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Archiveswanting to know the origin of my name
(and my family for that matter)
I posted a question asking about the origin of my first name back in december and there were a few answers that seemed somewhat futile to me, anyways my name is Arenda...and whenever I type my name into Facebook or something like that i always get a bunch of hispanic or especially malaysian peoples with my name. I AM NOT MALAYSIAN or asian in any way...not that I wouldn't like to be, just I think its strange that there are so many asian people with my name.
I am named after my great grandmother Arenda, she was from llanelly (sp?), wales. But I know as an american i am surrounded with white people all the time and that means plenty of people with a welsh background. I have never met anyone with me name and have plenty of people to remind me that they haven't, either.
Nobody in my family (including my mother who named me this, and besides my great grand mom is dead) can tell me where this name is from. I CONSTANTLY MY WHOLE LIFE have had people butchering it and I don't even understand why, its not hard to say my name, but they treat it like its exotic enough to mispronounce.
So sorry for explaining myself, but I should've mentioned in the first place i want to know what this name sounds like to you all and where you think its from??? there are some websites saying it is dutch or germanic meaning 'eagle bold' but to my knowledge i am not dutch or german. also in polish it literally means 'to rent' (lol)
I posted a question asking about the origin of my first name back in december and there were a few answers that seemed somewhat futile to me, anyways my name is Arenda...and whenever I type my name into Facebook or something like that i always get a bunch of hispanic or especially malaysian peoples with my name. I AM NOT MALAYSIAN or asian in any way...not that I wouldn't like to be, just I think its strange that there are so many asian people with my name.
I am named after my great grandmother Arenda, she was from llanelly (sp?), wales. But I know as an american i am surrounded with white people all the time and that means plenty of people with a welsh background. I have never met anyone with me name and have plenty of people to remind me that they haven't, either.
Nobody in my family (including my mother who named me this, and besides my great grand mom is dead) can tell me where this name is from. I CONSTANTLY MY WHOLE LIFE have had people butchering it and I don't even understand why, its not hard to say my name, but they treat it like its exotic enough to mispronounce.
So sorry for explaining myself, but I should've mentioned in the first place i want to know what this name sounds like to you all and where you think its from??? there are some websites saying it is dutch or germanic meaning 'eagle bold' but to my knowledge i am not dutch or german. also in polish it literally means 'to rent' (lol)
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Replies
Your great-grandmother was from Wales, but she apparently did not have a Welsh name. Therefore the name could have come from almost any background. Her parents could have read it in a book or met someone from another country whose name was Arenda, or something else, who knows?
Arend is definitely a Dutch name; I know a family from South Africa via the Netherlands, who have a son named Arend, and the mother told me it meant "eagle." An online translation site confirms this. So it seems very logical that Arenda is a feminine form of this name.
I'm not sure what else you could be looking for. I'm sorry you have had trouble with people mispronouncing your name. This happens all the time with even apparently simple names that others are not familiar with.
Arend is definitely a Dutch name; I know a family from South Africa via the Netherlands, who have a son named Arend, and the mother told me it meant "eagle." An online translation site confirms this. So it seems very logical that Arenda is a feminine form of this name.
I'm not sure what else you could be looking for. I'm sorry you have had trouble with people mispronouncing your name. This happens all the time with even apparently simple names that others are not familiar with.
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The earlier thread that you refer to is this one:
http://www.behindthename.com/bb/fact/4575009
The answers there do not seem "somewhat futile" to me.
You say: "There are some websites saying it is dutch or germanic meaning 'eagle bold' but to my knowledge i am not dutch or german"
I don't follow your reasoning: Names from all over the world are given to American babies every day, without any problem, surely Dutch and German names as well, and I don't think that was different at the time when your great grand mother was born and given the name of Arenda.
http://www.behindthename.com/bb/fact/4575009
The answers there do not seem "somewhat futile" to me.
You say: "There are some websites saying it is dutch or germanic meaning 'eagle bold' but to my knowledge i am not dutch or german"
I don't follow your reasoning: Names from all over the world are given to American babies every day, without any problem, surely Dutch and German names as well, and I don't think that was different at the time when your great grand mother was born and given the name of Arenda.
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