inscription, with the first and last letters destroyed, was found in the catacombs standing thus, _lumena pax tecum fi_. A priest suggested that _Fi_ should be put at the beginning of the sentence instead of the end, and by this remarkable trick, produced _Filumena_. There was a real Greek name Philomena, which had fallen into disuse, and of course was derived from Love, but to please the ears of the Italians, the barbarous Latin Filumen was invented.
Thereupon a devout artisan, a priest, and a nun, were all severally favoured by visions of a virgin martyr, who told them the story of Diocletian’s love for her, of her refusal, and subsequent martyrdom; and explained that, having once been called Lumena, she was baptized Filumena, which she explained as daughter of light! Some, human remains near the stone being dignified as relics of St. Filomena, she was presented to Mugnano; and, on the way, not only worked many miracles on her adorers, but actually repaired her own skeleton, and made her hair grow. So many wonders are said to have been worked by this phantom saint, the mere produce of a blundered inscription, that a book, printed at Paris in the year 1847, calls her “_La Thaumaturge du 19me Siècle_” and she is by far the most fashionable patroness in the Romish Church. Filomena abounds in Rome, encouraged by the example of a little Filomena, whose mosquito net was every night removed by the saint, who herself kept off the gnats. She is making her way in Spain; and it will not be the fault of the author of _La Thaumaturge_ if Philomene is not common in France. The likeness to Philomela farther inspired Longfellow with the fancy of writing a poem on Florence Nightingale, as St. Philomena, whence it is possible that the antiquaries of New Zealand, in the twenty-ninth century, will imagine St. Philomena, or Philomela, to be the heroine of the Crimean war.[89]
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Footnote 89:
Butler; _Philological Society_; Merriman, _Church in Spain_; _La Thaumaturge du 19me Siècle_.
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