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ArchivesRae meaning little deer?
There are some online sites that say that Rae means 'little deer' in Scandinavian. My first problem is that Scandinavian is not a language but a geographical area and there are several languages in said area. I tried looking up deer and fawn in the languages and could not find 'Rae' but is there any other evidence to support this connection?
~ SD
~ SD
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Replies
I think I got this one!
The "Oxford Dictionary of first names" has:
Rae - Probably a short form of Rachel, now generally taken as a feminine form of Ray or Raymond, or simply a derivative of "ray" meaning sunbeam.
[Now the good part!]
In some cases it may be a transferred use of the Scottish surname Rae, originally either a short form of MacRae (from a Gaelic personal name meaning "son of grace") or a nickname from the ROEBUCK.
So, it basically seems to come, via the surname, from the Scots name for the Roe Deer. The Scots (not Scottish Gaelic) word for "Roe deer" is actually "rae", as you can verify using this online Scots dictionary (http://www.scots-online.org/).
The etymology of "Roe" is (from Wiktionary):
Middle English ro from Old English rā, rāha "roe deer" from Proto-Germanic *raiχōn (“‘roe deer’”) from Proto-Indo-European base *rei- (“‘spotted, streaked’”). Compare Old Norse rá (Danish rå), Dutch ree, Old High German rēho ( German Reh "doe").
So, instead of Scandinavian, I would say Protogermanic, with Scandinavian equivalents (as well as German, Dutch, Frisian...).
The name for the Roe deer in other languages is:
Icelandic: rádýr
Faroese: rádýr
Norwegian: rådyr
Danish: rådyr
Swedish: rådjur
German: Reh
Dutch: ree
West Frisian: ree
The real problem is that most Name-Sites are completely unreliable and echoing each other mistakes...
The "Oxford Dictionary of first names" has:
Rae - Probably a short form of Rachel, now generally taken as a feminine form of Ray or Raymond, or simply a derivative of "ray" meaning sunbeam.
[Now the good part!]
In some cases it may be a transferred use of the Scottish surname Rae, originally either a short form of MacRae (from a Gaelic personal name meaning "son of grace") or a nickname from the ROEBUCK.
So, it basically seems to come, via the surname, from the Scots name for the Roe Deer. The Scots (not Scottish Gaelic) word for "Roe deer" is actually "rae", as you can verify using this online Scots dictionary (http://www.scots-online.org/).
The etymology of "Roe" is (from Wiktionary):
Middle English ro from Old English rā, rāha "roe deer" from Proto-Germanic *raiχōn (“‘roe deer’”) from Proto-Indo-European base *rei- (“‘spotted, streaked’”). Compare Old Norse rá (Danish rå), Dutch ree, Old High German rēho ( German Reh "doe").
So, instead of Scandinavian, I would say Protogermanic, with Scandinavian equivalents (as well as German, Dutch, Frisian...).
The name for the Roe deer in other languages is:
Icelandic: rádýr
Faroese: rádýr
Norwegian: rådyr
Danish: rådyr
Swedish: rådjur
German: Reh
Dutch: ree
West Frisian: ree
The real problem is that most Name-Sites are completely unreliable and echoing each other mistakes...
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