New Post
Search
Help
ArchivesNermine...or something like it
Soon, I will be having a foreign exchange student staying with me for a little while. I know that she is Egyptian, and I know that her name sort of sounds like Nermine. Does anyone happen to know the correct spelling and/or etymology of this lovely name?
1
Replies
Nermin comes from Turkish and from the websites I listed below, it means "soft." The spellings Nermeen and Nermine also exist because the Turkish name gets borrowed and transcripted into Arabic, then back again to fit the Latin alphabet. Names transcripted from Arabic can result in lots of different (but legitimate) spellings. This is why you see so many different spellings of Muhammad.
http://turkishculture.org/pages.php?ChildID=209&ParentID=12&ID=56&ChildID1=321&miMore=1
http://forum.kusadasi.biz/thread1961-2.html
http://turkishculture.org/pages.php?ChildID=209&ParentID=12&ID=56&ChildID1=321&miMore=1
http://forum.kusadasi.biz/thread1961-2.html
1
If the websites you quoted are what you are going by, be careful before concluding that it is a Turkish word. It appears that many of the names on those sites are actually from other languages like Arabic (a semitic language) or Farsi (an Indoeuropean language) giving names in other parts of the Muslim world as well: they are probably used in Turkey, and the authors did not mean that they are Turkish (i.e. the language in the Turkic family) words.
In particular, the north Indian word naram meaning soft comes from the Farsi word narm with the same meaning. Of course, I do not know Turkish, so narmin could also be a Turkic word, or a borrowing into Turkish, but please check.
In particular, the north Indian word naram meaning soft comes from the Farsi word narm with the same meaning. Of course, I do not know Turkish, so narmin could also be a Turkic word, or a borrowing into Turkish, but please check.
1
Merci beaucoup!
1