30
votes
Accepted
Why do Arabic names still have their meanings?
Cross-culturally, names having transparent meanings is the norm. Europe, and the non-Arabic-speaking Muslim world are notable exceptions and in those cases religion is one of the big motivating ...
- 6,504
25
votes
Accepted
In romance languages, are there examples of male names that derive from female names?
The first thing I thought of was names derived in antiquity from the names of ancient Greek goddesses.
For example, the French male name Hercule is ultimately from the name of the Greek goddess Hera (...
- 17.8k
21
votes
Why do Arabic names still have their meanings?
First, it is not just black and white. Not all English names are opaque, there are transparent names like Hope, Faith, or Grace but also Rose that are current in English and American naming. And there ...
- 29.8k
16
votes
Accepted
What linguistic impact, if any, has the the Roman three name naming system left on modern Romance and European languages?
None, really.
TL;DR: the tria nomina were dead before the empire was, so pre-Romance times.
Long version: The tria nomina system is the most famous used in ancient Rome, but it wasn't by any means ...
- 63.8k
12
votes
In romance languages, are there examples of male names that derive from female names?
In Italian there are a number of historically female names which are occasionally used as male names, e.g.
Celeste, Amabile, Fiore, Diamante
In many Romance languages the female name Maria (or some ...
- 3,102
12
votes
Why do Arabic names still have their meanings?
Part of the reason is that people with Muslim names tend to have a better knowledge of Arabic. But most people have very little knowledge of Old English, and don't know what "Harold" or &...
- 81.9k
9
votes
Accepted
What do you call the adjective phrase attached to some historical persons? E.g. Erik the Red
It's not one of the -nym words. It's epithet, as per Wikipedia:
Epithets are sometimes attached to a person's name or appear in place
of his or her name, as what might be described as a glorified ...
- 221
6
votes
Why do Arabic names still have their meanings?
As with many words in English, also a lot of proper names come from the Romans, which in turn served as a vector for Hebrew ("Michael"), Aramaic ("Thomas") and Greek ("Peter&...
5
votes
What linguistic impact, if any, has the the Roman three name naming system left on modern Romance and European languages?
@Draconis has given an impressive account of the evolution of the Roman naming system, I want to focus on a different aspect: Although the system of the tria nomina completely disappeared, a lot of ...
- 29.8k
5
votes
In romance languages, are there examples of male names that derive from female names?
Derivation and inflection are different processes. Several proper nouns in Romance languages inflect for gender; in French, such inflection may be easily mistaken for a derivation, because the ...
- 1,763
5
votes
In romance languages, are there examples of male names that derive from female names?
There are a few examples from Germanic names: Deolindo or Teolindo are derived from Deolinda/Teolinda (modern German cognate: Dietlind).
- 29.8k
5
votes
Accepted
What is the the etymological origin of the name Calvin?
Calvin is indeed from the French, or further back from Latin calvus of the same meaning (cognate with calva skull as in "Calvary").
This epithet ended up becoming a family name. Family names ...
- 29.8k
4
votes
In Search of an Etymological Name Database
The site Behind the Name collects sourced and reliable information on the etymology of names. Note that the site has two parts, an "official" database endorsed by the site owner, and a "...
- 29.8k
4
votes
In Croatia, the first two consonants in river names are often 'k' and 'r', respectively. How to estimate the probability of that happening by chance?
I'm not sure entropy is the right measure for this, particularly collision entropy. Instead I'd recommend a simple frequency analysis.
First, come up with a criterion for what makes a word a "kr&...
- 63.8k
3
votes
In Croatia, the first two consonants in river names are often 'k' and 'r', respectively. How to estimate the probability of that happening by chance?
The null hypothesis is that phoneme distribution in words is random. This is quickly falsified by the Syllable Structure Hypothesis, to the effect that in English (for example) syllables can start ...
- 81.9k
2
votes
Markers for feminine and masculine names in Old Norse?
Adding to the comprehensive answer above (I don't have enough reputation to comment), feminine names also often end in -un(n).
Some examples taken from the sagas and Norse mythology are Guðrún, Þorunn,...
- 161
2
votes
Is there a term for names with the "X the Y" construction?
These "titles" are called epithets as already brought up in comments.
As for what this structure might be called grammatically, German employs a near identical structure which can be ...
- 735
2
votes
Is there a term for names with the "X the Y" construction?
The grammatical construction in the examples is called apposition. Note that the definite article "the" is not a necessary part of an apposition, an example without article is Mary, Peter's ...
- 29.8k
2
votes
Are there geographic or cultural patterns in surname etymologies?
Your question is too broad to be easily answered. Different regions of Europe began to use surnames at different times, often as a result of government policy. England, for example, began the process ...
- 186
1
vote
Accepted
US -> American, Canada -> Canadian, etc
Demonym is a noun identifying a person related to a particular place.
Ethnonym is a noun identifying an ethnic group.
"American", "Canadian" in "American bank", "...
- 418
1
vote
Why do Arabic names still have their meanings?
It’s largely an artifact of the evolution of the language itself, and to some extent the culture of the people who speak the language. Names tend to shift less over time than other aspects of a ...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible