I’ve always been told that my name means certain things in Irish or French. And I know other people have been told this too (not specifically those languages) but how is this possible? The names aren’t direct translations, and in English (my native language) we don’t really have any names that could be translated into other languages to mean something besides just being a name, as far as I know.
In: Culture
For example, the name Joshua is derived from the Hebrew “Yehoshua,” which the bible generally interprets as meaning “Yahweh is salvation.”
Michael, from the Hebrew “Mīkhāʼēl” means “Who is like God?”
Alexander is from the Greek “Alexandros” meaning “Defender of Men”
Kevin is from the Irish “Caoimhín” meaning “Handsome birth”
A lot of them have been considered “just names” that we don’t really think of them having some original meaning.
When names first were “invented” they weren’t new words. The were just normal words that somehow described the person. It’s just that then through centuries and millennia of cultural mixing and changes of language many names didn’t sound like the modern language anymore. Or that people took on names from different languages.
Keeping aside the Alexander example in the comments, there still are some English names that can directly be translated:
For example **Holly**. Holly is literally the same word as the tree and other languages know the tree. The literal translation would be “Ilex” in French or Spanish or “Stechpalme” in German or “Hulst” in Dutch.
Or **Stuart**. “Stuart” is just a different spelling of the modern word “steward”, and that can be literally translated into other languages, for example loosely as “Verwalter” in German.
Modern English just makes it difficult to trace many names, because English culture took over a lot of French or Germanic names, as well as Latin, Greek and Hebrew. There are very few English names left that are still recognisable as modern English words. But you can find such an original meaning, and thus translation, for literally any name.
Edit: A good example for direct translations is **Peter**. Peter is a slightly changed form of Greek “pedros” literally meaning “rock”. That’s why the bible in the gospel of Matthew (first written in Greek) says “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” Literally translated, it would say “I name you <Rock> and on this rock I will build my church”. The name literally is the word. Although both words again are just the Greek translations of the Aramaic (the language Jesus would have spoken) word “Kephas” which translated back to English would also mean “rock” or “stone”.
English just stopped translating at some point and just took foreign names, slightly changed them to make them easier to pronounce and called it a day.
Have you read about the hippie movement in the 1960’s? They named kids sunshine or love, or peace. Words that mean something in our own language.
For some reason, people are drawn to words in other languages. “Beth” may sound nice in English, but it means “house” in Hebrew.
In England, a Miller ran a mill that ground wheat into flour. A smith was a metal worker (there are whitesmiths who made silver/tin implements, and blacksmiths who worked iron). A cooper made barrels, a fletcher made arrows, a Bowyer made bows, a lumberjack cut down trees and a Sawyer cut trees into boards.
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