What's In A Name: Max, Minerva

Max-While this name may well be used as a name in its own right, it is most often a shortened form of Maximilian or Maxwell in English. Maximilian was the name of a Christian saint of the North African part of the Roman Empire (now Tebessa in Algeria), known as Saint Maximilian of Tebessa. He was executed in 296 A.D. for not joining the Roman army; and as such, he is credited by some as being a conscientious objector. The name is based upon the Latin word "maximus," meaning "greatest," with the second part seemingly being based upon the Latin name "Aemilius/Aemilianus,"* which meant "rival," perhaps to simply combine the name of a saint and a Roman emperor (Aemilianus was emperor briefly in the 250s (A.D.). The feminine form is "Maxine," which, according to behindthename.com, only came into common usage in English in the early part of the 20th Century.

 

 

Minerva-"Minnie" is frequently used as a nickname for women named Minerva, but "Minnie" is sometimes used for other names too (like "Amelia" and "Wilhelmina"). The name seems to go back to the Indo European root "men," which meant "to remember, to think;"** thus, "Minerva" means "intellect, wisdom." It was the name of the Roman goddess of "wisdom and thoughtfulness," which seems to have been the Roman equivalent to the Greek goddess "Athena" (spelled "Athene," by some). The name came into English in the late 1300s, initially as "Minerve/Mynerfe," from Latin "Minerva" (originally "Menerva").     

* For more about Aemilius/Aemilianus and the modern derived names, here is the link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2021/06/whats-in-name-emil-emilio-emily.html

 

** The Indo European root "men" lies behind the common English word "mind," a word from the Germanic roots of English.

I consulted the following in the preparation of this article: 1) behindthename.com  2) "A World of Baby Names," by Teresa Norman, published by Perigee/Penguin Group, New York, 2003  3) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages" (Volume 7 of the Leiden Indo-European Etymological Series), by Michiel de Vaan, Brill (Publishing), Leiden (Netherlands), Boston (U.S.), 2008 4) https://www.catholic.org/saints/

 

WORD HISTORY:

Speck/Speckle-English has a couple of words spelled "speck," and I covered the other one, commonly meaning "bacon," before. This is a difficult word, and I can't give a definitive history here, although it was in Old English as "specca" (supposedly in Low German and Dutch, but sources are very scant on info), meaning "a small spot, a stain," but exactly where any of these forms came from is unknown. The Old English form then became "spekke/specke," meaning "a stain, a small spot,"  before the modern form "speck." "Speckle" showed up in the mid 1400s, and likely it was based upon the existing English word, but at least patterned after Dutch "spekel/spekkel," also seemingly meaning "spot," with a Dutch verb, "spekelen," meaning "to sprinkle." By the 1500s, English had developed the verb "bespeckle;" that is, "to mark something with spots." I'll throw out my own possible explanation, which would tie it to "speck," meaning bacon. Could the relatively thin layers of meat and fat in bacon have given some of the Germanic languages the figurative meaning "small amount;" thus also, "small spot?"