Eponine
Female, French. This is the name of a character in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. It's not in the database, but would it be realistic to think that it's derived from Epona, which is Gaulish? Does anyone have other etymological info on this name? TIA! :)~♥Eirena♥~A semicolon is worth approximately 5000 commas.

This message was edited 9/21/2005, 2:23 PM

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As far as I have been able to ascertain, Hugo did create Eponine for the character; it certainly doesn't seem to occur before his book. It would be a reasonable hypothesis that he created it from Epona, but unless someone who is an expert on Victor Hugo discovers a reference from him where he stated this specifically, this must remain an unconfirmed guess.
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Eponine, in the book, was named after a heroin in a book her mother liked. It was the same thing for Azelma.
" Later on, when her hair, arranged in a romantically drooping fashion, began to grow gray, when the Magaera began to be developed from the Pamela, the female Thenardier was nothing but a coarse, vicious woman, who had dabbled in stupid romances. Now, one cannot read nonsense with impunity. The result was that her eldest daughter was named Eponine; as for the younger, the poor little thing came near being called Gulnare; I know not to what diversion, effected by a romance of Ducray-Dumenil, she owed the fact that she merely bore the name of Azelma.However, we will remark by the way, everything was not ridiculous and superficial in that curious epoch to which we are alluding, and which may be designated as the anarchy of baptismal names. By the side of this romantic element which we have just indicated there is the social symptom. It is not rare for the neatherd's boy nowadays to bear the name of Arthur, Alfred, or Alphonse, and for the vicomte--if there are still any vicomtes--to be called Thomas, Pierre, or Jacques. This displacement, which places the "elegant" name on the plebeian and the rustic name on the aristocrat, is nothing else than an eddy of equality. The irresistible penetration of the new inspiration is there as everywhere else. Beneath this apparent discord there is a great and a profound thing,-- the French Revolution."
~~ Claire ~~
My ! are Alia, Eidel, Enola, Israel, Dudel, Yuri, Lina, Lorelei, Leilani, Owen, Julian, Glorinda, Mirinda

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Heroin - very deadly drug. Heroine - Female hero. :-)
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lol my freinds husband says wheres the difference woman are a deadly drug too, he is now running round the room trying to avoid being clobbered by his wife who is making very clear that she had better be the only woman he is addicted to :)A childs smile is worth more to me than Gold
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Thank you very much for that information! Now all we need to know is if there were any silly romance novel characters in now-forgotten French books of the period named Eponine, or if Hugo just made up the name to spoof those books. (I would tend to think the latter is more likely.)
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I'm looking for the name... Ducray Dumenil does exist, by the way, although he's now totally forgotten.
http://www.univ-rouen.fr/flaubert/bovary/bovary_6/notices/ducray.html
~~ Claire ~~
My ! are Alia, Eidel, Enola, Israel, Dudel, Yuri, Lina, Lorelei, Leilani, Owen, Julian, Glorinda, Mirinda
My ? are Hillel, Meshullam, Johnny, Ginny, Cordelia, Fiammetta, Yocheved
My ~ are Tehila, Tilda, Hailey, Gillian, Huldah
My / are Aglaia and July
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