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Re: Rebecca
in reply to a message by Becca
It can be difficult in the case of very ancient names to know for sure where they were first used, and therefore what language they actually come from. That's one problem. Scholars have to work it out with the information they've got, which usually isn't enough for a final pronouncement. The other problem is that, if you think about it, 'snare' is a weird name for a baby but a pretty good one for an adult character in a story. So, what happened? Did a fictional lady need a name that summed up her character, like Shakespeare's Malvolio, and get given one by the storyteller? Did a real child have a name that meant something else but looked like the word for 'snare' in a related language? (I don't know the answer either - but those are some of the questions!)
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Thanks for this!
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