What's In A Name: Agnes, Logan

Agnes-This female name is from transliterated Greek "Hagne," meaning "pure, chaste, holy." Latin took the name as "Agnes," and a girl of about 13 years old with the name was killed during the persecution of Christians in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian in the early 300s C.E. The story was that the girl would not renounce her Christian faith in spite of any enticements or then punishments, including the threat of death; and, she was indeed slain. Within a short time the story of the girl's death spread and she began to be venerated as a saint during the 300s. She is the patron of young girls and virgins. Her name became a common given name in many parts of Europe, for example: Agnese in Italian, Inés in Spanish, Inês in Portuguese, Agnès in French, Agnieszka in Polish, Agnes in German.  

 

 

Logan-This is a Scots Gaelic* name meaning 'little hollow," originally used as a family name for those who lived in or around a little hollow, but later also used as a given name, "seemingly" at first for girls, but then also for boys. Also a town in western Scotland with the name ("Lagan" in Scots Gaelic); thus, a likely source of at least some of the family name origins. 

 

* Scots Gaelic, or Scottish Gaelic, is one of the Celtic languages. It is closely related to Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (from the Isle of Man), and it is also related to Welsh (from Wales), Cornish (from Cornwall in southwestern England) and Breton (from Brittany in France).  

 

 

 

I consulted the following for the preparation of this article: 1) "A World of Baby Names" by Teresa Norman, published by Perigee/Penguin Group, New York, 2003  2) behindthename.com   3) "A Greek-English Lexicon," by Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Roderick McKenzie, and Eric Arthur Barber, published by Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1940  4) Catholic.org

 

WORD HISTORY:

Chastity-This word is related to "caste," a Latin-derived word borrowed by English from Portuguese, to "chateau," another Latin based word, but borrowed by English from French, and to "castle," another Latin derived word borrowed by English from that language, although with French influence on what became its predominant meaning. "Chastity" goes back to Indo European "kes," which meant "to cut," which gave the parent of Latin, Old Italic, "kastro," which meant "a part, a share, a segment." This gave Latin the verb "carere," meaning, "to be cut off or separated from;" thus also, "to lack, to be lacking, to be without." [Note: The "s" sound of the Italic form (kastro) changed to an "r" (carere), a fairly common occurrence in Latin and in other languages too, including in the Germanic languages, which includes English. It is called "rhotacism" from Greek "rho," for the letter "r."] But the adjectival form apparently was from the Old Italic form; thus, "castus," seemingly originally meaning, "separated, cut off from;" thus then, "pure in morals;" thus in religion, "abstinent, thoroughly pious." This gave Latin the noun "castitas," meaning "chastity, purity," and this passed to Latin-based Old French as "chastete/chasteté," with the same meaning, although with the additional specific meaning of "virginity" often being present. English borrowed the word in the very early 1200s (initially as "chastete?").