Title: A Treasury of Baby Names
Author:
Alan Benjamin (not known to be same person as the author of all those picture books for slightly older babies)
Date:
1983
Publisher:
Signet
ISBN:
none
Length:
215 pages
Quote:
“Abayomi—Yoruba/Nigeria: ‘she who brings joy’.”
After a
short table of sun signs and birthstones associated with the day on which the
baby might be born, this book moves directly into the list of names and their
meanings, or at least of words from which they were presumed to derive.
Readers
should know that most names don’t actually have precise meanings. Even when a
given name is identical with a word or phrase, the person who gave it to a
child may have had a completely different “meaning” in mind.
“Malady,”
which was the given name of a doctor who used to practice in Washington, is one
of several names that aren’t popular enough to be “defined” in books like this
one. As a word “malady” is defined as "any disorder or disease of the body, or any undesirable or disordered condition". Obviously that was not what the
doctor’s parents had in mind when they looked at their new baby. Going by
sound, I suspect they were thinking of “my lady,” and may even have changed the
spelling to honor the baby’s Grandma. As a word “malady” sounds closer to
“melody,” which is listed in most
name dictionaries. (As a name “Melody” is usually defined in terms of the word: "a song or tune...a pleasing series of musical notes.")
If your
given name happens to be “Melody,” however, that does not necessarily mean that
your parents were thinking of the word. They might have been thinking of a
friend or relative, even a celebrity or fictional character.
For
several names, especially the ones derived from the family names of famous
people, parents who bestow the name on a child are unlikely to care which words
the name may originally have derived from.
“Lincoln,”
for example, is known to be the name of a place in England. The place name is
thought to derive from the name of a Roman colony, colonia, although there is some dispute about the original meaning
of the “lin” part. (Benjamin gives “settlement by the pool,” from old English lynn, meaning the pool below a
waterfall. Some other name dictionaries give “town of linden trees,” or “colony
with snakes,” from linnr, a serpent…)
As a family name “Lincoln” is rare. Most people have heard of it only in the
context of a particularly memorable President of the United States. People who
call their children “Lincoln” may have seen, or hoped, any number of
resemblances between Abraham Lincoln and the child:
* The
baby was long and thin.
* The
baby had dark hair and eyes and relatively fair skin.
* The
parents hoped the child would be honest. (President Lincoln’s supporters called
him “Honest Abe.’)
* Or they
hoped he would live to grow old. (President Lincoln did not, in fact, live to
become very old, but his supporters
also called him “Old Abe.”)
* Or they
hoped he would become President…of something.
* Or they
hoped he’d at least have a presidential manner.
* Or they
hoped he’d grow up to practice “malice toward none and charity toward all.”
(President Lincoln’s election led directly to a war, after which President
Lincoln aroused further controversy by trying to make peace on the most
generous possible terms.)
Or they may have wanted to honor President
Lincoln’s memory, regardless of any resemblance or lack of resemblance to an
infant (few babies really look much like President Lincoln). Or they may have
wanted to honor some friend or relative who’d been named after President
Lincoln. Anything is possible.
So the
interpretation of given names is not an exact science. If you want, either to
pick one dictionary and stick to it, or to collect dictionaries and compare
them, this book is for you.
I collect
them, for my on-disk Words & Names Database. Having digitized the contents
of this dictionary, I’m ready to pass my copy along.
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