Don't you love etymology? No, not the study of bugs. Etymology--the study of word origins.
My first name, Nathan, is a biblical name and comes from the Hebrew "he has given" or "gift." Kind of nice, eh? He was a prophet, too. Can't beat that.
But wait...what about Nate, my nickname? Turns out that that's a whole other story.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the term nates is a Latin plural noun meaning..."buttocks." I kid you not. So, while the singular is actually natis and not Nate, we are in America speaking English, and I simply have to face the fact that my nickname is "buttock."
Well, no wonder I feel like one on such a regular basis!
Humbling...
What does your name or nickname mean?
3 comments:
I am... very sorry.
People usually call Maureen's Mo for short, no clue why. It's also short for my email address and LJ name, as I got tired of typing all the time online.
I was also called Yesica for a time. That's a story in and of itself. What, you don't think Yesica is a good shortening of Maureen?
Thanks for the sympathy...
Yesica a good shortening of Maureen...makes about as much sense as Jack being a nickname for John. :)
Incidentally, if I were to run into most people from my high school, they'd probably greet me as "Ed!" True story.
I always enjoyed hearing my name sung in "Brigadoon", the "Heather on the Hill" song. Then I realized later that Heather is more like a weed than a flower. Or more technically, "an English word for the variety of small shrubs with pink or white flowers which commonly grow in rocky areas."
But a flowering weed must be far superior to an ordinary, non-flowering weed. Right?
As for the mono-syllabic version of my name, most commonly used by my brothers in days of yore, it seems "Heath" (short e sound) is one who lives on a heath. What's a heath? Why, "a wasteland overgrown with shrubs."
So it does seem I'm right back where I started. A weed. :)
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