What's In A Name: Emil, Emilio, Emily

Emil/Emilio/Emily-These names all trace back to the Roman name "Aemilius," derived from Latin "aemulus," an adjective which meant "striving, rivaling," but also used as a noun to mean "rival." "Emil" in English came via German, but with reinforcement by French "Émile" in the second half of the 1800s from French author Émile Zola. "Emilio" is the Italian and Spanish form of the name, while Portuguese uses the same spelling, but with an accent mark, "Emílio." These names, however, are not uncommon in English speaking countries, as immigrants from Italy, Spanish speaking countries, Portugal and Brazil have continued with the use of the names, although the Portuguese form will lack the accent mark. All of these names, thus far, have been masculine, and the feminine form in English is "Emily," a name sort of taken from German by mistake. According to "behindthename.com," after the German House of Hanover became the royal house of England and Britain in the 1700s, Amelia Sophia was the daughter of King George II, but she was known as "Emily," even though the names "Emily" and "Amelia" are not related. "Emily" IS, however, related to "Emilia," the actual descendant from the Latin form "Aemilius" mentioned above.    

 

WORD HISTORY:

Reverend-This word is closely related to "revere," a Latin word borrowed by English via French, and somewhat more distantly related to "guard," a word borrowed from French, which had it from Germanic Frankish, and it is distantly related to "ward," "beware" and "aware," words from the Germanic roots of English. "Reverend" is a prefixed word that goes back to "re," a common prefix in Latin derived words, often meaning "back, backwards," with those meanings providing another meaning, "again," but exactly where this prefix comes from is unknown. The main body of the word goes back to Indo European "wer," which had the notion, "watch out for, pay heed to, take notice of." This gave Latin "vereri," meaning, "to have fear of, to stand in awe of;" thus also, "to respect." This verb acquired the "re" prefix, seemingly as an intensifier, but with the same meanings; so thus, "revereri." A future participle form of the verb was "reverendus," meaning, "one who is to be respected." Old French/Middle French (unclear to me exactly when) took it from the Latin form as "révérend," initally as an adjective meaning "revered, respected, worthy or deserving of respect," and it then was used as a noun. English borrowed the word in the early 1400s, seemingly at first as "reverent," although not to be confused with that separate word (another relative of "reverend"), as the "reverend" spelling prevailed in a short time. The usage as a title for clergymen started circa 1500.