Magel
Magel is my middle name, and I'm slightly obsessed with it. The story from my family is that it's a form of the patron saint of expectant mothers, but I'm not really sure.Any help.It's feminine, it was my grandmother's first name and is the first name of the wife of the creator of star trek apparently.
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The saint you must be referring to is St. Gerard Majella. Majella has been used as a feminine name in his honor, especially in Ireland. But I'm not sure that would be the origin of Magel or Majel. From Googling, Magel seems to be a German surname. However, it's not listed in my available reference books, the closest being Mägerl, which is a German name going back to Latin macer, "thin, delicate," according to Hanks & Hodges's A Dictionary of Surnames.
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On the note of it being a surname:this is what ancestry.com gives for a meaning:magel
Dutch: from a female personal name derived from the Germanic female personal name Machthild, composed of the elements macht ‘strength’, ‘might’ + hild ‘strife’, ‘battle’. Another possible origin is that it comes from Mageltje (meaning Little Magel), which is a form of Mage, this name is a Frisian derived from the verb "mogen" which used to mean: be able to / can.(spectrum voornamen boek)Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

This message was edited 10/24/2006, 1:21 AM

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