Wednesday, March 11, 2015

'Kathleen' Isn't an Irish Name

Reading about smithereens (see next post below) motivated me to look up the source of my daughter's name, and to a surprise.

Though words/names spelled in English with an -een ending are typically Irish diminutives, I found that Kathleen, a very popular Irish name, is not. (In my semi-Irish family, we have three generations of Kathleens – my daughter, my sister, and my aunt).

However, Wikipedia says:
Kathleen is a given name, used in English and Irish-language communities. Sometimes spelled Cathleen, it is an Anglicized form of CaitlĂ­n, the Irish form of Cateline, which was the Old French form of Catherine. It ultimately derives from the Greek name Aikaterine, the meaning of which is highly debated 
Greek?

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