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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2007 8:01:13 GMT -1
I've been mulling over the importance of naming things lately after trying to trace the significance of a place using it's name. The names we choose to give things/people/ourselves carry far more information than is obvious just from the name itself so I thought it'd be interesting to look at how we use names ourselves, as an expression of our spirituality and even just of our selves. I'd say for myself, I've used names to convey something important three times. Once when I scrabbled for a name to replace the craft name I was given at my initiation as a way of disassociating myself from the person who named me, once on the birth of my son, and more recently in taking a name to help me reclaim and remember parts of my own nature that I tend to lose day by day through the pressure of "fitting in". The two important ones there are the recent one, and the name I chose for Dylan. I've already touched on the reason for my name change in the introduction forums, so I won't repeat myself and go into that again. On to why I chose the name Dylan. I opted for a natural birth when I was pregnant, and it was a very long and difficult one. My way of dealing with the pain was to focus on it as a tide (I've always had a fascination with the sea, it's my "happy place"), and when I searched for a name for him Dylan felt right. The original meaning as I found it (correct me if I'm wrong, Welsh isn't my strongest point) was great sea. The myth of Aranrhod also seemed appropriate, because I'd been told there was a 1 in a million chance I'd ever have children So, there are my important names. What are yours? Why did you name your pets/children/selves as you did? What meaning do those names convey, what inspired you to choose them?
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Post by arth_frown on Jul 17, 2007 9:03:31 GMT -1
My sons name is Joseph after my grandfather who died when I was 2 and it's Ceinach's family that have a lot of Josephs . Clodagh name came from an Irish river goddess. Arth Frown is welsh for brown bear, which came to me in a meditation bit of a shock as the bear is extinct in this country, so I hold on to the spirit of the bear that once walked these lands.
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Post by Francis on Jul 17, 2007 10:07:13 GMT -1
We named our daughter Ffion. Which is one of the many names for foxglove used in some parts of Wales.
I think foxgloves are a beautiful flower – summer at its highest! They also (to me at least!) represent what lies beneath, and the history of any ‘becoming’, and time itself.
I think of foxgloves as one of the “clocks” of summer- as the season ripens the flowers dance higher up the stem. Most significantly though is that foxglove seed is very long lived- perhaps as long as poppies – and lies buried in the soil waiting for conditions to change. (It can remain dormant like that for at least 50 years and perhaps even as long as 100 years). Often in the couple of years after a plantation of conifers has been felled, and the soil all disturbed, you get a mass of foxgloves blooming. Old seed that had lain hidden in the soil – an echo of what was there before, a rebirth even of something from the past more beautiful than what has recently been…
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Post by jez on Jul 17, 2007 11:38:14 GMT -1
I'm Jez everywhere, even at work. It is, luckily, a short form of Janet, which is my legal middle name, so it's easy to explain (away) to people who ask casually - mostly people who think it is a short form of something else, either Jeremy or Jezebel It's actually short for Jezreell, which is formed from three runes Year, Elksedge and Lake, pronounced in the way I and my late partner decided to pronounce them. The runes were chosen in ritual, around 35 years ago. Unfortunately, when I joined the internet a few years back, I found that Jez're'el (pronounced a bit like Israel) is a biblical place near the field of Armageddon... Go figure, as the yanks would say... -- Other biblical nutters assume it is short for a certain 'scarlet woman' but they back off when I tell them how much I admire Jezebel, a pagan queen who, faced with certain death after humiliation from her Hebrew captors, chose not to run, nor hide, nor scream, but instead calmly dressed in her finest clothes, made up her face and stood her ground in a form of bravery enough to get her name mentioned with awe in the most mysogynist book in the nine worlds. -- Jez
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Post by woodsmoke on Jul 17, 2007 13:45:46 GMT -1
I'm Suzanne which means Lily, for no other reason than my father liked it, otherwise I would have been Elizabeth. My middle name Mary is carried in the female side of the family.
Woodsmoke is a name which has been around me for a long time now...in fact it was 'given' to me by someone who knows me very well. I have never had the balls til now to use it on its own. Think I felt slightly absurd doing it, but recently it has come into its own for me for various meaningful reasons. Which is why Suzywoodsmoke of 't'other place' is now Woodsmoke here.
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Post by suelittleowl on Jul 17, 2007 15:18:05 GMT -1
I chose the Little Owl name when I decided I would like a 'craft' name to use on Internet forums. It was inspiration rather than a gift, chosen after I met a Little Owl called Spot at the Giggleswick Falconry centre who had been hand reared and couldn't fly - he ran everywhere. At the time it seemed an apt metaphor for my pagan path.
Since then I've kind of grown into it - Little Owls fly during the day as well as the night and they are not averse sitting and watching you, none of the picturesque hooting nonsense, Little Owls shriek. If they are present at a bird sanctuary they are ususlly the ones glaring from the bottom of a cage shrieking at everything.
Athena's owl was also a Little Owl, although I could never aspire quite that high.
I'm still running rather than flying but I get in a good glide now and then, but I have perfected the art of shrieking and glaring from the back of the cage.
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Post by megli on Jul 17, 2007 20:40:37 GMT -1
Well, 'Megli' means 'bear', or literally 'honey-eater' in, uh, Elvish. [looks embarrassed].
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2007 21:23:52 GMT -1
A few weeks ago there was a young couple in the news complaining they weren't allowed to call their newborn '4real'. Kids! I blame the parents!!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2007 8:32:43 GMT -1
There are some beautiful stories on this thread, thanks for sharing them everyone. Megli, would it make you feel better if I admitted to having written a comedy piece in Elvish that was (to my eternal embarrassment) reposted to the Tolkien fan sites?
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Post by megli on Jul 18, 2007 10:30:39 GMT -1
Thanks Draigheann. That did make me feel a bit better!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2007 10:54:17 GMT -1
And at least you're not one of those hilarious neo-Pagans that can't keep hold of the difference between "awen" and "Arwen"
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Post by megli on Jul 18, 2007 12:25:53 GMT -1
ARRRRRRRRRRGH! When I hear the ubiquitous 'arwen', I always want to kick people in the shins until they say 'Ow!', so I can say 'Yes, that's right, that's how you pronounce the first syllable in 'awen.''
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Post by littleraven on Jul 18, 2007 12:52:27 GMT -1
The origins of the word 'Awen' are not in fact of any kind of Welsh heritage. In fact the word originates in Yorkshire, as a contractraction of the phrase 'How are you, hen?', 'meaning 'how are you, dear?'.
"'Ow are you, hen?" -> "Ow you, 'en?" -> "Ow 'ou 'en" -> "Ow'en".
So there.
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Post by megli on Jul 18, 2007 14:05:58 GMT -1
That was worthy of Vyvy-, oh, sorry 'Nimue Goibniu Gryffynne', LR!
One of her best was telling me that 'the name of the famous Irish bard (not Welsh, as some deluded scholars seem to think) Taliesin was in fact a title given to him by the Christians, and not his real name, which was Privvardd. 'Tali' is just a version of 'tail', i.e. 'penis', and 'sin' is self evident, so the christians were attempting to slander him by implying that this sacred wise figure Privvardd was sexually profligate!!!!!!!!!!'
Was I really very wrong to want to kill her?
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Post by Lee on Jul 18, 2007 14:09:51 GMT -1
Was I really very wrong to want to kill her? public service mate. public service.
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Post by suelittleowl on Jul 19, 2007 18:40:03 GMT -1
The origins of the word 'Awen' are not in fact of any kind of Welsh heritage. In fact the word originates in Yorkshire, as a contractraction of the phrase 'How are you, hen?', 'meaning 'how are you, dear?'. "'Ow are you, hen?" -> "Ow you, 'en?" -> "Ow 'ou 'en" -> "Ow'en". So there. Now I know that a Yorkshireman is supposed to be a Scotsman without a sense of humour but as far as I am aware,'hen' is used by our Scots brothers and sisters (Potia?) In my part of Yorkshire - where they go shoo-it-ing and wear boo-its, the phrase you are looking for is 'Na-then' or 'Ow-do'.
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Post by littleraven on Jul 19, 2007 19:13:46 GMT -1
The origins of the word 'Awen' are not in fact of any kind of Welsh heritage. In fact the word originates in Yorkshire, as a contractraction of the phrase 'How are you, hen?', 'meaning 'how are you, dear?'. "'Ow are you, hen?" -> "Ow you, 'en?" -> "Ow 'ou 'en" -> "Ow'en". So there. Now I know that a Yorkshireman is supposed to be a Scotsman without a sense of humour but as far as I am aware,'hen' is used by our Scots brothers and sisters (Potia?) In my part of Yorkshire - where they go shoo-it-ing and wear boo-its, the phrase you are looking for is 'Na-then' or 'Ow-do'. Sorry Sue, but after reading this I feel distinctly emotional. In fact I may have to cry. I believe you are victimising me.
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Post by suelittleowl on Jul 20, 2007 7:25:24 GMT -1
Really? Cor!
Perhaps now is the time to uncloak my alter-ego, the hithertoo silent fourth Weird Sister ......(fanfare please)..... Nanny Whip!
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Post by megli on Jul 20, 2007 7:56:29 GMT -1
*splutters*
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