Meaning of names by DeannaMay

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Meaning of names

POSTED BY: DEANNAMAY
UPDATED: Friday, February 20, 2004 05:50
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 7:12 AM

The last thread regarding the characters names got me thinking about the meaning of names, and I came up with a few. I wonder if Joss picking these names were on purpose, or just because he liked the sound of them.

Zoe-means life

Malcolm-means Disciple of Saint Columbia, Columbia itself is indicative of Doves. The peace Malcolm never gets to find?

Reynolds-means advice and rule. He certainly rules Firefly

Speaking of fire, the closest I could get to Inara's last name(couldn't find anything on the first) is Seraphina, which is an order of angels known as the Fiery ones

Simon means listening and I believe on a previous search I found Tamm meant King, but I can't find that again, so perhaps I am incorrect.

River means exactly that

Since we don't know Wash's full name, I didn't look that one up.

Jayne, unfortunately is still a girls name.

Sorry to bore you, I just find the meaning behind words interesting and decided to foist that on you this day.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 8:09 AM

LINDEN

Quote:
Originally posted by DeannaMay:
Jayne, unfortunately is still a girls name.

I couldn´t help but giggle at that one.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 8:19 AM

KNIBBLET

Quote:
Originally posted by DeannaMay:
Jayne, unfortunately is still a girls name.

*diving out of Vera's way*
You might wanna watch such loose talk, fella. :)

"Just keep walkin, preacher man."

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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 8:47 AM

JAHZARA

I was fooling around with babynames.com a while ago, and this is what I discovered.

It said Malcolm meant follower of St. Columbus(Celtic/Gaelic), like Deannamay said, Reynolds not in there, and Zoe meant life (Greek).

Other characters whose names were in there were

Kaylee - from Kay and Lee (American)
Lee - sheltered from the storm (English)
Frye - seed or offspring (English)
--Kaywinnit wasn't in there

Inara - ray of life-heaven sent (Arabic)
Serra - Earth (forgot origin, and its not in there anymore)

For Jayne, they only had the usual form of it.
Jane - gracious, merciful (English)

Simon - it is heard (Hebrew)
River, as mentioned above, means river.
The chinese form of Tam ain't in there, and since I've read it was supposed to be Chinese...

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Thursday, February 19, 2004 7:11 AM

SERENITYNOW

St. Columbo/Columbus (I'd always heard the first one)is revered for bringing Christianity to pagan Scotland. (He was the abbey of a monestary in Ireland before that.) Some say he chased the Loch Ness there away from one of its intended victims, which converted a lot of people.

Anyway, he "was later exiled from Donegal and lived out the rest of his life in the 6th century on the tiny island of Iona."

Remind you of anybody?

Quote:
Kaywinnit wasn't in there

"Kaywinnit" sounds like a long winded, made-up name to show she comes from a countrified place. (And for laughs.)

Quote:
For Jayne, they only had the usual form of it. Jane - gracious, merciful

I googled "Jayne" (cause I'd never seen another person with that spelling). Here's an odd one: http://www.jaynecounty.com/

(Maybe we can convince him/her/it/them to hand the domain name over.)

Quote:
The chinese form of Tam ain't in there, and since I've read it was supposed to be Chinese...

I'm 90% sure it's Cantonese. Unfortunately, my cantonese is limited to things like "good morning" and "no" so I don't know what it could mean (and by "things like" I mean just those two phrases). Any help from the native speakers (or very impressive foreign devils?)

I'm still in Taiwan/ROC/China/ROCOT/rebel-province so I'll try to ask around. (speaking of names. Don't ask what they call the people here--it's even more confusing.)

http://dryope.typepad.com/superfly/

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Thursday, February 19, 2004 7:32 AM

PUMAMANREDUX

Wash and Zoe's last name is Warren

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. (Alfred Hitchcock)

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Friday, February 20, 2004 3:48 AM

TAMFAMFAN

So.... Jayne means... graceful and merciful. Are we talking about the right Jayne? Let's check graceful...mmmmm,nope, not a ballet dancer there, Baryshnikov. Merciful... not quite what you'd call Florence Nightingale.
And I'm quite sure Jayne has to go by his last name because his first name is too tough to go by... Marion, or Francis, maybe even Elizabeth...

::signs in at the hospital, reserving a bed for mudhole stomping I am about to recieve, holding out medical ID for quick identification:

You look better in red.

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Friday, February 20, 2004 4:45 AM

DTT

Quote:
Originally posted by Knibblet:
Quote:
Originally posted by DeannaMay:
Jayne, unfortunately is still a girls name.

*diving out of Vera's way*
You might wanna watch such loose talk, fella. :)

I think I'd be more worried about averting my eyes, in case Jayne shows he got man parts.

"You didn't have to wound that man."
"Yeah, I know. It was just funny."

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Friday, February 20, 2004 5:34 AM

PUMAMANREDUX

Got bored enough to look up the last name Warren (as in Zoe and Wash's last name) to find any meaning:

the name according to http://www.last-names.net/surname.asp?surname=Warren was

From Guarenna or Varenna, in the county of Calais, in Normandy, whence they came into England with William the Conqueror.

and

The primary sense of the word is to stop, hold, or repel, to guard, keep off.

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. (Alfred Hitchcock)

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Friday, February 20, 2004 5:50 AM

OKKAY

In the Shindig commentary, Jane Espenson mentions that they tried to make a lot of the last names chinese-sounding (Atherton Wing, Simon Tam), but I don't think they intended the last names to mean anything important.

I did find that in Vietnamese, Tam means heart. For Chinese, it would have to be Cantonese (Mandarin doesn't have words ending in "m"), but from what I found, it seems to just be a last name, and not mean anything in particular. I think a lot of Chinese last names don't really have a meaning.

As for Jayne, I think they just needed a girl's name that sounded like it could be a boy's name.

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