Date
Meaning & History
Recorded as the name of a concubine (lower-status wife) of Charibert I, Frankish king of Neustria. Her sister Merofleda (another concubine of Charibert) bears a clearly Germanic name, supporting identification of the first element with Frankish marka "border". The alternative spelling Marcouhefe suggests that the second element may have originally been of the form hwefa, which would be reduced to vefa/wefa in Frankish and High German; a possibility is wefa "wife, woman" (cf. Genovefa).