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HelpAny ideas?
Browsing death records, as one does, I found this South African woman, born in 1924 and amazingly named Ambrenscia Fredrica Jacoba. Has anyone ever seen an Ambrenscia before? Any ideas about origin? It's a new one on me.
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Replies
I know an Amarencia (a young girl) which is similar to Ambrenscia but nothing else rings a bell.
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Could it be two names combined? Grandmothers/godmothers named Amber and Laurenscia?
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When I did a little research on the Internet, it seems to be a name from the geneology of old South African families (eg.a Dutch/Afrikaans name). Also, I noticed that when Ambrenscia is mentioned, there is sometimes a bracket with Emerentia beside it (eg. Ambrenscia (Emerentia)). Perhaps Ambrescia is a version of Emerentia.
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It is certainly an Afrikaans name, as shown by the bearer's two middle names. Ambrenscia and Emerentia have a few letters in common, but I'm puzzled by the differences: I don't see how one could be a version of the other, because I can't imagine how the changes came about, and why.
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If I say Emerentia quickly and sloppily enough, with a little twang - Em'rent-sha - it sounds enough like "Ambrenscia," that I could believe it might have been written down as a guess, by someone who was familiar with the the name Ambrose, but not with Emerentia. ?? Of course saying I could imagine it, isn't worth much! but anyway that's something I could imagine.
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