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Re: Behnaz
in reply to a message by ADT
According to this Iranian name site link provided on BtN, Behnaz means "best coquetry."
http://persia.org/Information/girls.htmlI found the same meaning through Google searches on other Iranian name sites.
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I tried to verify, and I found that "naz" indeed means something like "coquetry" in Farsi, and "be" or "beh" means "good" (albeit not "best", that would be "behtærin" as far as I understand, all transliterated, of course).But if people here forgive me a little speculating: "good coquetry" as meaning of a name really looks like so much folk etymology to me, and the true etymology of the name could well be something completely different.
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Actually naz is a very common ending for Persian names. I think the original meaning might be something like pride rather than coquetry. The Farsi dictionary, however, gives only the latter meaning. (I don't know any Farsi, but do speak Hindi which has borrowed from Farsi.)So, I would not rule out beh + naz without further investigation.
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Thank you all!
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