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I've been wondering about Vanessa for a long time. This site says that it was taken from two names, Vanhomrigh and Esther. Since Vanessa was taken from these two legitimate names that have meanings, why does Vanessa not have a legitimate meaning as well? Particularly, why does it not have a partial meaning of 'star' because of its assocation with Esther?
Thanks!
Melissa
Thanks!
Melissa
1
Replies
Who says, Vanessa has no meaning? At least for Swift it had a lot of meaning as it represented the name of a lady he was very fond of at a time. I don't believe he thought much about the meaning of Esther as "star" or about the biblical character. He just put the two parts together and created a new name. The combination itself is not meaningful at all beyond the fact that it is taken from parts of the names of a real person.
The same applies to a lot of composite names, especially of Germanic origin. Take HEDWIG which translates "fight-fight". It was a fashion of the time to combine elements from the father's side and from the mother's - no matter whether they went along with each other. So it makes sense to tell the meaning of each of the elements but not of the whole name. Or in modern times there is HANS-JÜRGEN and KARL-HEINZ in Germany as given names, but they don't really mean anything except Hans means "God has granted" and Jürgen means "framer".
In the case of VANESSA it is obvious that the combination is arbitrary. But of course you can say that there is a "star" shining through Vanessa. But I don't think many people naming their daughter Vanessa see that.
Andy ;—)
The same applies to a lot of composite names, especially of Germanic origin. Take HEDWIG which translates "fight-fight". It was a fashion of the time to combine elements from the father's side and from the mother's - no matter whether they went along with each other. So it makes sense to tell the meaning of each of the elements but not of the whole name. Or in modern times there is HANS-JÜRGEN and KARL-HEINZ in Germany as given names, but they don't really mean anything except Hans means "God has granted" and Jürgen means "framer".
In the case of VANESSA it is obvious that the combination is arbitrary. But of course you can say that there is a "star" shining through Vanessa. But I don't think many people naming their daughter Vanessa see that.
Andy ;—)
1
i have that VANESSA, VANNY, VANN, PHANESSA, AND VANNA is a greek form of PHANES, "a BUTTERFLY"...Phanessa a greek divinity, is a genus of butterflies...and gose on to say "one of the loves of DEAN SWIFT" ....does this go with what you have?
i also know HANS to be a form of JOHN hebrew "god is gracious", just to cross referance....
i also know HANS to be a form of JOHN hebrew "god is gracious", just to cross referance....
1
"...say if th'hadst rather hear it from our mouths, Or from our masters.." - macbeth
...Bare with me, maybe we can solve this.....
__________________________________
In the book(s):
'let's name the baby' (C.R. Gibson company 1978) Vanessa "butterfly"
The 1st reference was from 'What to name the baby: a treasury' by Evelyn Wells does say "from the greek phanes, ....vanessa was one of the loves of dean swift"
The Phanessa is under greek, vanna under italian, but not for (vania) under russian -is a form of jane/john. This book is copyright 1946.
National Audubon socity field guide to NA butterflies, American painted lady "hunter's butterfly and virginia lady" Vanessa virginaiensis former V.huntera (+vanessa anabella, atalanta, etc)....
Websters' unabridged 20thc - Vanessa .n. [gr phanes an orphic (mystic) divinity]
Funk & Wagnalls new desk std diction. copy. 1948 "-phane, -phany -- combining form from greek phaneros, visible"
+ (ph) pronounced (f) the phenician (vau), through the hebrew (vau),(v )also phenician(vau) into greek upsilon (and we know latin (v) pronounced (w)-foot note), (v) interchangeible with (u) [maybe vaunessa/vanessa ??]
***fun fact
Merriam-webster english usage
au = ou, v = ve in sound
{THIS in mind}Known as a/an
'ETYMOLOGICAL FALLACY'
states "is a term used by philologists and linguists to describe the insistence that a word in present day english derivied from a foreign (and especially greek or latin) word must have the same meaning as the foreign word or must have it's meaning limited in some way....one thing to remember when you read or hear someone insisting that an english word must have a certain meaning because of its' latin or greek roots is that these insisters apply their etmologies very selectively ....", Ex:"...DECEMBER used for the 12th month, when latin root means 'ten', manure being used as a noun meaning 'dung' originally a verb meaning 'to work (land) by hand' " - Merriam-webster english usage
...Bare with me, maybe we can solve this.....
__________________________________
In the book(s):
'let's name the baby' (C.R. Gibson company 1978) Vanessa "butterfly"
The 1st reference was from 'What to name the baby: a treasury' by Evelyn Wells does say "from the greek phanes, ....vanessa was one of the loves of dean swift"
The Phanessa is under greek, vanna under italian, but not for (vania) under russian -is a form of jane/john. This book is copyright 1946.
National Audubon socity field guide to NA butterflies, American painted lady "hunter's butterfly and virginia lady" Vanessa virginaiensis former V.huntera (+vanessa anabella, atalanta, etc)....
Websters' unabridged 20thc - Vanessa .n. [gr phanes an orphic (mystic) divinity]
Funk & Wagnalls new desk std diction. copy. 1948 "-phane, -phany -- combining form from greek phaneros, visible"
+ (ph) pronounced (f) the phenician (vau), through the hebrew (vau),(v )also phenician(vau) into greek upsilon (and we know latin (v) pronounced (w)-foot note), (v) interchangeible with (u) [maybe vaunessa/vanessa ??]
***fun fact
Merriam-webster english usage
au = ou, v = ve in sound
{THIS in mind}Known as a/an
'ETYMOLOGICAL FALLACY'
states "is a term used by philologists and linguists to describe the insistence that a word in present day english derivied from a foreign (and especially greek or latin) word must have the same meaning as the foreign word or must have it's meaning limited in some way....one thing to remember when you read or hear someone insisting that an english word must have a certain meaning because of its' latin or greek roots is that these insisters apply their etmologies very selectively ....", Ex:"...DECEMBER used for the 12th month, when latin root means 'ten', manure being used as a noun meaning 'dung' originally a verb meaning 'to work (land) by hand' " - Merriam-webster english usage
1
Thank you for this wave of information! I'll have to study it a little closer as soon as I'm on my feet again. Shakespeare really struck me …
I don't know any of the name books you mention, but maybe I'll be able to get hold of them some time. I've got two American name books and they are no good, but maybe I just got the wrong books. As a general rule I found: the less baby faces with big grins on the cover, the more reliable the book. So maybe you just check the cover …
What I'll try to check: Was VANESSA used as the name for the butterfly before Swift's poem? What do we actually know about that goddess and what happened to her name?
I like your quotation about "etymological fallacy". Now in the case of given names things are a bit more complicated. Philologists working on names do not so much ask about the etymological background but rather about the name giving motive. And sometimes this has little to do with scientific explanations given from today's point of view. Sometimes we talk about "folk etymology" with a condescending smile on our faces. But we can't say that people at a time misunderstood a certain name, they understood it in a different way. You'll find a lot of this in the Hebrew bible: the original meaning of JACOB for instance is "God protects", others say it's from an Ethiopian word meaning "Steinhuhn" ("rock chicken" or something like that). But at one point it was comprehended as "holding the heel" or "sneaking behind the heels" (> to betray) and there is a good story to this. From then on almost everybody who named his child JACOB thought of JACOB the betraying heelholder (if he thought of anything at all).
Now what is the "better" meaning? What is more original? And where does "etymological fallacy" come in? But on this board, I understand, any piece of information is of interest, if it helps to get the history of a name straight. And this is why I always try to ask: what was first? What happened later and why was this? A lot of times people misunderstood a name or a part of it and thus changed it to what they thought made more sense. To me this is the most interesting part of chasing wild geese.
I don't know any of the name books you mention, but maybe I'll be able to get hold of them some time. I've got two American name books and they are no good, but maybe I just got the wrong books. As a general rule I found: the less baby faces with big grins on the cover, the more reliable the book. So maybe you just check the cover …
What I'll try to check: Was VANESSA used as the name for the butterfly before Swift's poem? What do we actually know about that goddess and what happened to her name?
I like your quotation about "etymological fallacy". Now in the case of given names things are a bit more complicated. Philologists working on names do not so much ask about the etymological background but rather about the name giving motive. And sometimes this has little to do with scientific explanations given from today's point of view. Sometimes we talk about "folk etymology" with a condescending smile on our faces. But we can't say that people at a time misunderstood a certain name, they understood it in a different way. You'll find a lot of this in the Hebrew bible: the original meaning of JACOB for instance is "God protects", others say it's from an Ethiopian word meaning "Steinhuhn" ("rock chicken" or something like that). But at one point it was comprehended as "holding the heel" or "sneaking behind the heels" (> to betray) and there is a good story to this. From then on almost everybody who named his child JACOB thought of JACOB the betraying heelholder (if he thought of anything at all).
Now what is the "better" meaning? What is more original? And where does "etymological fallacy" come in? But on this board, I understand, any piece of information is of interest, if it helps to get the history of a name straight. And this is why I always try to ask: what was first? What happened later and why was this? A lot of times people misunderstood a name or a part of it and thus changed it to what they thought made more sense. To me this is the most interesting part of chasing wild geese.
1
thanks for repling....
to follow your thought, that's why i was drawn to the book ('What to name the baby: a treasury of names' by Evelyn Wells) after borrowing it from a library many a time...this writer did research and at the time one of the only book that didn't say "...name you child MADONNA after the popular singer..."....not my idea of meaning..?
this was a passing thought explored
OneWorldTree geneology records have vanessa as a surname (in the UK)
i won't keep you on this subject, for there are soon many more, feel better soon..shannon
to follow your thought, that's why i was drawn to the book ('What to name the baby: a treasury of names' by Evelyn Wells) after borrowing it from a library many a time...this writer did research and at the time one of the only book that didn't say "...name you child MADONNA after the popular singer..."....not my idea of meaning..?
this was a passing thought explored
OneWorldTree geneology records have vanessa as a surname (in the UK)
i won't keep you on this subject, for there are soon many more, feel better soon..shannon
1
What you write, sounds very interesting. I knew a genus of butterfly was called Vanessa but I never found out why. I even mailed to a professor of biology, a butterfly expert, but he didn't know either.
We would have to ask some other biologist, when those butterflies were first called VANESSA; it may not have been before Swift invented the name (this is at least what some sites say: "VANESSA: Invented by author Jonathan Swift. He arrived at it by rearranging the initial syllables of the first name and surname of Esther Vanhomrigh, his close friend. Vanessa was l a t e r used as the name of a genus of butterfly." http://www.geocities.com/nyyrdasmidja/Eigennamen.html) But even in case the butterfly was called Vanessa, before Swift created the name, I don't know whether he was aware of that fact. What book is it you are quoting, when you say "… one of the loves of Dean Swift …"?
Another interesting question is: Was VANESSA used as a given name before Swift wrote his poem? At least in Germany and France the name doesn't appear before the late 60s of the 20th century, but I don't know about England. Do you? Does anybody else?
As far as I know biologists usually take their names for plants and animals from Latin or else they latinize names from other languages. So why would they turn PH to V? Greek words or names in Latin always keep their PH, so why not here? This makes me curious - and suspicious of that theory.
Now I looked up PHANES in various dictionaries and what I found was that he (! I couldn't find Phanessa) was the first God in the creation of the world in a religious system called Orphicism. No butterfly though according to my books, in ancient times his name was derived from the Greek word "phaino" which means "appear" (he was the first God to appear, I suppose). So if you know more about Phanes and butterfly, I'd be very interested in that bit.
So please let me know where your information is taken from. Thanx!
Andy ;—)
We would have to ask some other biologist, when those butterflies were first called VANESSA; it may not have been before Swift invented the name (this is at least what some sites say: "VANESSA: Invented by author Jonathan Swift. He arrived at it by rearranging the initial syllables of the first name and surname of Esther Vanhomrigh, his close friend. Vanessa was l a t e r used as the name of a genus of butterfly." http://www.geocities.com/nyyrdasmidja/Eigennamen.html) But even in case the butterfly was called Vanessa, before Swift created the name, I don't know whether he was aware of that fact. What book is it you are quoting, when you say "… one of the loves of Dean Swift …"?
Another interesting question is: Was VANESSA used as a given name before Swift wrote his poem? At least in Germany and France the name doesn't appear before the late 60s of the 20th century, but I don't know about England. Do you? Does anybody else?
As far as I know biologists usually take their names for plants and animals from Latin or else they latinize names from other languages. So why would they turn PH to V? Greek words or names in Latin always keep their PH, so why not here? This makes me curious - and suspicious of that theory.
Now I looked up PHANES in various dictionaries and what I found was that he (! I couldn't find Phanessa) was the first God in the creation of the world in a religious system called Orphicism. No butterfly though according to my books, in ancient times his name was derived from the Greek word "phaino" which means "appear" (he was the first God to appear, I suppose). So if you know more about Phanes and butterfly, I'd be very interested in that bit.
So please let me know where your information is taken from. Thanx!
Andy ;—)
1