Have you ever wondered what your name means? Does it have a family history? Where are your name’s origins? We always did here at Her Campus Geneseo.
People don’t usually get to choose our names because we’re babies. So, we’ve asked our parents, guardians and the Internet to figure out what our names really mean.
Let’s see what our names really name.
Margaux Carmel
According to this website, my name was popularized by Hemingway’s daughter Margaux. Her name was originally spelled Margot, but she changed it after she found out that her parents conceived her while drinking a bottle of Chateau Margaux wine. That wine is French, which makes sense for me because I am Québécois and my family takes great pride in our Canadian and French heritage!
Rebecca Williamson
My name literally means “servant of god.” My name is one of the first names from the Old Testament; however, it was originally spelled Rebekah. Now, there are so many different spellings. I’ve seen quite a few odd ones, even ‘Rabecca’ which makes no sense. My parents chose the name because of a tradition where the family takes the first letter from the name of older relatives. I got the letter “R” from my great grandfather and grandpa. I guess a lot of names start with “R,” but I prefer Rebecca so much more than Rachel anyways.
Victoria Cooke
The name “Victoria” means “Victorious” because I’m obviously a winner. Victoria was the name of the Roman goddess of victory, so that’s actually pretty cool since I’m Italian. My middle name is Jayne spelled with a ‘y’ because Jane is just too plain. Apparently, Jayne means “God has been gracious.” I’m sure my parents chose this name for me since I am a gift to the world. And my last name means exactly what you’d think—that one of my ancestors must have been a cook. I suppose the added ‘e’ is just to add extra flair. So in full, my name technically translates to “Victorious gracious cook’ so basically I’m a cooking GODDESS. In reality, I think my parents just liked the sound of my first and middle name together.
Sydney Julien
My dad tells me that Sydney is a janky pronunciation of Saint Dennis who used to be the patron Saint of France. Julien means my ancestors were from Julien, France before they were shipped off to Québec. This isn’t even true since the original Julien who came to Canada was actually Polish, but adopted a French name to fit in better.
Emily Tsoi
My first name means “trying to equal or excel, riva.l” I think this is pretty funny since in the year I was born, 26,527 other people in the U.S. were also given the name Emily and now there’s almost always another Emily or two in each of my classes. In naming us Emily, were our parents setting us up to compete with one another as we grew up or trying to start an army of Emilys to take over the world?
Kayla Glennon
My parents really must have picked my name out of nowhere because it has Arabic and Hebrew origin meaning “Laurel, crown” according to this website, which has nothing to do with our family history. I didn’t find out until I was like19 that apparently they picked the name when my mom was pregnant and they went to Jack Astor’s at the Walden Galleria in Buffalo. They wrote a bunch of names on the table, which included Kayla, and ended up circling my name. It’s a cute story, but I wish they told me earlier!
We hope we’ve inspired you to go seek out your own name origins!