Saturday, August 11, 2018

You're a Star, pt. 3

I've already done a post on named stars, as well as one on names that mean 'star'. However, that overlooks one very narrow category of stellar names: those referring to one specific star--in this case, the morning and evening star (both are actually Venus, but let's not get too semantic). ;)

Danica and Lucifer are probably the only ones familiar in the US, but there are a quite a few others....
(surprisingly, most of the names I found are commonly used on people; the few that are mainly mythological/literary are marked with an *. Also, almost all the names refer to the morning star--or Venus in general--the ones referring to only the evening star are noted as such)

Feminine:
  • Arusiak (ah-ROOS-yak, Armenian)--also transliterated as Arusyak
  • Aušrinė (oh-SHREEN-ay [trilled/rolled R], Lithuanian)
  • Ayelet (ah-YEH-let, Hebrew)--lit. "gazelle". 'Ayelet hashachar ("gazelle of dawn") is the Hebrew name for the morning star.
  • Berlewen (behr-LEOO-en ['EOO' roughly sounds like the short 'e' of English "let" and the short 'oo' of "took" smashed together], Cornish)--a modern revival Cornish name. Another form is Borlowen* (bor-LOO-en). 
  • Danica (DAN-ik-ah, English; DAH-neets-ah, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian, Slovenian)
  • Jitřenka (yih-TRZHENK-ah [no close English equivalent for the ř, sort of a buzzy rolled R], Czech)
  • Lucero (loo-SEH-roh, Spanish)--lit. "light-giver, brilliance". Lucero del alba ("light-giver of dawn") is the Spanish name for the morning star. 
  • Quetzalli (ket-SAHL-lee, Nahuatl)--lit. "feather". Quetzalcoatl is the god of the morning star in Aztec mythology. Modern Spanish spelling is Quetzali.
  • Sagal (sah-GAL, Somali)
  • Vakarinė* (vah-kah-REE-nay [trilled/rolled R], Lithuanian) [evening]
  • Zornitsa (zor-NEET-sah, Bulgarian)
  • Zorya* (ZOHR-yah, Russian, Ukrainian)--lit. "dawn". Zorya Vechernyaya and Zorya Utrennyaya are the goddesses of the evening star and morning star, respectively, in Slavic mythology.
    [related names Zora/Zoran/Zorana are common in the Slavic languages]

Masculine:
  • Ēarendel* (AYR-en-del, Old English)--Old Norse form is Aurvandil* (AWR-vahn-dil). Orentil*Orendel*, and Erentil* are related names found in medieval German literature.
    [Tolkien fans might notice the similarity between Ēarendel and Eärendil--well, Tolkien was an Old English scholar. ;) ]
  • Lucifer* (LOO-sif-er, [anglicized] Latin)--lit. "bringer of light"
  • Tariq (TAH-rik, Arabic)--lit. "knocker, striker"
  • Tāwera (TAH-weh-rah, Maori)
  • Vesper* (VES-per, [anglicized] Latin)--Original Greek form is Hesperos*. [evening]

Unisex:
  • Khwezi (KWEH-zee, Zulu)
  • Tsolmon (TSAHL-mun, Mongolian)

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