Opinion wanted...
Hello all,I am considering the name "Porsche" for my un-born daughter, here is some history behind the name: PORTIA (f) From the Roman family name Porcius, which means "pig". This is the name of a character in Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice' who disguises herself as a man in order to defend Antonio in court.
Any thoughts?Thank you!Dan
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Replies

I see you're trying to get us going...According to the baby name sources, Portia doesn't mean pig. It's Latin for "offering"
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You can't always trust some of those baby name sources...When they chose to pretty up the name of "Portia" they may have been making making a stretch in defining it as meaning "offering". The actual Latin word for "offering" is "donum" or "sacrificium". The Latin word "portio" *might* be a synonym for "offering", as it literally means "a part, section, division, portion", which presumably could be taken to mean something akin to a "tithe".Except the word "Portio" is already a feminine noun in Latin. If it was meant to be a female's name, then there would have been no need to further feminize it by changing the "o" ending to an "a".I'm more inclined to believe that the name "Portia" is derived from the famous Roman gens of "Porcius" -- one notable historic "Porcia" having been the sister of the younger Cato and wife of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the Imperatorial General in the time of Julius Caesar.-- Nanaea
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BBQ time!...umm, regarging Portia I think "offering" is merely a politically-korrect euphemism for pig-slaughter :P
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Hahahaha!!!Still laughing...
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Still? Its only been a few secondz :P
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That was a funny one!OK, I'm done laughing now. :) Hee hee. Oops. OK, I'm done now.
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Portia TurbeWhy dont you go all the way and also give your daughter the middle name *Turbe* (pronounced TEAR-v)
*Turbe* means "confusion, tumult" in Greek (and is the root of the word Turbo).
Then all you need is to change your surname to Carrera.
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Caveat EmptorOn the other hand, Portia Turbe Carrera yields the anagram: "Repair a carburettor".
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It is Farrari and not Porsche which is in the lead of formular 1It is farrari and not Porsche , which is in the lead of Formular 1,
so if he is into cars he should rather call his daughter something connected to horses like ROSALIND*smiles*
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I knew I would open a can of worms here..As a Shake Speare fan, I loved the play, from whence I first heard the name..However, I wish the name Portia had a different "meaning"... I guess I will consider further "Portia"...And "no" I am not Mr. Clay but my father who is a tailor from Brussel's Beligium had Mr Clay as one of his clientle (funny you should mention that... LOL..).Dan
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Your dad knew ADC? Heheh, I like the story Howard Stern tells about his buddy, ADC, and how they almost became neighbors here on Long Island. Except ADC freaked out when he discovered that the shore town (Bayshore) which he was about to move into had the telephone exchange of "666". So he changed his mind.I think he steered clear of Amityville, too. Wotta wuss.-- Nanaea
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You're gonna give your daughter a name which you already know means "pig"? You wouldn't be Andrew Dice Clay, would you?
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YUCK! Don't name her after the car!Name after the Shakespearean character, Portia.Your homework is to watch "A Fish Called Wanda" again.
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Dan, Dan...whatever are you thinking? A rear-engined swinish cross-dresser? Not a nice thing to do to a little child.Seriously, why not just use the proper spelling? It's perfectly good. I've seen "Porsche" used as a girl's name, but always assumed that the parents were ignorant of the proper spelling. IMHO, it smacks of "trailer park".- Da.
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Antitrailerparkism: the last of the non-taboo racisms :P
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Au contraire, Monsieur Pav. In our neck of the woods we have many more...
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Yeah, I guess we here too have this thing 'bout them miserable fat Belgian sprouts...
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Hey! Be nice! Jesus hung out with trailer park people.:P
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...isnt that when Jesus wept?
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No, silly... I may be Jewish, but I'm pretty sure...he wept because he was washing someone's feet with his tears and then dried them with his hair. Yeah. That's it. :)
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You're Jewish? Then do you believe that Jesus was the Messiah, or not?
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I'm Jewish! I believe...that Jesus was the son of Mary and Panther!
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My family is Jewish; I believe......that Jesus was *somebody's* son. Possibly Panther's. Not God's son.
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I's just joking...trying to make you laugh. I never heard of Panther before Pavlos mentioned it!
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LOL! :)
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Does a woman *have* to be Jewish to be witty and charming on BtN?Lemme paraphrase a quote whose origin I forget...
The four most influential world personalities were all Jewish:
One tought that everything depends on one's mind (Albert)
One tought that everything depends on one's heart (Jesus)
One tought that everything depends on one's stomach (Karl)
One tought that everything depends on the region beneath one's stomach (Sigmund) :P
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LOL!:p
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No, but it helps. ;)Excerpted from *The Head of Alvice*, by the German Nobel Laureate, Lina Wertmuller:"Well, first came Moses, illuminated on Mount Sinai, he raised his hands toward the sky to receive the laws. And gave the first great explanation of life: 'Everything comes from the heavens.'"Then came the wise man, Solomon. He lowered his hands from the sky to the forehead. 'Everything comes from wisdom, from the life and justice of intelligence. Everything comes from the head.'"Christ came along after a few years. He lowered his hands from the head to the heart. 'Everything is love, love thy neighbour as thyself, everything comes from your heart.'"That worked well until Marx came around and lowered his hands from his heart to the stomach. 'Here, everything comes from the belly.'"But a few years after came Freud. He slid his hands down further, if you will excuse me, down to the amatory, libidinous parts. He explained that the true sense of everything originated there - Eros, Psyche, Folly, Art and Life and Death. 'Everything is summed up there, in sex.'"Finally, Einstein leapt to his feet and stopped them all. 'Careful, boys, careful. Everything is relative.' "
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Cool :) Thanks for tracking it down Nan
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Correction...Author Lina Wertmuller wasn't the Nobel Laureate -- her book was about a Nobel Laureate.-- Naneaa
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You respond fast! Anyway, of the above, I'd say that the second one is correct. Beginning to see where I stand? My question for Nanaea was just out of curiosity. You see, I'd love to get in a theological debate with somebody.
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You didn't ask Nan, you asked me.:p
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Isnt "theological debate" a contradiction in terms? I mean do we debate about what the sex of an angel is? Or if a ventriloquist's dummy joins him in purgatory? Debate is based on facts. Theology on beliefs. They are mutually exclusive.
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Theological debateA theological debate is *about* what you believe. Not entirely on the subject, I'd like to state that one person plus God is a majority, even verses dozens and dozens of other people. (:By the way, what exactly did you mean when you said 'does a woman have to be Jewish to be witty and charming?'
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NOT so....I'm not referring to you personally here, so don't take this the wrong way. But I've gotta tell you something, Amigo...One religious fanatic plus his delusional conviction that "God" is on his side does NOT constitute "a majority", with all the implications that go along with that premise, such as the majority's generally accepted right to dictate law and social mores to the so-called "minority". In this case, the minority being those of us who do not choose to embrace "God" -- or Jesus -- as our buddy.Furthermore, this is the wrong message board for "theological debates". We've got Christians, Jews, a Jewitch, a Satanist, a Greek Neo-pagan and at least one Agnostic as "regulars" on this board -- all getting along just fine and feeling no need to "debate" each other's personal beliefs.What's to debate? That one person's religious or non-religious beliefs are wrong, and another's is right? What's the purpose of debating that? Nothing good, I can tell you that right now.Sorry, Amigo. The folks here are way too cool for that kinda stuff. That kinda stuff just becomes grist for our humor mills.-- Nanaea
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Couple of "Theological Debate" anagrams!Oh God! Acetate libel!
Acted lethal boogie
Heated coital globe
Oh God! celibate teal
Hot bloated elegiac
Hooted celibate gal
Loathe celibate God
Bloated ethical ego
Bigoted hate locale
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LOL! Anagram of "Theological Debater""Theodoric Bagatelle" ("bagatelle" being defined as "an unimportant thing of little value.")-- Nanaea
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Ingenious Nanaea!!!! I think this is one of your strongest 'grams!...considering the fact that Theodoric is derived from *Theodorikon*, meaning "Related ('-ikon') to a gift('doron') from god ('theos')"!!!Note to Mike C: You may consider also adding the above to your etymology for Theodoric :)
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I beg to differ, mon ami. Historical sources would indicate that Theodoric was probably aware of the fortunate similarity of his name to the Greek for "gift from God", and may have capitalized on it in a leadership sense. So your comment is certainly a valid contribution to the name's etymology.However, I believe the original derivation of his name is not Greek but Gothic: Thiudareikhs, "Ruler of the People". I doubt if there were many Greek speakers on the island of Gotland, the Baltic Swedish area from whence these hosers migrated south quite early in the A.D.'s.And lest our fellow BtNers have heard it wrong since grammar school (as I did), it's thee-ODD-o-ric, not thee-o-DOR-ic.- Wizzy
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*Pas du tout, mon vieux* Our friendly hoser Thiudareikhs/Dietrich did attend a work/study program in Eastern Rome during his youth, where he apparendly did decide to capitalize on the similarity of his name to "gift from God". AdHellenizing one's name was quite *en vogue* at the time. Examples include Israelite historian Joseph ben Mattathias who adopted Flavios Iosipos (or Flavius Josephus) as his *nom de plume*
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A final word on TheodoricThe name Theodrichos (pronounced theoDORichos) is cited in *Lexicon of Greek Personal Names* (an Oxford University project, http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/names2.html) as a bona fide central Greek name.The above compilation excludes Byzantine-era names, so it appears that the Theodoric/Theodorichos was in fact not a name coined by our Gothic friend.
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That website describes its scope as excluding LATER Byzantine names, not ALL names from the Byzantine era. It also says it includes names up to the 6th century and "non-Greek names recorded in Greek".Keeping this in mind, I think that it is possible that the single Theodorichos from central Greece could have had a Hellenized Gothic name. In fact, this person could be THE Theodoric himself!
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Mea culpa, I didnt read the fine print diligently :P
Think the Theodorichos from central Greece was our Dietrich ? I've seen stranger coincidences happen! Who knows, your guess is a good as mine :)
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Are you suggesting that the Gothic chief Theodoric had a Greek name or are you suggesting that there was a separate name Theodorikon? I think the latter would be much more likely. The Roman form of Theodorikon could have influenced the spelling of Theodoric , or perhaps the Greek name directly influenced the Germanic name, since the Ostrogoths settled somewhere just to the north of Greece before they moved towards Italy, if I recall correctly.
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I agree the latter is far more plausible :)
According to one source (http://www.btinternet.com/~mark.furnival/theodor.htm) "the boy was christened Dietrich , a common name amongst the Germans of that era. In Late Latin, the name translated as Theodoricus and the boy grew up to become the man known to history as Theodoric the Great."I am not too sure about the relevance of the "late-latin" part, as Greek was the *lingua franca* of the Easter Roman ("Byzantine") empire.Spot-on, Mike !
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Thank you! I hadn't even thought about the Theodoric etymology. :)
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Actually, I thought you were posing that question to Andrea. I'm Nanaea (Hi!).And, I'm a Satanist. :)-- Nanaea
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SorryI was confusing you and Andrea. My mistake.But just a minute. You're a Satanist? What's that? I mean, I'd like to hear it directly from you.
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S'okay :)Don't have much time to give you a crash course in Satanism, Amigo, as I'm about to sign off right now.Try this website for some answers:www.satanism101.com-- Nanaea
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Some other time thenAdios!
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Spelling boo-boo: "taught" instead of "tought"
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Yep......being a fluffer for the trailer park foot-fetish movie industry can be a crying experience ...
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Oh, I see...that scene is shown on the trailer for a movie?:P
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Which took place in a park?:P
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Yep, I saw the trailer. The movie is called "Jesussic Park" and it is based on the ideas presented on http://www.clonejesus.com/
According to the film director, "...it'll be especially entertaining when Chaos Theory catches up with the Jesus cloners, and all the cloned Jesuses get loose and go on a rampage, whacking people's heads off left and right with their crucifixes..."
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Another nostalgic flashback, eh Nan? :P
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Hahahaha! Was that something I posted here, or e-mailed you? I'd forgotten that!
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Oh, I remember that now!That was a bit of dialogue between Daividh and me, inspired by your posting of the "dress-up paperdoll Jesus" website.You're so BAD, Pavlos! Heheh -- oop! Mustn't laugh. Mustn't encourage you. (*snort*! Mmmfffphahaha...)-- Nanaea
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Oh my G-d!!! I was laughing, 'til I saw that www.clonejesus is real! Ew!:)
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Reality can be d-ggone weirder than fiction!
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But then again, I may be wrong, but....I WON! I WON! I WON!:D
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