Comments (Meaning / History Only)
I read that the name is of Yiddish, Hebrew origin and means "beautiful" and "God is merciful".
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Shania is not a Native American name in the sense that it was traditionally used as a name in Ojibwe culture. However, after consulting with speakers of Ojibwe I am fairly sure that Ms. Twain's story of her Ojibwe stepfather creating the name from words in the Ojibwe language is correct. The name isn't spelled as an Ojibwe expert would spell it, but that is probably irrelevant since a great many speakers of Ojibwe in Canada are not literate in Ojibwe; they know how to speak Ojibwe, but only know how to write in English. Twain's stepfather, as a blue collar person, was almost surely someone who didn't know how to write the language.
Since I originally wrote the above Ms. Twain no longer attributes the name to her stepfather, but instead to a woman who was a coworker of hers at a resort in northern Ontario. However, I still believe the name was created by someone who knew a bit of Ojibwe but did not know how to spell the language, as "Ani aya'aa", pronounced "Ah-nih Eye-uh-ah", means "someone on the way" in Ojibwe. It is my guess (though only a guess) that the Sh- at the start of Shania comes from the English word "she". The Ojibwe language does not have gender in its third person pronouns, but instead a distinction between animate and inanimate objects. Precisely because the Ojibwe phrase doesn't have gender, someone who knew a bit of broken Ojibwe but wanted to make gender clear might stick "she" in front of "Ani aya'aa", and that would easily telescope into "Shania".
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Since I originally wrote the above Ms. Twain no longer attributes the name to her stepfather, but instead to a woman who was a coworker of hers at a resort in northern Ontario. However, I still believe the name was created by someone who knew a bit of Ojibwe but did not know how to spell the language, as "Ani aya'aa", pronounced "Ah-nih Eye-uh-ah", means "someone on the way" in Ojibwe. It is my guess (though only a guess) that the Sh- at the start of Shania comes from the English word "she". The Ojibwe language does not have gender in its third person pronouns, but instead a distinction between animate and inanimate objects. Precisely because the Ojibwe phrase doesn't have gender, someone who knew a bit of broken Ojibwe but wanted to make gender clear might stick "she" in front of "Ani aya'aa", and that would easily telescope into "Shania".
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Shania is an Ojibwa name meaning "I'm on my way".
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