Message: "YUNA a slavonic name meaning „wished for“?"

YUNA a slavonic name meaning „wished for“?

by Andy ;—) (guest)

8/10/2018, 7:56 AM

I met a mother who claimed her daughter's name was slavonic and meant „desired, wished for“.
Now I haven't been able to find any proof for this. The mother says, she found in on the internet, but can't remember where.
Any clues?

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- thegriffon +5

8/11/2018, 6:29 AM

It's a rare name in the Slavonic languages, but юна (juna/yuna) appears to be the feminine singular of "young/youthul", Old Church Slavonic юнъ "Junu/Yunu" (spelling with a Y is according to English orthography). It's also the archaic Romanian feminine of june "youth/youthful" (from Latin) (pronounced yuna, but spelled in Romanian juna). The French dereivative of the Latin word is Jeune, which happens to be the French form of the Breton St. Juna/Yuna. There is no substantiated origin for the latter name, but there is a vague suggestion in claims the French form is Yvette that it may be linked to Iona, as if related to Breton iwin, Old Cornish hiuin "yews".

- Andy ;—) (guest) +4

8/11/2018, 10:52 PM

I had a chance to talk to that mother again. This time she said, JUNA/YUNA was not of Slavonic (she had been mistaken) but rather of Breton origin. The Celtic word iun means "wish", she says.
Can anybody confirm this?

- thegriffon +3

8/12/2018, 1:33 AM

It's one of the suggestions in the user submitted entry for (St.) Yuna here, but I can't find anything to support it. The obvious candidates for words meaning "wish" are Welsh gwŷn "lust" (cf. "ween"), Irish fonn (with /f/ for Welsh /gw/), gwell "prefer" (Cf. will); the Irish guí is abbreviated from guidhe "bid".

- Frollein Gladys +1

8/12/2018, 7:20 AM

"Iun" / "Idunet" seems to mean "wilful, desire" in Old Breton, at least according to the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique: http://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Research/BretonPatronymsBritishHeroicAge.pdf

Others seem to identify the "iun" element as being derived from "*ad-ioun" and compare it to Welsh "eiddunaw, addunaw" ("wish for, desire").

I can't vouch for any of those derivations at the moment, though.

- thegriffon

8/12/2018, 2:55 PM

If the latter you refer to is http://heatherrosejones.com/names/breton/daviesearlybreton.html, she seems unsure whether the -iun in the name Adiunus is that same as the Old Breton prefix Iun- in other names, not that -iun is derived from *ad-ioun (rather *Ad-ioun would be derived from *-ioun). Gary German, on the another hand assumes that the prefix Iun- is the same root as the -un- in Idunet (the names cited are actually recorded with -iunet and -diunet), following sources of the Welsh Dictionary, which has eidduned and Welsh eidduno as prefixed derivatives of *-iun- "wish, desire". The relevant Breton onomastic forms are Latinized *Adiunus (recorded in the genitive Adiuni; Welsh adj. eiddun desirable, eager), -iunet, ~diunet (Welsh n. eidduned "a wish, a desire …" from add- + *iuned); eiddunaw, addunaw cited by Heather Jones represent the form with verbal suffix -aw for -o (also -af).

- thegriffon

8/12/2018, 7:11 AM

Finally some etymological resources for Welsh, though not very deep: http://welsh-dictionary.ac.uk/gpc/gpc.html which has eiddunaf: eidduno [add- … +uno, *iuno 'to wish, desire', ]. Comparable forms exist in Old Breton as name elements (search for "Breton Patronyms and the British Heroic Age").

This message was edited 8/12/2018, 2:25 PM

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