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Help[Opinions] Zephaniah
Ottilie has posted a list of male names in -iah (under Anaiah), which includes Zephaniah.
A family here in South Africa uses Zephne as a female name. It looks enough like Daphne for me to have wondered about a Greek origin, but that doesn't seem to work. Now I'm wondering about a feminised form of Zephaniah.
There's been a horrible case in the news here about a baby who was stolen from her mother in hospital when she was three days old. This, about 17-18 years ago. She is now in her last year of school, and a younger girl at the same school attracted attention by looking very much like her. Long story; DNA tests; they were biologically full sisters, and the elder girl's "parents" couldn't produce a birth certificate. Desperately sad all round. And the stolen baby had been given the name of Zephany, though of course she was brought up under another name.
So, Zephaniah, Zephany and Zephne! And the Zephany family don't appear to be connected in any way to the family that uses Zephne. So, I think I may be on to something. Any comments or suggestions would be most welcome.
A family here in South Africa uses Zephne as a female name. It looks enough like Daphne for me to have wondered about a Greek origin, but that doesn't seem to work. Now I'm wondering about a feminised form of Zephaniah.
There's been a horrible case in the news here about a baby who was stolen from her mother in hospital when she was three days old. This, about 17-18 years ago. She is now in her last year of school, and a younger girl at the same school attracted attention by looking very much like her. Long story; DNA tests; they were biologically full sisters, and the elder girl's "parents" couldn't produce a birth certificate. Desperately sad all round. And the stolen baby had been given the name of Zephany, though of course she was brought up under another name.
So, Zephaniah, Zephany and Zephne! And the Zephany family don't appear to be connected in any way to the family that uses Zephne. So, I think I may be on to something. Any comments or suggestions would be most welcome.
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It may well all link back to Zephaniah. It seems like it would, like it's a feminization of the name with influences from other names.
Zephne is rather pretty!
Zephne is rather pretty!
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We don't do useful things here like make BMDs available online; we don't even keep our census data! It just gets destroyed once it's been number-crunched. So it's very hard to say a sensible word about popularity figures. The education figures - GCSE or A-level equivalents - exist but of course only for a smallish proportion of largely middle-class kids.
That said, Zephaniah would count as a missionary name, with sound biblical credentials, and like Abel, Martha etc would have been used fairly routinely in black families for 150-200 years. Among whites, I've never seen any instances but if they exist, it'd be among the Afrikaans community, traditionally Calvinist and so also prone to using biblical names.
More specifically, in this case, the Zephne people are white, originally Afrikaans; I was at school with one who certainly spoke English at home. And the Zephany family would have been classified as Coloured when such classification was mandatory - basically mixed-race with admixtures of non-black African (Khoi, San) and the descendents of Malay slaves in the days of Dutch colonisation. This is a very interesting naming community; rather like black Americans, they often go for the exotic and amazing. I know of a man in his early 30s whose given name is pronounced Kri-SHAUN, which looks like a merger but, startlingly, is spelt Chretien!
Me, I quite like the sound of Zephany, but not the other two.
That said, Zephaniah would count as a missionary name, with sound biblical credentials, and like Abel, Martha etc would have been used fairly routinely in black families for 150-200 years. Among whites, I've never seen any instances but if they exist, it'd be among the Afrikaans community, traditionally Calvinist and so also prone to using biblical names.
More specifically, in this case, the Zephne people are white, originally Afrikaans; I was at school with one who certainly spoke English at home. And the Zephany family would have been classified as Coloured when such classification was mandatory - basically mixed-race with admixtures of non-black African (Khoi, San) and the descendents of Malay slaves in the days of Dutch colonisation. This is a very interesting naming community; rather like black Americans, they often go for the exotic and amazing. I know of a man in his early 30s whose given name is pronounced Kri-SHAUN, which looks like a merger but, startlingly, is spelt Chretien!
Me, I quite like the sound of Zephany, but not the other two.
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