Are you having fun with Celebrate Your Name Week? We are about halfway through it right now, which means that today is “Learn What Your Name Means” Wednesday. If you haven’t been playing along with Celebrate Your Name Week by doing the suggested activities on the appropriate day, that is ok. It is perfectly acceptable to either “catch up”, or jump in at anytime.
Celebrate Your Name Week takes place this year starting on Sunday, March 6, 2011, and will end on Saturday, March 12, 2011. Each day has a specific focus that involves celebrating your name, and the name of those around you. CYNW is a fun and enlightening week for anyone who choses to participate in it. It can be used as an opportunity to bond with other people who share your first name. Genealogists can use CYNW as inspiration to delve deeper into the history of their family.
Yesterday was “Celebrating Unique Names” Tuesday. Most people spent yesterday focusing on the names of other people. Today is “Learn What Your Name Means” Wednesday. This is the day to take a few minutes to learn more about the meaning behind your name. You get the opportunity to reflect on how well, or how poorly, that meaning matches who you think you are.
Not too many people actually go and look up the meanings of names, especially not their own. Usually, if you are haunting the websites that describe what names mean, it is for one of two reasons. You are about to have a baby, and you want to make certain that the name you have in mind for your child doesn’t have any negative connotations that you aren’t currently aware of. Or, you are a gamer, who is trying to find a cool way to name the Dungeons & Dragons or World of Warcraft character that you just rolled. Today, you have the perfect excuse to learn more about your very own name, without appearing vain or self centered.
You can start by visiting the website called Behind the Name. You can easily select to view the list of masculine or feminine names. From there, you can pick the category that matches the first few letters of your first name. This brings up a list for you to scan through, until you find your name.
My first name is Jennifer. My name is a Cornish form of the Welsh Gwenhwyfar. The website suggests that I also check the name Guinevere. It turns out that the name Guinevere comes from Welsh Mythology. It is the Norman French form of the Welsh name Gwenhwyfar. This name can be broken into two parts, in order to understand what it means. Gwen means “fair, white”, and hyfar means “smooth”. In Arthurian Legend, Guinevere was the beautiful wife of King Arthur, and she had an affair with Sir Lancelot, who was one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table.
Image by Karen Hill on Flickr