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ArchivesYou think "temper"'s a bad meaning?
in reply to a message by Martin
Take a look at Kennedy, Mallory, Gwandoya, or Achilles, to mention just a few. Sometimes names have negative meanings, and sometimes we don't know what the negative meaning is referring to. Many times, though, we do know the intention behind a negative meaning.
Some babies do indeed demonstrate strong tempers at birth or shortly after, so Toril could indeed be a descriptive name. (Similarly, Serena, meaning "calm, tranquil", could've been originally given to a baby who had a calm temperment.) Or one could interpret it the way you did, as "warrior's temper". Also, often a given name is actually a transferred surname with a negative meaning (like Kennedy), in which case the surname would've been originally given to an adult person as a descriptive term (some people do have misshapen heads, after all).
Other times, the parents may have been expressing the circumstances of the birth. Perhaps the child wasn't entirely wanted because the parents were too young, or the family was already as large as the parents could afford, or the child was born out of wedlock in cultures where such a thing wasn't approved of. But the child still needed a name, so the unhappy parents chose Gwandoya or Achilles to express their feelings.
Miranda
Some babies do indeed demonstrate strong tempers at birth or shortly after, so Toril could indeed be a descriptive name. (Similarly, Serena, meaning "calm, tranquil", could've been originally given to a baby who had a calm temperment.) Or one could interpret it the way you did, as "warrior's temper". Also, often a given name is actually a transferred surname with a negative meaning (like Kennedy), in which case the surname would've been originally given to an adult person as a descriptive term (some people do have misshapen heads, after all).
Other times, the parents may have been expressing the circumstances of the birth. Perhaps the child wasn't entirely wanted because the parents were too young, or the family was already as large as the parents could afford, or the child was born out of wedlock in cultures where such a thing wasn't approved of. But the child still needed a name, so the unhappy parents chose Gwandoya or Achilles to express their feelings.
Miranda
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