Gonneke
Just came across this Dutch (?) female name...does anyone know of it's meaning/origins?
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Thanks everyone!This might come across as 'shameless self-promotion' but I have a post on the writing board about Dutch names. For those of you who know about Dutch names (the usage of), you wouldn't mind helping me out, would you?
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The -ke suffix is a dimunitive. I suppose Gonneke comes from a name like Hildegonda.
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It's also a variant of Gonda. Other variants: Gonne, Gonnie, Gonny.
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Educated guess here:Gonneke looks like it belongs to the same "name family" as (feminine) Gonna, Gönke, Gontje, Göntje, Göntie, Gonnel and (masculine) Gonner, Gonke, Gonne, Gonn, etc. - all of which are East Frisian and North Frisian names derived from the element "gond" and ultimately from Old High German "gund", meaning "war".Seeing as we are talking about a name here which is (presumably) used in the Netherlands, the Frisian variety you are looking for would be West Frisian (provided that it is a Frisian name in the first place); however, should this name really be of Frisian origin, I doubt that there would be any major differences regarding the meaning...
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The suffix -neke is a feminisation. I suppose Gon is the root, though I'm not exactly sure where that might come from. Perhaps it's a form of Johannes (the Dutch form of John), so that would make Gonneke a feminine form of Johannes.
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Which language does the -neke suffix hail from?At first glance, I see |gunaikos| (Gr. "womanly").
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The suffix Quill referred to is not so much -neke, but rather simply -ke.
This -ke is originally a Low German diminutive suffix (compare names like Anke); however, it has also been used to feminize masculine names for centuries.

This message was edited 9/19/2014, 4:47 PM

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