Indian name Avi
On this site, Avi is enlisted as a Hebrew name.However, news from Germany say that the actress Wolke Hegenbarth named her son Avi and that his name is actually Indian with meaning "sun; sunshine". Can someone shed a light on this potential etymology?--elbowin
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Avi in India is usually short of names that began with abhi or avi. The former is quite common because there is a Sanskrit prefix (cognate with Latin ob and OHG bi) meaning "towards" or similar meanings. The latter could be a spelling variant, but sometimes combination of the privative a with the prefix vi, meaning "apart" or similar. But, of relevance to this thread, the is an old (Rgvedic) root av, to propel or impel, which gives rise to avi. It has a lot of meanings including protector, wall, sheep, wind, mountain, menstruating woman but also sun. Some of these are certainly homonyms coming from a cognate of ewe, or other etyma. The sun could plausibly have come from the impel root though, since the dawn sun as the source of consciousness is a very common theme starting from Rgvedic period. So, avi need not be from ravi.
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It's a simple error for Ravi, a Hindi word for Sun. The common Indo-European cognate in Hindi is sooraj, and the most closely related languages use Sūrya or something very similar.

This message was edited 12/9/2019, 2:18 AM

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It sounds strange to drop an initial R just in error, but this is the best explanation so far.Thanks!
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Standard German Rs are nothing like English Rs. If the name and meaning were transmitted orally, she may have misheard the name, liked the meaning, but didn't realise that there was an initial R because it didn't sound like an R to her.
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While I can't confirm the meaning itself, I did go to school with an Indian kid named Avi. However, it was a shortened form of Avinash. Even if Avi isn't actually an Indian given name, it clearly is being used as a nickname.
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