Submitted Name Revision History

Meaning uncertain. In the English-speaking world, the name might perhaps be a combination of the English word sun with the French feminine diminutive suffix -ette, which would essentially give the name the meaning of "little sun". Alternatively, the name could also be a combination of two existing given names, namely Susan (or Susanna) with any name ending in -nette, such as Annette and Jeanette.

In the Netherlands and South Africa (whose national languages are very closely related), the name might perhaps be a variant form of names like Sünne and Sünneke (which tend to be Frisian and Low German in origin, but such names often manage to find their way in their cousin languages, namely Dutch and Afrikaans), but then with the French feminine diminutive suffix -ette added. And in South Africa, there is also the possibility that (at least in some cases) this name could be a (more or less) gallicized form of an African given name - more precisely, a name that is found in the numerous Bantu languages that are spoken in South Africa.

Lastly, it should be noted that this name is quite similar in appearance to the English word sonnet (which is also the same in Dutch and Afrikaans), which is ultimately derived from Old Occitan sonet meaning "little song". Given the difference in pronunciation between sonnet and Sunette, it is probably quite unlikely that Sunette could be derived from sonnet in some cases, but perhaps this possibility shouldn't be entirely discounted, seeing as Sonnet is actually in use as a given name and therefore spelling variations (even non-intuitive ones) of it are very likely to exist.

Known bearers of this given name are the South African cricketer and javelin thrower Sunette Viljoen (b. 1983) and the South African former cricketer Sunette Loubser (b. 1982).