Well, after my last blog, I had the most interesting email from Peter O’Connor – a Brisbanite, which makes him a gentleman from Brisbane, Australia.

By the way, did you know there’s a category for the names used to indicate people’s geographic residency? There is. It’s demonym (origin, 1995 – 2000). Now you might be tempted to think the root here is demon (which is clearly not the case with our friend, Peter!) but it really comes from the Greek word “demos” which means people. Makes sense, right? Like Michigander, Floridian, or Montanan (but not in reference to Joe Montana (aka Comeback Kid”) – he was a San Franciscan or a 49’er depending on how you look at it!). He was a football player.

(Did you know football (and soccer and rugby, too) may have originated from an ancient rough and tumble Greek game called “harpaston”?  It involved two teams, and the actual play and scoring of points is quite similar to football today. You just never know, do you? History is so amazing!)

Ahem. I digress. (v – origin 1520 -30 – to move away from the main point in speaking or writing) Digression is a problem I have. And apparently it’s a very bad problem when you are a blogger. Did you know I am limited to word count?! “They” tell me a blog is supposed to be short and pithy (I’d define pithy for you complete with history but then I wouldn’t be pithy). But, when I researched “blog” I saw nothing about word count – not one word! However, I did discover the word “blog” is sometimes said to be a contraction, acronym, abbreviation, or slang expression for “web log.” Personally, I prefer the idea of a contraction the best (totally more fun), but then we would have to type it ‘blog – the apostrophe indicating the letters eliminated. Now that I think of it, there are several contractions in this ‘blog which is becoming non-pithy by the minute. Maybe you can find them and figure out which letters the apostrophe represents…and then, maybe not.

In his email, Peter gave me the etymology of my last name “Conner” and it was quite interesting – I’d tell you about it but word count allows me only to say that it has quite a bit to do with Irish Chieftains. Anyway, after reading Peter’s email, I started thinking about names. What’s in a name, I asked myself. So I decided to find out.

The Old English meaning for the word name (then nama or noma, from the Latin nomen, as in nomenclature – now that’s a good word!) gives us a clue. It is closely linked to the concept of “reputation.” And that really tells us something!

Far from following trends as we see today, names in ancient times had special significance and importance and were meant to tell us something about the person himself. 

Names were often selected in light of the hopes, dreams, or desired qualities to be exhibited by the person being named.  And sometimes the name represented a significant event in the life of the tribe or family. Other times it indicated an obvious characteristic about the person as was the case with Job’s daughters who were known to be “the fairest in all the land” (for example, his oldest daughter’s name was Jemima which means resembling a clear day as in connoting its brilliance).

But in all cases, the name was representative of its bearer, almost like his duplicate or counterpart. In a sense, the name was a type of prophetic utterance every time it was spoken.  (Brings new insight to praying the Sign of the Cross and ending our prayer “We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.” Cool, huh?)

In Scripture, we even see God change the name of a person as in the case of Abram (“exalted father”) whom He named Abraham (“father of a multitude”), and Miryam or Mary (“wished for child”) who became Full of Grace (an indication about her very essence). Jesus changed the name of Simon (“he heard”) to Peter (“rock”).  And Saul (“he asked for”) was changed to Paul (“little,” which perhaps indicated his humility upon conversion).

Oh dear! I am at 705 words now (including these, it’s 8 more and trying to keep you informed of my word count only adds more – you see what a problem this is!!!! So, I have to stop – RIGHT NOW!  I’m nearly corybantic over this thing and soooo tempted to define this word for you and tell you all about it, but…..STOP, Lexi, STOP!

And yet, good manners prevents me – absolutely prevents me, I say to the “Theys” of the world! – from signing off without thanking Peter, our Aussie Brisbanite.

Thanks, Peter O’Connor (“Rock from an Irish Chieftain!), for giving me an opportunity to explore names! You made my day – and this ‘blog!

Linguistically yours,
Lexi

P.S. Do you think there are “word count” police? Hmmmmmm…….