View Message

You know, I'd be okay with that if they actually started with 'amali and decided they wanted an Anglicized spelling and pronunciation for it. Plenty of the name meanings on this site include "spelling influenced by [unrelated name]" and that's not considered fake.

It seems like a stretch tbh, because Emmalee and Amali look nothing like each other. I think some people dislike the idea that the names they picked for their children don't have an etymology and/or don't mean anything nice.

---

I've never "pretended" a name meant something else.

---

My fake etymology: Arianne comes from Hebrew, meaning "the lion's grace" (from "ari" and "Hannah")

This message was edited 6/22/2018, 6:00 PM

I guess it's an Asperger thing, but I get MAD when people make up silly meanings for names! Like Nova being Hopi for "chasing butterflies" (apparently it means FOOD in Hopi...), Nevaeh being Spanish for "snow", Julia meaning "young girl" in Latin, etc. It makes my body itch!
Because of this, I never pretend that names mean something else, but I like the folk etymology of Marisol meaning "sea and sun", Rosalinda meaning" beautiful rose" and some others.

---

My cousin has come up with the name Milanina (mil-AH-nee-ma) meaning "thousand souls". I once wrongly remembered Rosenby as Rosenny and really liked it. For me it's either a mix of Rose and Jenny or derived from the Swedish words for rose and new.

FWIW

---

The candidate in question is indeed Arabic. His wife is Indian. But they live in a county where most people are white and speak English (with 1.1% speaking Arabic at home). So I do understand them picking a more English-looking name. If they lived in Dearborn (where the population is 40%+ Arab American), I probably wouldn't be as willing to give them a pass.

---

Personally, if I were in their position, I'd have gone with Amali, Amaly, or at the very furthest, Amalie or Amalee. I'd definitely want to get Amal in there since that's the usual transcription for 'hope'.
[I mean me personally, I would have gone with Amali because I think that's the nicest looking spelling but people who choose Emmalee may not agree]

---

my fake etymology: if you put Morde cai into google translate, Portuguese returns "bites down", which isn't great but it's better than "servant of Marduk".
(also, for mor de cai, Romanian brings back "die of horses" which is bad but still cooler than "servant of Marduk", and Somali brings back "purple law" which i kind of love. mor de kai in Yoruba is "meat morsel".)

This message was edited 6/22/2018, 8:42 AM

On the one hand, all words don't have inherent meaning, but derive their meanings from what we say they are. On the other hand, that derivation has to be collective, otherwise it's, well, meaningless. I can make up as many definitions to words as I want, but if they aren't collectively agreed upon definitions, no one else will know what I'm saying, and the words will have failed their purpose as words.

---

I don't think an Arabic speaker would ever read 'Emmalee' as a transcription of 'my hope.' I think it likely that if you said 'Emmalee' to an Arabic speaker hoping it to be heard as 'my hope,' it wouldn't work out. I think if I saw someone parading a gross misspelling of an English word or phrase that also happened to be a pretty normal style name in their culture in no way connected to those English words, but tried to claim them as it's etymology, my reaction would be something like 'that's cute, but go sit down.'

---

The most one can do with fake etymologies is hold them as an association ("I like this name because it reminds me of the Arabic word for 'my hope.'") But that doesn't make them legitimate etymologies.

Similar sounds with similar or (not similar meanings) may (simultaneously) exist among different languages - perhaps with different alphabets: these may include names that exist now - borrowed from languages, perhaps now unused, from the past. To gather a precise etymological base now - amidst countless years of transliteration would not equate with "fake etymology", but more of a "vague guide"; not useless at all (the etymological tool is a wonderful guide), but as with all methods me should acknowledge the inherent limitations. it would be difficult to precisely gather hundreds or thousands or years of a name (or word) history into a few short words. However - there is still magic as we explore these meanings together; our personal interpretations continue to breathe life not only into them but through them. At every moment in history - we apply (have applied) our knowledge through syntax.

---

I wrote the following information last week: I do not believe that any guides on BtN are fake in any way, nor have I attempted to disprove anything but merely to add additional vagaries which animate these facts.

---

Can we consider Stephen or Steven?

---

If I were Stephanie, may I use an "f"; Cyrillic alphabets do not use the ph - but English words borrowed from our Grecian ancients bear this trend. Is this an artificial preservative?

---

Sophie / Sophia - may we replace the ph with an f?

---

Sofie / Sofia

---

Are names with a PH for an f sonority more "sophisticated"?
Is this a pretense?

---

May Bert be Bert; not to be confused with Burt - who also has a right to be??

---

Is Bobbie better than Bobbi or Bobby??

... Load Full Message

This message was edited 6/22/2018, 1:32 AM

> would you accept "my hope" in Arabic as a valid etymology for Emmalee? (& does your opinion change if you know one of the parents is Arabic?)

---

I had to look up "valid" in the dictionary to answer this, because I thought I had 2 different answers. There are 2 kinds of definitions, sure enough - and my answer depends on which of them you meant.

---

1. executed with the proper legal authority and formalities / conforming to accepted principles of sound classification:
Nope, "my hope" for Emmalee is not valid, because it's neither proper and authoritative, nor conforming to accepted principles of how name etymologies are determined.

---

2. well-grounded or justifiable / being at once relevant and meaningful / appropriate to the end in view / effective:
Yes, it's valid, because it's justifiable considering the variability of transliteration, and there's nothing illogical about it at all, and it's relevant and meaningful and useful to those who are using the name and claiming it means that.

---

> are there any names that you pretend mean something else?
I prefer to pretend that Merrick has something to do with the sea, even though there's no evidence for that that I know of.

---

> come up with a fake but believable meaning for a name
I wouldn't claim that a name had a historical etymology / denotative meaning, no. But I could assign connotative meanings to invented names and names with unknown etymology, even if they are not etymological definitions.

---

Especially if the name isn't a common name (like Emmalee, whose relation to both Emily and Emma + Lee can't really be ignored). Nevaeh clearly "means" heaven whether that's authoritative or not. I could say Galahad means "knight" or Teruthifa means "true faith" -- it wouldn't be *fake* in the same sense that "beautiful lady" is a fake meaning for Andrea. It just wouldn't be in the same category of meaning, that names with etymologies have.

This message was edited 6/21/2018, 8:58 PM

Amali and Emmalee are not prounced the same. Yes, you can transcribe a name and have multiple spellings, but these two are not the same name. An Arabic parent transcribing a name might come up with a phonetic spelling, but aren’t the two pronunciations pretty dissimilar?

---

I wouldn’t say that ‘I pretend,’ but rather I acknowledge that names could have more than one possible origin/meaning. Emmalee might be derived from either Emma +Lee or Emily. Cassie can derive from Catherine, Cassandra, Cassidy, or Cassia. Portia might come from porta (gate) or porcus (pig). Frankly, I think porcus is a bit of a stretch. Porcia, I can see being from porcus, but Portia seems like a separate name.

This message was edited 6/21/2018, 6:52 PM

My dad insists that Elizabeth means women of God's house.

---

He learned Hebrew and separated the parts of the name. El means God, beth means house. I tried to explain that it's a Greek version of Elisheva but he insists.

---

I just let it go. The parent wants a child's name to mean something, they hace their own reasoning and it's no skin off my back.

No, I wouldn't accept that etymology. You will see in many name dictionaries and name books that Linda means "beautiful", because yes, the Spanish word "linda" means "beautiful." Or "cute" or "pretty." But that's a coincidence. Linda came from the German Linde, which was a short form of names such as Dietlinde and Sieglinde. It could mean "soft" or "tender" or it could mean "serpent", but either way its etymology is German, not Spanish.

---

And Linda is identical to the Spanish "linda", so if I don't accept that, no way am I accepting Emmalee equals "amali".

If I was the kind of person who put a lot of importance in the name's meaning, I wouldn't consider Emmalee a valid translation of "my hope" in Arabic, especially if neither of us had any connection to Arabic things and people. I would probably consider that a sort of cop-out, using a very popular name with a trendy spelling but feeling the need to justify it by tying it to a Deeper Meaning.
Either that, or it's just that your candidate used one particular source to find the name and that source is maybe a bit sketchy?

---

Richard means rich chard. For all those who like their veggies but like them rich and heavy.

I wouldn't accept that Emmalee = My Hope just because they sound somewhat similar. It would be like arguing that Naomi (Hebrew) is identical with Naomi (Japanese). It's a coincidence, nothing more. And the possibility of a little Emmalee having an Arab parent is neither here nor there.

---

I'm not hung up on name meanings. I'd happily use (or see used) Cecily and Claudia, for instance, and the probable etymology of Katharine is quite hilarious compared to what people mostly think of as the meaning. In Afrikaans, an often-used nn for Deborah is Borrie, which is the Afrikaans word for turmeric. Mildly amusing, but meaningless.

---

No. Accuracy matters. And name magic can work, but not in that way: a fake meaning - 'Claudia' means 'Paws like a cat' - has no status or dignity. A name widely believed to be ugly, dated or generally undesirable can become beautiful on the right bearer, though: perhaps that's an example of bearer magic!

Idk. There's a lot of variance between dialects in Arabic, and it's translated from a different alphabet. If they want to say it's from 'amali (spelled Emmalee to make it more multicultural?), who am I to say they're wrong.

---

I think explanations like that are most credible when the names originate in a different alphabet or have no established/verifiable origin. But I'd also accept when people say things like "Raina means rain (plus a feminine ending)", because whatever; it's either their name or the name they've chosen. I don't get the final say on what it represents.

This message was edited 6/21/2018, 1:07 PM

1. I don’t think it’s valid. A lot of words sound similar, but an etymology derives from a specific source. Emmalee doesn’t come from the Arabic, it’s just a variant of Emily “rival.”

---

2. Just for fun, I kind of do this with my own name. My Hebrew name is Kadan, meaning grape hyacinth, and it sounds like my English name. So I sometimes think of that meaning when considering “what my name means.” I do realize Cayden is just an invented name, though.

---

3. Leopold — “coastal lion,” literally “lion that stalks the polders,” referring to reclaimed land in the Netherlands. It is a traditional Dutch name. :)

> would you accept "my hope" in Arabic as a valid etymology for Emmalee?

---

No, definitely not. I don't know Arabic very well but I assume amali would be ah-mah-lee which, in my opinion, doesn't sound very much like Emmalee. Emmalee is very clearly a combination of Emma and Lee and a variant of Emily to me (depends a bit on how it is pronounced). I also think that if an Arabic speaker would pronounce Emmalee it would sound Nothing like amali. In most languages, from my experience, -ee sounds more like an -eh or -ay.

---

> are there any names that you pretend mean something else?

---

No, but I really wish Emily had a nicer meaning :P I do think that if a name has several meanings you can choose the one you like but apart from that I wouldn't do it.

---

> come up with a fake but believable meaning for a name

---

Ashton means 'a ton of ashes' :P I don't know, but I think a famous example is Amaya which apparently means 'night rain' in Japanese, when you believe the Internet, but I heard it actually doesn't really sound like the words in Japanese and that people made this up (it is kind of close but not close enough and is actually Basque, I believe).