Name Meaning of a Real Person
Following up last entry about name etymology, let's do another one, and this time for my own name. This one's another one from my old list of entries to write. And it's probably the beginning of the list, the oldest thing on there that I'd yet to write, because it came to me when I was was doing a full watch of Lost. That was several task lists ago so I don't have a date on the note creation exactly, but I think that was summer of 2015.
When it comes to names, and particularly my name, one thing that comes to mind more often is not Lost, but actually Stargate. I think its brought up a few times over the course of the show, but there's one particular scene that comes to mind where Daniel Jackson explains the meaning of the name, which is 'God is my judge'. With that setting the stage, we move onto Lost, and the character of Daniel Faraday. I can't find any Youtube clips of this one offhand, but I had made this note to write this because of several times in Lost where - without any further addressing of it - he would be called Dan by someone and he would correct them that it's Daniel.
There is a particular reason for this, when you think about name etymology. Dan isn't simply just a diminuitive form of the name Daniel, but also has additional meanings of its own. Even in the same language origin, Daniel has similar meaning in Hebrew as Dan, but they have different origins. Both are Biblical names, but Dan (where by itself just means 'judge') is the name of one of the tribes of Israel, whereas Daniel comes much later, and is most famously associated with the man thrown to the lions. Myself, I was named particularly for that person. And in the Bible, Dan, the head of the tribe, is described as to be the judge of his tribe members, which is itself rather far from the meaning of Daniel, honestly. And that's just one of the etymologies of Dan, because there's also Dan's with English and Scandanavian origins.
As consequence, of course, there's people with particulars for the name. For Daniel Faraday in Lost, for Daniel Jackson in Stargate, and for myself. For me, it's kind of a special sticking point, just because for some reason ever since I'm a kid everyone's always called me by my last name, rather than my first. It's somewhat inevitable with people I'm friends with, and there's no avoiding that, but if it's not an aquaintenace then if I get asked for a preference than I will say Daniel. There are some friends that do call me Dan, including another one who specifically himself has Dan as his preference, but what I actually consider to be my name goes by the meaning of the name. I am Daniel, and God is my judge.
Also it's not 'Danielle', Mr. Whatever-your-name-was French teacher in my Jr High that also did the detentions. I don't care that it's 'a nice distinguished French name', my name is Hebrew, thank you very much. EDIT: lol, whoops!
Date posted: 24 May, 2021 Tags: names
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