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Help[Facts] Re: Ardeth
in reply to a message by dramaelf
Well, just because a character is described as being "Arabic" in a Hollywood theatrical movie, that doesn't mean that the screenwriters gave him an accurate Arabic name.
The movie character is "Ardeth Bay". The surname probably comes from the Turkish word "bey", meaning "chieftain", which was a title used by many leaders in the Muslim world and which often is written in English documents as if it was a surname.
I cannot find anything that looks like Ardeth in my Arabic name dictionaries. The closest names from the Middle East I have found are Ardad, listed as a Persian name meaning "deceiver" in Gandhi & Husain's The Complete Book of Muslim & Parsi Names, and Arda, listed as a male name meaning "king's staff" in my Turkish name dictionary. Perhaps the screenwriters consciously altered one of those, or perhaps they just made the name up.
Ardeth and Ardith are normally female names in the United States.
The movie character is "Ardeth Bay". The surname probably comes from the Turkish word "bey", meaning "chieftain", which was a title used by many leaders in the Muslim world and which often is written in English documents as if it was a surname.
I cannot find anything that looks like Ardeth in my Arabic name dictionaries. The closest names from the Middle East I have found are Ardad, listed as a Persian name meaning "deceiver" in Gandhi & Husain's The Complete Book of Muslim & Parsi Names, and Arda, listed as a male name meaning "king's staff" in my Turkish name dictionary. Perhaps the screenwriters consciously altered one of those, or perhaps they just made the name up.
Ardeth and Ardith are normally female names in the United States.
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Replies
Ardeth means Blooming Field in Hebrew. It's actually a girls name.
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Do you have any information about the origins etc of the female name Ardeth/Ardith? I spotted it once in a vintage children's book, and have never seen it again. But, I was at school with a girl of partially Scottish descent named Maryth, which makes me wonder if -eth (variously spelt) was at one time a fashionable ending. (She had no explanation of her name.)
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My theory at the moment is that Ardith is a respelling of Ardath influenced by Edith. Ardath is a place name (a field near Babylon)in the apocryphal book of Second Esdras. It was used as the title of a novel by the English writer Marie Corelli back in 1889. Though most people have completely forgotten Marie Corelli today, she was a bestseller back in the late 19th and early 20th century and her books were in print for many years. In Corelli's book, Ardath is also the place name near Babylon. But the fact that she used it for the book's title and that it sounded like Edith seems to have inspired a few parents to give the name to girls. It pops up on the SSA top 1000 list for girls in 1905. I think what then happened is that people heard of the few girls named Ardath, didn't know how the name was spelled, and assumed it must have the same ending as Edith. The spelling Ardith first turns up on the SSA list in 1913.
That's my theory of Ardith, any way. No idea on Maryth so far. :)
That's my theory of Ardith, any way. No idea on Maryth so far. :)
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Ardith
I've seen it defined as "field of flowers" or something along those lines in a name book. I believe it's by Pamela Redmond Satran. She gives its origins as Hebrew, which would be strange, seeing as there is no "th" sound in the Hebrew language. I'd check to see if Ardit or something like it is findable. I haven't found it so far.
I've seen it defined as "field of flowers" or something along those lines in a name book. I believe it's by Pamela Redmond Satran. She gives its origins as Hebrew, which would be strange, seeing as there is no "th" sound in the Hebrew language. I'd check to see if Ardit or something like it is findable. I haven't found it so far.
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