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HelpRe: Fake Etymology
in reply to a message by Rachel Shaina
> would you accept "my hope" in Arabic as a valid etymology for Emmalee? (& does your opinion change if you know one of the parents is Arabic?)
I had to look up "valid" in the dictionary to answer this, because I thought I had 2 different answers. There are 2 kinds of definitions, sure enough - and my answer depends on which of them you meant.
1. executed with the proper legal authority and formalities / conforming to accepted principles of sound classification:
Nope, "my hope" for Emmalee is not valid, because it's neither proper and authoritative, nor conforming to accepted principles of how name etymologies are determined.
2. well-grounded or justifiable / being at once relevant and meaningful / appropriate to the end in view / effective:
Yes, it's valid, because it's justifiable considering the variability of transliteration, and there's nothing illogical about it at all, and it's relevant and meaningful and useful to those who are using the name and claiming it means that.
> are there any names that you pretend mean something else?
I prefer to pretend that Merrick has something to do with the sea, even though there's no evidence for that that I know of.
> come up with a fake but believable meaning for a name
I wouldn't claim that a name had a historical etymology / denotative meaning, no. But I could assign connotative meanings to invented names and names with unknown etymology, even if they are not etymological definitions.
Especially if the name isn't a common name (like Emmalee, whose relation to both Emily and Emma + Lee can't really be ignored). Nevaeh clearly "means" heaven whether that's authoritative or not. I could say Galahad means "knight" or Teruthifa means "true faith" -- it wouldn't be *fake* in the same sense that "beautiful lady" is a fake meaning for Andrea. It just wouldn't be in the same category of meaning, that names with etymologies have.
- mirfak
I had to look up "valid" in the dictionary to answer this, because I thought I had 2 different answers. There are 2 kinds of definitions, sure enough - and my answer depends on which of them you meant.
1. executed with the proper legal authority and formalities / conforming to accepted principles of sound classification:
Nope, "my hope" for Emmalee is not valid, because it's neither proper and authoritative, nor conforming to accepted principles of how name etymologies are determined.
2. well-grounded or justifiable / being at once relevant and meaningful / appropriate to the end in view / effective:
Yes, it's valid, because it's justifiable considering the variability of transliteration, and there's nothing illogical about it at all, and it's relevant and meaningful and useful to those who are using the name and claiming it means that.
> are there any names that you pretend mean something else?
I prefer to pretend that Merrick has something to do with the sea, even though there's no evidence for that that I know of.
> come up with a fake but believable meaning for a name
I wouldn't claim that a name had a historical etymology / denotative meaning, no. But I could assign connotative meanings to invented names and names with unknown etymology, even if they are not etymological definitions.
Especially if the name isn't a common name (like Emmalee, whose relation to both Emily and Emma + Lee can't really be ignored). Nevaeh clearly "means" heaven whether that's authoritative or not. I could say Galahad means "knight" or Teruthifa means "true faith" -- it wouldn't be *fake* in the same sense that "beautiful lady" is a fake meaning for Andrea. It just wouldn't be in the same category of meaning, that names with etymologies have.
- mirfak
This message was edited 6/21/2018, 8:58 PM
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