by Margaret Merrill

Created on: July 29, 2008

Determining the etymology and history of one's name is not as hard as you might think. Of course, you can go to the library, and look it up in the books there, or in any baby books that you may have around you, too. Or, you may keep it simple, save some gas from having to drive, and go onto the Internet.

Literally signing onto the World Wide Web, and typing the words "name meaning" into the Google Search Bar yields close to one million four hundred thousand hits in just a few seconds' time. The first ten sites that pop up on the search provide quite a bit of information, and lead to even more sites themselves.

For example: Out of curiosity, I clicked on http://www.behindthename.com/ as my first choice. Why? I don't really know. Perhaps because it was one of the top sites, maybe it was the name of the site; I can't really be sure. From there I decided to research the names Margaret and Mary (two of my five names).

I clicked onto the site, and then onto M. From there, I scrolled to Margaret. When I read that Margaret was "derived from the Latin Margarita" I had to laugh. Margaritas happen to be one of my favorite drinks! As I read on though, the Latin had evidently come from Greek, and that definition had meant "pearl." A pearl I am not! I learned that Saint Margaret was the saint for expectant mothers, and that there have been a number of famous Margarets, including several queens, and famous writers, too.

As I scrolled and then clicked on Mary, I thought back to my religious upbringing, and the Virgin Mary, as well as Mary Magdalene. The definition I found tells me that Mary is the English form of Maria. OK. Evidently, Maria is transposable with Mariam because of the spelling. And, according to the website, Mary is thought to mean one of several things, but it can't be confirmed for sure. Each of the possibilities made me laugh. The possibilities were: rebelliousness, wished for child and sea of bitterness. I have been all three of those things, so I really don't know what to say!

When I went to http://name-meanings.com/ , I again chose to type in my two names. This time, I simply typed Margaret into the search bar, and a little box came up. Underneath the name were the words "A Pearl" and directly below that were two statements that told me it was a female name of Latin origin. After I typed in Mary, the word "Bitter" appeared below it, and again two more statements telling me that it was a female name, this time of Hebrew origin.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>