Comments for the name Andrea (2)

It means "Feminine Grace" or "Ideal Woman".

Even if Andrea is used as a female name, it still means man, not "feminine grace" or something like that. That would be Gynokala or something like that.

The name Andrea can also come from the feminine form of the Ancient Greek adjective for brave. The adjective, transliterated from Greek is Andreia. I know this, because my Ancient Greek teachers decided to tell everyone in the class what their names mean. This also happens to be my own name.

From the Greek root "andro-" which means "man." So Andrea does not mean "womanly" just because it's feminine; it means "manly."

Etymologically, it still means "manly," even if it's made feminine. In fact, since the spelling Andrea is also used for males, there's even less of an argument.

This name could also be used as a pet form of Alexandrea.

Actually everybody, I was really curious a while back and went so deep into finding out how names could represent someone and being that my own name is Andrea, I discovered that the "ANDR" in Andrea means Strong! it doesn't mean manly or masculine. Just wanted to clear that up. Hah.

Think about this if you still don't think this name means man:
In Greek, 'ginos' meant woman. From there comes the word misoginy - hate towards women, for example.
'Andros' is the Greek equivalent to 'man'. We have the word androginy - 'man-woman' literally, the word misoandria - hate towards men, and a long etcetera. Just search for information if you're still not sure.

According to my sister (who knows her stuff) if the the root word (which in this case is "man" or "manly") is changed to a feminine form, then the meaning becomes feminine as well. It's the same case for the names Charles and Charlotte (Charles means man, or manly) - it's changed altogether because it becomes feminine diminutive.

This name is Greek.