What is in a name?

April 25, 2007

A tudor rose



I recently became interested in studying the etymology of words and names since starting to read Gerald Massey's The Book of Beginnings. In it, he discusses the origin of many English words and shows how they relate directly back to to the ancient Egyptian language. Ellis C. Taylor's book In These Signs Conquer also got me interested in this fascinating study of the meaning and origin of words. I thought of the meaning of my own name and recalled that before I knew the root word meanings of people's names I used to marvel at how their names fit them so well.

It was hard to believe that parents could know the personality of their child so accurately when it was born so as to to give it the appropriate name. Perhaps something deeper which lay outside the realm of consciousness inspires the bestowal of a name?

My name means 'the listener from the tribe of healers' which fits me to a tee. I often find myself listening to other people speak, remaining silent, and then giving advice, and have been told by friends and relatives that I'm a "good listener" and would make a great therapist, which I hope is a good thing! I recently started to look at the names of my family members and friends, and came to realize they too were aptly named, almost disturbingly so in relation to their personalities and sometimes with implications that spoke to a deeper meaning of their character.

I recently had a discussion with Ben Fairhall who runs the site Battling the Behemoth which you can find in my links section. He wrote an article that sparked my interest in sleuthing the occult meaning behind hollywood pop culture which is still in progress discussing the significance of Britney and Madonna in relation to goddess symbolism. Specifically, he talks about how Madonna embodied the apotheosis of the crone, the third aspect of the triple moon deity in maiden/mother/crone symbolism.

This symbol is reflective of the moon and the female energy in its various forms. The moon in its new form is seen as a maiden or virgin, a mother when it is full, and finally the crone when it wanes. It supposed to reflect of the three stages of a woman's life. By the way, doesn't it remind you of the bio-hazard symbol as well?

Fairhall uses the famous MTV video music awards performance where madonna, britney and christina share a controversial kiss to make a compelling argument that this display was actually a ritual in which the behavior of the three artists reflected precisely this triptych, and also symbolized the ultimate ascendency of the crone, or dark aspect of the female energy represented by Madonna. Incidentally, Hayo Miyazaki's film Howl's Moving Castle, which I recommend highly, pays a moving homage to this concept when the young female protagonist is cursed by a witch and finds herself changing in age randomly throughout the film from a young woman to an old woman. The scene where she views herself in three mirrors being the most poignant metaphor for this symbolism.

Fairhall posits that Britney is bloodline, which was surprising to me since she doesn't exactly display the characteristics of a elite, bloodline person. But in thinking about her name I began to realize this theory may not be so farfetched. Britney's name comes from the word Brittania which itself originates from the name of the Babylonian goddess Barati. Barat-Anna (Barati to the Phoenicians) was the Great Mother of the Air and Sea, the Goddess of Light and Fire. Her symbol was the Rosi-crucis (the Cup of the waters) – a cross within a circle. This was also the original emblem of the Grail bloodline from the 4th millennium BC. On early Phoenician coins, it is significant that Barat-Anna is portrayed sitting on the sea-shore with the Rosi-crucis emblem beneath her chair. This very same image was transported by the Kassites into the Gaelic realms of Europe and, eventually, found its way onto the coins of Britain, where Barat-Anna was redefined as Britannia and given a torch to signify her fire-alchemy status. A coin from northern Phoenecia depicts her holding a spear, giving interesting relevance to Britney's last name.

Using Britney's name as a starting point, I decided to take a closer look at some other celebrity names, especially the names of the most prominent and fiery female celebrities.

The root word Lyn became interesting to me as I looked at names. The word Lyn means Line. We know that the name Rosalyn, for example, refers to the rose-line or ostensibly the Merovignian bloodline which is symbolized by the rose. For that matter, the name Marilyn as in Marylin Monroe also carries this interesting word root and refers to the Mary-Line or the goddess line. And of course, Marilyn was the archetypal goddess figure of our popular culture. Andy Warhol was certainly aware of Marylin's status as a diety. One of his famous paintings of Marylin Monroe was done on a golden background, a device traditionally used in painting in the depiction of byzantize religious icons.

I believe the root word Lyn pertains to the concept of bloodline. Lyn meaning, from the line of, or the genetic line.

Then we have Lindsay Lohan. Another lunatic [as it were, heh heh] spiraling out of control so often in our popular culture. Now the name Lindsay as I researched it, supposedly referred to the Linden tree. But in my studies so far of word etymology I have often found that the sound of the word is as important as the spelling. In fact it is the sound vibration that we respond to when we say a name and not its spelling. Thus Lin-say also references the root word Lyn for line or bloodline. Her last name is also quite interesting. Lohan originated from the Gaelic name Leoghan. Leoghan contains the root word Leo or lion. As any good student of symbolism knows the lion is a sun symbol. Its golden mane often used to suggest the rays of the sun. This is why MGM uses a lion in its logo. The MGM logo is really a modified Egyptian winged sun disk.

So Lindsay's name translated would be: Person of the bloodline from the sun tribe! And of course, what breakdown on young female celebrity names would be complete without dissecting Paris Hilton, whose name, just like the others pays homage to the goddess, in this case Isis.

From L'Amour Sacre [http://lamoursacre.tripod.com/id16.html]

Paris is the city of Isis. Par-Isis: it means in French “through Isis”. Ile de la Cite is the island in the river Seine that Notre Dame is built upon. This island was the beginning of the ancient city of Paris. The island itself is shaped like a boat and has been referred to as the boat of Isis.

Thus Paris's name would translate as: In honor of Isis from the hill people.

It is also interesting that quite a stir was made when these three young actresses were seen together. And the three were again famously linked in the public mind when they decided to shed their undergarments for the paparazzi. Gwen Stefani has a nice noble name as well: Gwen coming from Gwendolyn [there's that Lyn/bloodline, root word again] which means fair or blessed and Stefani comnig from the name Stephan which means crown. Her name translates to: The fair blessed one of the bloodline who wears a crown.The root word Ley is a saxon word meaning a clearing or open space, and as such, Ashlee [ley] Simpson's name may speak to her connections to the elite. This time in the form of the druids who worshiped the Ash tree, which was sacred to them due to its usage in healing and solar magic. Thus an ash tree clearing/grove suggests a sacred place for performing solar magic!

And last but not least there's the creepy name of Avril LaVigne, a name I had actually turned over in my mind as a french student even before I started looking at the etymology of names. The name Avril also held interest for me because my mom's name is April. April means open and LaVigne means "the vine" Now LaVigne is quite an intersting name in itself, even without the obvious reference to druidic plant worship shining through. Vines creep and wind around trees and other plants, sort of like serpents. So Avril's name while literally translating to: The open one/ of the vine, could also translate as: the one open to the serpent power!

I'll stop here, but you get the idea. You're probably thinking that I'm stretching things a little too far, but think about the meaning of your own name. Do some dissection of your own and you begin to see that something larger is at work here in the meaning of someone's name. I'm not even arguing that the parents of celebrities choose these names deliberately, with full knowledge of their meanings [although, its not impossible]. In fact, I think its just another example of the unconscious at work in our everyday world.

Source: http://fionawatermelon.blogspot.com