Names girls and boys

I haven’t blogged about names for quite a while... but one of my favourite forms of names, are “girls names that derive from boys names.”

 In medieval times, these names were often still pronounced in the masculine way, informally.  Philippa was said as “Philip” or Jacqueline as “Jake”…

Feminine endings in French are usually formed by adding “e” or “ette” to a male name… such as Henriette, or Antoinette… or Martine, for the feminine of Martin... or Simone for the femine version of Simon.

In English, a name is often feminised by adding an “a” to it... such as “Alexandra”, or Alberta, or Antonia.   Others are Cecilia, Claudia, Martina, Michaela,  Roberta….

  Other feminisations are made by adding “etta” as in Henrietta, or Harriet… for Henry or Harry…

another way of feminising a name is to add “ine” or “ina” to the name, such as Geraldine, Georgina, Christina, Josephine,  and  Davina.  Caroline is a feminine version of Charles, from the Latin version of Charles, “Carol” with “ine” added.   Other more unusual feminine  versions of Charles are “Carole”, or Carola, which had some popularity in Victorian times. And the French feminine, “Charlotte” passed into English.  

The usual female version of Stephen, is Stephanie, which is also a French and German name.. but which became popular in English.   Bernadette is a French name, the feminine of Bernard, but it passed into England and Ireland because of St Bernadette..

An unusual and occasionally used “female name” is Richmal for Richard.  The author Richmal Crompton, famous for her “Just William” stories, had this name, which was apparently a mixture of Richard and the feminine “mal” for Mary….Other female versions of Richard which have cropped up in recent years are “Richenda”, and “Richelle”.

In modern times, it has become more common to give girls names which were originally boys’ names… such as “Jamie” or “Jaime” as a version of James.. or Charlie for Charles