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ArchivesRe: What does the name Estaurófila mean?
in reply to a message by I like old names
"Staurofila" is the title of a novel written by Mexican author Maria Nestora Tellez in 1889.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staurofila
The novel is a Christian religious allegory with character names evidently invented by the author. My guess is that Tellez created "Staurofila" as the name for her heroine by Hispanicizing the Greek roots of the names Stavros and Teofila to come up with something that meant "friend/lover of the cross".
Then I would guess the rare Hispanic name Estaurófila comes from people in Spanish speaking countries assuming that the full form of "Staurofila" would be Estaurófila in the same way that their full form of Stefania would be Estefania.
That's my theory for this name, anyway. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staurofila
The novel is a Christian religious allegory with character names evidently invented by the author. My guess is that Tellez created "Staurofila" as the name for her heroine by Hispanicizing the Greek roots of the names Stavros and Teofila to come up with something that meant "friend/lover of the cross".
Then I would guess the rare Hispanic name Estaurófila comes from people in Spanish speaking countries assuming that the full form of "Staurofila" would be Estaurófila in the same way that their full form of Stefania would be Estefania.
That's my theory for this name, anyway. :)
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Replies
Téllez (1828-1890) may have invented most of the names of her characters, but not necessarily Staurofila.
The name Staurofila already appears in Camino real de la cruz (1721), which is one of the earliest Spanish translations of Regia Via Crucis (1635), an important counter-reformation devotional emblem book written by the Dutch-born Flemish Benedictine monk Benedictus van Haeften (1588-1648). It was his most important work and was translated thirteen times (among others into Dutch, French, German and Spanish). The main character of his book is called Staurophila, whose name was hispanicized to Staurofila in the Spanish translations of the book. In the Dutch and German translations her name remains Staurophila, whilst in the French translations it became Staurophile.
Given the religious nature of Téllez' novel, it is within the realm of possibility that Téllez read Camino real de la cruz during her life and was ultimately inspired to name the protagonist of her novel after the main character of that book.
Sources used:
• http://www.cartusiana.org/node/4831 (in Dutch)
• https://www.quaritch.com/books/haeften-benedictus-van/regia-via-crucis/C1888/ (in English)
• https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedictus_van_Haeften#Regia_via_crucis (in Spanish; also mentions Staurofila)
• Camino real de la cruz (1721): https://books.google.de/books?id=B6JyFHU8DegC&pg=PA7 (in Spanish; this is one of the pages of the book where you can see that the main character is called Staurofila in Spanish)
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