h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

According to some reasonably reliable sources, my name (Duncan) comes from the Irish "Dunne Cairne" (apologies for spelling) meaning "Brown Hill".
Does anyone know how reliable this is?
Also - do all names have an origin like this or did some names just come into being?

I can't say anything about the origin of your name, but what I can tell you is that when it comes to origins of names, its hard to find two people who can agree. There are many places on the internet where you can find reliable information on the history of your name. I can't remember the web address but you might try to find a site where they list the history of all the clans of Ireland, or maybe your clans' hompage. It shouldn't be too hard to find.

Its been my experience that many names come from important descriptions, or are derived from momentus events in a family's history. This is particularily true for Irish and Scottish names and histories. For example, the name Craig is derived from the word Crag, meaning "a stony outcroping". So a child could be named Craig to signify that they would be inheiriting a particular peice of land with an obvious rocky marker.

Duncan, it doesn't seem likely that Duncan comes from Dun Carn, because Gaelic normally puts the adjective after the noun, not before it, so it would be Carndun (the men of Carndun came upon us in the night). There are exceptions of course, so you might be right. Duncan suggests a Scottish name to me, so it is in Scotland you should be looking.

Names can have two sources. The names Eoghan and Eoin are pronounced identically, but are spelled differently. In a hundred years from now, they may be both spelled the same, but they come from very different roots: Eoghan from Eugene while Eoin comes from Johann. The Irish name Seán comes from John which comes from Johann. So you have Eoghan and Eoin, pronounced the same, but from two different sources, while Eoin and Seán are pronounced differently but both come from the same name.

Most surnames seem to be either a description of the person or a "son of" some first name. First names on the other hand are so old that it is not clear whether they ever meant anything at all.

Duncan, one Scottish source on the net says that Duncan comes from the Gaelic Donnachadh. (pronounced dunna-cha with ch as in Bach, d as in "this" spoken by an Irish person). Donnachadh itself comes from donn (brown) and cath (war), giving "Brown Warrior". This disobeys the rule I gave earlier about adjectives coming after the noun, but as I said earlier, there are exceptions. I presume the brown is colour of your hair rather than of your skin.

There are some people who go by the name Donncha in Ireland. Usually, they are people who are given the name Denis at birth and want to have an Irish name, so they use Donncha as the "translation" of Denis. In fact it is just a Gaelic name that sounds vaguely similar. Sometimes they are genuinely called Donncha at birth.

I've looked in a few baby naming web sites and they suggest 'Duncan' is of Celtic origin and means 'dark skinned warrior' or 'brown warrior'
Scotland is mentioned in one search engine for it's two kings named Duncan. Duncan I (1001 - 1040) ruled Scotland followed by his son, then his Grandson Duncan II (1060 - 1094)

OK - that's my name sorted.
But what about names in general? There seem to be a number of sources: places (e.g. 'Van Dyke', 'de Chasteney'), jobs (e.g. 'Smith', 'Shearer' etc.) and virtuous attributes ('Verity' etc.)

Any other sources? Does this vary between cultures, i.e. are Chinese names related to jobs or places?

I know that the surname Briggs means Person who lives under the bridge or as we like to call them " BUMS ". My step family name is Briggs and guess what, it's true!!!

You might like to take a look at:

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but it's nothing to do with me, just a completely bizarre coincidence!

My last name is supposed to mean - end of the hedge in old English. But with a first name like James - I figure the Bible was involved somewhere along the line.

I reckon that's pretty common - being named after something or someplace.

I have just been reading Wild Swans, and there are some incidental things about names in there. Aparently daughters were frequently not named at all, just called "number one daughter" "number two daughter" and so on.

In Chinese the surname comes first, and is shared by the whole family. The author refers to the middle name as a "generation name" which is shared by everyone in the family, and only the last name is a given name.

Incidentally the Romans also numbered their children. Octavian (who became the Emperor Augustus) is a good example. I remember a comment from a book about names which said "imagine the confusion in a Roman nursury, where the boys all had the same name, and the girls no names at all".

Roman girls usually had feminine versions of their father's name; so Julius Caesar's daughter was Julia, and Flavius's daughter was Flavia. Whether these were names or lables is open to doubt. (If a name is what you are called, and a lable is how you are referred to "the occupier", "the plaintif", "the daughter of Julius".

A lot of British and American names were originally surnames. So a boy might be given his mother's maiden name as a given name. Duncan is actually a good example of that, so are Eliot, Cameron, Lindsay, and Cambell. Interesting that all the examples I come up with are Scottish?

The puritans went for names with literal meanings which give us the first examples of "Hope" "Faith" "Joy" "Charity" and so on. The boys were more exotic; I remember someone called "Praise God" with the surname of "Barebones".

I have never found much disagreement on the origin or meaning of my first two names, but my third name is a source of bemusement. 'Irene' is Greek in origin - she was their goddess of Peace, although she doesn't get mentioned much in their myths. (I did see one book that gave 'Irene' as meaning 'watchful', but that was an aberration because all other books give it as meaning 'Peace'). There can be no disagreement on 'Regina' - it's Latin and means 'Queen'.

Does anybody know where 'Lesley' comes from? Most books give it as 'Unknown'. The only other suggestion I've seen is: 'Possibly from Laetitia' (Latin for Joy), but this doesn't explain how it could also be a man's name.

Does anybody know why some names are, or have been, unisex? Sometimes they are spelt differently for men and women (Lesley / Leslie, Lindsay / Lindsey), other times they're not (Evelyn, Hilary). Any ideas?