What's In A Name: Frances, Francis, Godfrey

Francis, and the female form of the name, Frances, go back to the Germanic tribe the "Franks." It's not really clear whether the tribal name came from their type of spear, called a "frankon," or from a throwing ax they used called a "francisca/franciska," or if rather the names for their weapons were taken from the name of the tribe itself. Whatever the case, the main elements of the Franks conquered much of Gaul, eventually giving their own name to the territory, “France,” and to the people and language, “French.” The Latin speaking Gauls borrowed the name for the Franks into Latin and it took on the meaning of “freeman, free,” as during Frankish rule, only people of Frankish background had full rights and status in the Frankish kingdom. This produced the Latin name "Franciscus" during the second half of the 1100s, which meant "Frenchman." One Italian Christian friar named Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone was nicknamed "Franciscus" (Latin)/"Francesco" (Italian) by his father, who greatly admired the French. This friar came to be known to history as "Saint Francis of Assisi," and this spread the name throughout a great part of Europe in various forms, including: "Francisco" in Spanish and Portuguese, "Franz" in German, "Ferenc" in Hungarian, "Frančišek" in Slovenian, "Franco" as a shortened form of "Francesco" in Italian. "Apparently" the name was not common in England until the 1500s, and famous English seafarer Sir Francis Drake bore the name and this spread the name in English. Some feminine forms: "Francisca" in Spanish and Portuguese, "Franziska" in German, "Francesca" in Italian, "Frances" in English.          

Godfrey-This name, used as both a family name and a given name, goes back to Old Germanic "Godafrid," which meant either, "peace of god,"* or "good(ness of) peace." "Frid," which meant "peace," was represented in Old English by a couple of related words, "freod" and "friþ(u)" (þ=th), which eventually just became "frith," a word now antiquated, as "peace," a Latin-derived word, was borrowed by English and became the main word of that meaning. There have been a variety of spellings of the name "Godfrey" over time, including forms taken to England by the Normans. While French is a Latin-based language, it was influenced by Germanic, especially by the Germanic Franks, and by the Normans, who arrived with their North Germanic language and settled in what came to be called "Normandy," where they relatively quickly took on a form of French as their language. "Godefridus" was one of the forms used in England by the Normans, although it appears to be a "Latinized" form. There are a number of forms in other languages, including, but not limited to: "Godfried" in Dutch, "Gottfried" in German, "Godofredo" in Spanish and Portuguese, "Gottfrid" in Swedish, "Godtfred" in Norwegian.        

* The ancient Germanic peoples were pagan, so not likely "God," with a capital "G," as meant in Christianity.

I consulted the following in writing this article: 

www.behindthename.com and www.houseofnames.com

WORD HISTORY:
Stigma (plural: Stigmata)-This word is distantly related to "stick" (verb and noun), a word from the Germanic roots of English. "Stigma" goes back to Indo European "steg/steig," which had the notion, "to pierce, puncture or prick with a pointed object;" thus adjectivally, "pointed." This gave transliterated Ancient Greek the verb "stizein," meaning, "to mark (with a pointed object);" thus also, "to tattoo," which then produced the transliterated Greek noun "stígma," meaning, "a mark, tattoo or identifying mark made by a pointed implement." This then added the meaning, "a mark burned onto the skin by a pointed hot iron rod;" thus, "a brand." Latin borrowed the word as "stigma" (plural: "stigmata"), with the last meaning, especially used to denote slavery or low status. In Church Latin, however, the plural form came to mean "marks similar to the wound marks inflicted on the body of Christ during his crucifixion and claimed to appear on the bodies of the most devoted Christians." English borrowed the word as "stigme" in the first half of the 1400s, which then became "stigma" (late 1500s?), initially "seemingly" with the "brand" meaning, but adding the religious meaning in the 1600s. The "low status" meaning came into English circa 1600, but more with the meaning, "a mark of shame or disgrace." A further meaning is, "the part of a flower where pollen germinates."