Do you know what your name means?
My first name Roger was brought to England by the Normans – it comes from two Germanic words ‘hrod’ and ‘gar’ meaning respectively ‘fame’ and ‘spear’.
My family name Darlington came originally from the English place name ‘Deornothingtun’ in the north-east of England.
Working backwards, ‘tun’ (our ‘ton’) is found in hundreds of English place names from Stockton to Brighton and means simply ‘settlement’. Indeed our word’ ‘town’ comes, in fact, from ‘tun’.
‘Ing’ is a difficult word, that here means ‘named for’.
Then we have ‘Deornoth’ which was a man’s name – giving us ‘Deornothingtun’ as ‘the Settlement Named for Deornoth’.
And what do we know about Deornoth? Unfortunately, absolutely nothing. No records have made it down to us.
But the word ‘Deornoth’ does tell us something about the times that he lived in for, as with almost all early English names, ‘Deornoth’ is really two words combined. ‘Deor’ meant ‘beast’ – our word ‘deer’ comes from here. ‘Noth’, on the other hand, meant ‘boldness’. So ‘Deornoth’ was ‘Beast-boldness’.
And when did ‘Beast-boldness’ live? Well, ‘the Settlement Named for Beast Boldness’ was first recorded in the eleventh century, but it may have been five hundred years old by then, so it could date back to the Angeln ‘invasion’ about 500 AD.
I’m very interested in naming practices around the world – which are really varied – which is why I wrote this essay.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
I think a couple of early forms of “Roger” are the name of King Hrothgar, in Beowulf, and that of the Vandal King Radagaisus, who invaded the Roman Empire, and whose name I encountered in Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”
February 11th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
The advent of a DNA / surname project is proving to be beneficial from two perspectives. The ability to drive forward from 5,000 years ago to find common ancestors using DNA data, while at the same time going back exploring family pedigrees through more readily available genealogy searches. Sooner or later people will have a total and indisputable picture of their ancestry. Go for it.
September 10th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
i want to know what does my name means?
September 10th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Hi, Karina.
Your name is one of the many variants of Katherine. Katherine is the English form of the name of the saint martyred in Alexandria in 307. The origin of the name is unknown.
December 30th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
What about mine?
December 31st, 2009 at 10:35 am
Maria is a Latin name which was descended from the Greek Mariam which in turn was derived from the Hebrew Miryam.
The original meaning is uncertain but might have been ‘to swell’ (as in pregnancy). Other suggested meanings are varied, including ‘bitterness’; ‘rebelliousness’; ‘beloved lady’ and ‘long wished for child’.