Talk:Merida

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

Added by a known-problematic anon. Every once in a while, they get something right. I'm wondering if this entry might be one of those happier occasions. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:34, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

• It's not in Hanks & Hodges's Dictionary of First Names, which while not exhaustive has a whole lot of names from European traditions. Googling around I can find it (or Mérida) as a surname (e.g. w:Fran Mérida) and as a place name in Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, and the Philippines, but as a first name it seems to belong only to the newest Disney princess, at least so far. Only time will tell whether the film's popularity leads to a rash of baby girls being named Merida. —Angr 18:21, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I've added a few citations. It's not clear whether they refer to men or to women, but I checked a large collection of digitised census records and found that approx. 75% of the people in the database called "Merida Smith" were female while 15% were male (also, 33% lived in the US, approx. half that many lived in the UK, and 1% lived in Canada). - -sche (discuss) 19:34, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, -sche. Now what of the etym? While it might be ultimately from Latin, this is clearly not just a straight borrowing from Latin. Presumably from Spanish Mérida? -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 20:52, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Etymologies of given names can be very tricky, especially of rare names that have no history of being the names of saints or royalty. It's possible that for some girls named Merida, it comes from Spanish Mérida (from Latin Emerita Augusta), while for some others it's a variant of a name like Meredith. WP doesn't say where the Disney princess gets her name from. —Angr 22:33, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Cited. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 04:59, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Passed, untagged by 151.224.95.199 (talk). — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 19:07, 13 October 2013 (UTC)