What's In A Name: Christine, Christopher

Christine-This female name goes back to transliterated Greek "christianos," which meant, "one who follows Christ;" thus, "a Christian." This was borrowed by Latin as "christianus," which then used it for the name, "Christiana," later rendered in other languages as "Christina/Christine." Other forms are "Kristina" and "Kristen."

Christopher-This male name, also used as a family name, started with transliterated Greek "Christos," meaning, "Christ," and "phoros," from the Greek verb "pherein," meaning, "to bear, to carry." The name was borrowed into Latin, the language of early Christianity, with the assumption that it meant, "bearer of Christ (in the heart)." Some, but not all, Christians accept the existence of Saint Christopher, and revere him as a protector of travelers. It seems, however, that "Christopher" was used as a title (Bearer of Christ) for some Christian leaders, and thus, some believe the title was confused for a name of a man from the 200 A.D. era. So... whatever your beliefs...  The name started to spread in English during the 1400s. The name is common, or fairly common, in various languages, and a few examples are: modern (transliterated) Greek uses "Christoforos," French uses "Christophe," German uses "Christoph," Portuguese uses "Cristóvão" and Spanish uses "Cristóbal," and sometimes, "Cristóforo."

I consulted the following for this article: 1) "A World of Baby Names," by Teresa Norman, published by Perigee/Penguin Group, New York, 2003 2) "A Greek-English Lexicon," by Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Roderick McKenzie and Eric Arthur Barber, published by Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1940 3) Behindthename.com

WORD HISTORY:
Bear (verb)-English has more than one word of this spelling, and this is for the verb meaning, "to carry, to carry to fruition, to produce or give birth." It is related to "burden," another English word from its Germanic roots, and it goes back to Indo European "bher," which meant, "to bear a burden, to carry." This gave its Old Germanic offspring, "beranan," with the same meaning. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "beran," meaning, "to bear, to carry, to wear, to produce, to give birth, to hold up physically (weight, as in, "Can the foot bridge bear both of us?"), to endure a burden." It also gave Old English "geberan," meaning the specific, "to give birth, to bring forth." These later became consolidated into "beren," before the modern form. The other Germanic languages have: German has several forms, including: "gebären" meaning, "to give birth, to bring into the world, to bring forth;" also, "entbehren," meaning, "to do without (something)," and the noun, "Entbehrung" means, "deprivation" (a lack of something you must bear), "gebaren," for "behavior" (the way you 'bear/carry' yourself); Low German has "beren" (to give birth) and "bären," for "behavior;" Dutch verb "baren," meaning, "to give birth," and the noun, "baren," for "childbearing;" Frisian had forms in the past, but I could only find  "bern," meaning "child," in a modern form; Danish "bære," meaning "to wear, to carry;" Norwegian "bære/bera" meaning, "to carry, to endure a burden;" Icelandic "bera" meaning, "to carry, to endure;" Swedish "bära," meaning, "to carry, to wear."