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It's interesting that they coincide, and it might have been an influence, like I would think Bertha was an influence on Eartha, but I suspect it was not the primary reason Dreama would have been used in the central/southern Appalachians in the 1900s, considering word names were not that unusual there. I could see people thinking: Dream is a pretty word/concept, but maybe it'd mark me as low class, while adding an A would make it look even prettier, fancier, more official; and once they thought that, maybe it sounded familiar to them because of a rare preexisting name. Or it could be a heavily accented version of Dreamer, idk.

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That is just my impression, having lived in that area most of my life.

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It's possible it was from Angedreme, and people didn't know how to spell it or decided Dreama was more intuitive. I don't think it can be proved one way or the other.

This message was edited 3/4/2019, 7:40 PM