What's In A Name? Susanna, Susan, William

"Susanna" comes from Hebrew "Soshana/Sosanna" ("lily"), and Greek took for a religious name as "Sousanna," which gave Latin "Susanna." The name came to English from Latin church/biblical writings during the Middle Ages. "Susan" is simply a shortened variation of the name. There are also variations as "Suzanne" and "Susannah," among others.

"William" is from Germanic "Willahelm" ("willa"=will, determination; "helm"=helmet, protection, protector). The name was used by the Germanic tribe the Franks, who conquered the general area of modern France, and the name was then carried to England by the invading Normans by none other than the future king of England, who is known to history as "William the Conqueror." There were some variations in spelling, including the Anglicized "Willelm," but eventually the Norman French form, "Willaume," became "William." The French name "Guillaume" is really just another form of the name, "Liam," is an Irish shortened form, and "Willhelmina" is a feminine form.

I consulted the following, so for more information on any of the names see, "A World Of Baby Names" by Teresa Norman, published by Perigee/Penguin Group, New York, 2003.

WORD HISTORY:
Sore (Sorely)-This word, related to "sorry," goes back to Indo European "sai," which had the notion "pain, suffering." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "saira," which meant "suffering, sickness, pain." This gave Old English the noun "sar" (long "a" sound), meaning "pain, suffering, sickness, wound," but also the sense of "emotional pain, sadness, grief," and the adjective of the same spelling, meaning "painful, wounding," and "emotionally distressed, sad," and the adverbs "sare," which meant "painfully, grievously" and "sarlice" (likely pronounced as if, "sare-lick-eh"), which meant "mournfully, sorrowfully, lamentably." This later became modern English "sorely," which adds emphasis as "to a large degree, greatly," as in, "He will be sorely missed" (meaning, "he will be greatly missed"). The adverb "sare" later became "sore," as in the biblical, "and they were sore afraid," as it meant "much, very," from the notion of "painfully" ("they were painfully afraid," or "much/very afraid"), but it is now dated, as English borrowed "very," which gradually took over as the main word for that meaning. "Sar" has come down to us in modern times as both the noun "sore," meaning "wound, injury, skin ailment," and the adjective "sore," meaning "painful," but also the emotional side, "angry." English once had a verb form, "sarian," which meant "to feel pain," but also the emotional "feel pain or sadness for." Some forms in the other Germanic languages: German "sehr" (adverb, meaning "very," and its meaning evolution paralleled the development of English sare/sore, from "painfully" to "very"), German also has "versehrt" (adjective), which means "disabled," and the noun form, "Versehrte(r)," which means "a disabled person." Low German Saxon has "sehr" as both a noun and adverb, with essentially the same meanings as its English cousins, and the spelling with the "h" may be from the influence of standard German, as the Low German spelling was once "ser." Dutch has "zeer" as both a noun and adverb, again, with pretty much the same meanings as English. Icelandic has "sár" (adjective, "sore"), Danish has "sår" (noun, "wound"), Norwegian has "sår" for both the noun ("wound") and adjective ("sore"), Swedish has "sår" (noun, "wound").