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Help[Facts] Fanny
My great grandmother was bon in Latvia to a Jewish family and am assuming that she anglicised her first name to Fanny when she arrived in England (approx 1900). When looking for her gravestone, I noticed many women of that era who were also called Fanny. Would anyone have any ideas as to what the original name could have been?
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Fanny is usually a pet form of Frances. It was rather popular in the time period you mentioned, both as Fanny and Fannie. When "fanny" somehow became an euphemism for "buttocks", the name dropped out of usage. A famous bearer is cookbook author Fannie Farmer (1857-1915) (here's an online version of her cookbook: http://snipurl.com/99rw).
Click on the hyperlinks for more info on the name.
Miranda
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Miranda
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My (reputable!) dictionary gives the fanny = backside meaning as a twentieth-century one; but I'm suspicious - what about that dirty 18th-century novel, Fanny Hill? The author left no stone unturned or mons veneris unclimbed in his quest for a snigger! Probably the 20th century was when respectable people started admitting they knew the secret meaning!
As for where the secret meaning came from, it's anybody's guess, though my guess would be that it started off as an item of gay slang. Sort of like Nancy.
Incidentally, fanny in British English doesn't mean backside - more like front side - and it was startling to see Denis the Menace's mother in one cartoon strip telling Denis to get his wet fanny into the bathroom. All he'd done was stay out in the rain ...
As for where the secret meaning came from, it's anybody's guess, though my guess would be that it started off as an item of gay slang. Sort of like Nancy.
Incidentally, fanny in British English doesn't mean backside - more like front side - and it was startling to see Denis the Menace's mother in one cartoon strip telling Denis to get his wet fanny into the bathroom. All he'd done was stay out in the rain ...
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Lol, I had something similar as a kid - Australia uses the English meaning if they use it at all, and I remember reading in an American book that someone was "sitting on their fanny" . . . I wondered for ages why they would sit at such an uncomfortable angle!! Lol
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Additional to that . . .
. . . The most likely source of Fanny in your relative's case would be a Latvian or Yiddish version of Frances, or a Latvian or Yiddish name which resembles Fanny or Frances. I had a quick look and the only obvious condender was Freyde (click hyperlink for details), however I have no idea whether this was ever popular in Latvia - information on Latvian names is elusive unless you speak Latvian!
. . . The most likely source of Fanny in your relative's case would be a Latvian or Yiddish version of Frances, or a Latvian or Yiddish name which resembles Fanny or Frances. I had a quick look and the only obvious condender was Freyde (click hyperlink for details), however I have no idea whether this was ever popular in Latvia - information on Latvian names is elusive unless you speak Latvian!
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