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ArchivesNo idea about XIOMARA - just refering to VANESSA
in reply to a message by Cleveland Kent Evans
Hi, Cleveland,
I'm afraid I have nothing to say about XIOAMARA/CHIOMARA. I have never heard of either.
I was just wondering what you meant, when you said "as with the genus of butterflies called Vanessa, the butterflies were probably named after the legendary character." - What "legendary character" do you refer to in the case of VANESSA?
Also I'm taking the chance in a completely different matter: I will be going to the States for one year a week from now. I would love to call your new name book my own there. I wlll have one day in Seattle, before I go to a place with no internet. And I'm not sure whether I'll find a book store in Seattle that has your book in store. But I do have a Master Card. So would you please give me the exact data of your book (ISBN + title; I had all of this written down, but it got lost in the procedure of our move) once more so I can go and ask and have it sent to the place where I will be.
Also I am looking for a co-author for two projects I have in mind for the American market. Maybe you could E-mail me at:
mail@andreas-brosch.de
Thanks in advance!
Andy
I'm afraid I have nothing to say about XIOAMARA/CHIOMARA. I have never heard of either.
I was just wondering what you meant, when you said "as with the genus of butterflies called Vanessa, the butterflies were probably named after the legendary character." - What "legendary character" do you refer to in the case of VANESSA?
Also I'm taking the chance in a completely different matter: I will be going to the States for one year a week from now. I would love to call your new name book my own there. I wlll have one day in Seattle, before I go to a place with no internet. And I'm not sure whether I'll find a book store in Seattle that has your book in store. But I do have a Master Card. So would you please give me the exact data of your book (ISBN + title; I had all of this written down, but it got lost in the procedure of our move) once more so I can go and ask and have it sent to the place where I will be.
Also I am looking for a co-author for two projects I have in mind for the American market. Maybe you could E-mail me at:
mail@andreas-brosch.de
Thanks in advance!
Andy
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Replies
I have been on vacation for a while and so just saw this.
Sorry to confuse you by using the phrase "legendary character". The original Vanessa is a character in the poem by the Irish author Jonathan Swift titled Cadenus and Vanessa. He created the name to honor his friend Esther VanHomrigh by blending the Van from her surname with "-essa", short for Esther. So in Vanessa's case the "legend" is the one written by Swift.
Sorry to confuse you by using the phrase "legendary character". The original Vanessa is a character in the poem by the Irish author Jonathan Swift titled Cadenus and Vanessa. He created the name to honor his friend Esther VanHomrigh by blending the Van from her surname with "-essa", short for Esther. So in Vanessa's case the "legend" is the one written by Swift.
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VANESSA
Thanks for clearing this up, Cleve. We have had posters on this board with some remarkable ideas about Vanessa (Phanessa) being an ancient goddess meaning "butterflie". But I couldn't imagine you spreading such ideas.
Btw there is a species of butterflies called „Vanessa Fabricius 1807“. Which means it was named after a guy called Fabricius in the year 1807. And he was obviously a fan of Jonathan Swift. Or do you have any evidence that the given name Vanessa turned up before that time?
Thanks for clearing this up, Cleve. We have had posters on this board with some remarkable ideas about Vanessa (Phanessa) being an ancient goddess meaning "butterflie". But I couldn't imagine you spreading such ideas.
Btw there is a species of butterflies called „Vanessa Fabricius 1807“. Which means it was named after a guy called Fabricius in the year 1807. And he was obviously a fan of Jonathan Swift. Or do you have any evidence that the given name Vanessa turned up before that time?
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I think you have the name a little off. The butterfly genus wasn't named after Fabricius, it was named by Fabricius in 1807. I wrote an article on this issue titled How Vanessa Became a Butterfly: A Psychologist's Adventure in Entomological Etymology which appeared in 1993 in Names, the journal of the American Name Society.
The "Phanessa" idea is a corruption of a theory originally proposed by Flora Gaines Loughead, who wrote one of the first baby name books published in the USA, Dictionary of Given Names. Loughead actually said that Vanessa was from Phanes, the name of an obscure god (NOT a "goddess" called "Phanessa"). I think her theory is unlikely, because Fabricius, as an educated scientist of his generation, would have simply used Phanes as the name for the genus of butterflies if he wanted to name them after the god, instead of altering that name to Vanessa. It is much more likely that Fabricius named the genus after the character in Swift's poem, especially since this genus is most closely related to another genus called Nymphalidae, and the character Vanessa is called a "nymph" several times in Swift's poem.
The "Phanessa" idea is a corruption of a theory originally proposed by Flora Gaines Loughead, who wrote one of the first baby name books published in the USA, Dictionary of Given Names. Loughead actually said that Vanessa was from Phanes, the name of an obscure god (NOT a "goddess" called "Phanessa"). I think her theory is unlikely, because Fabricius, as an educated scientist of his generation, would have simply used Phanes as the name for the genus of butterflies if he wanted to name them after the god, instead of altering that name to Vanessa. It is much more likely that Fabricius named the genus after the character in Swift's poem, especially since this genus is most closely related to another genus called Nymphalidae, and the character Vanessa is called a "nymph" several times in Swift's poem.
This message was edited 8/24/2006, 2:41 PM
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Thanks for the info! This is really interesting!
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