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Re: Arenda
As Rene already said, it is a femine form of the name Arend that itself is a typical Low German, Dutch, or Frisian contraction of Arnold (or, fully spelled out, Arnwald). Creating femine forms from originally masculine names became trendy in Germany in the 18th and 19th century. Besides Arenda, also Arendine was popular then.
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Was that the first time that they conscripted Latinate endings into the culture?(I realize -ine is a French suffix, but it comes from the Latin -ina < -inus.)

This message was edited 12/7/2014, 4:27 PM

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No, it wasn't the first time, it only became popular than.The use of -a as a moving device to create feminine Germanic names goes back to the beginning of written history, it is attested specially for West Franconian in the 8th century (see Förstemann 1900 for examples).
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