Message: "Re: Morenike" - Behind the Name

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Re: Morenike

by Lethe (reniannen17)

3/13/2008, 12:40 PM

Thanks that's interesting. Funny they're so similar but I don't think it's the same name as Morenike, the people I saw with the name on myspace etc were definitely of African origin.

** You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them **

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- Anneza +1

3/13/2008, 11:08 PM

Well, Africa's big and includes the Mediterranean countries - whose inhabitants, once they became Muslims and invaded Spain, were known as Moors. So that'll be where Mme Claire's song came from. I think it's too far North to have influenced Yoruba, especially since the meaning is so different.

- Lumia

3/14/2008, 12:44 AM

Morenica is a Ladino word used as first name (it is very usual among 12th c.-15th c. Sephardic Jews). It comes from morena, "dark (haired or skinned)", with the diminutive suffix -ica. And it is the same in the actual Spanish (the use of the suffix -ico/-ica is very usual in Murcia, e.g., whereas in other dialects other suffixes are used: -uco/-uca, -illo/illa...).

The formal coincidence with the Yoruba Morenike is just that, a formal coincidence.

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