"Lendren" was originally chosen as the real name for an NPC in a roleplaying game I was running, but the characters knew him only by a nickname. (The nickname was chosen first, then the real name chosen to explain the nickname.) The players never dug enough to find out the real name, though, so it went unused. Even though my Lusternia character was pretty much completely unlike that NPC, I hate to see a good name go to waste, so I recycled it.

Originally I stick to a certain name which wasn't allowed here (Agate). Then, I was inspired by a certain batchmate of mine (different campus though) with the same name who had the same character name for her Ragnarok Online character (First female player to reach 99 during the early stages of it's launch in our country).

Well, the name Xalmis came out pretty originally. From the word, Zalmoxis, a Thracian God; played a bit with the phonetic output, and thus the name. I like how the word sounds, mainly; plus in my opinion it suits my character pretty well.

I pulled my name out of my ass.

"Marina" was used in the early 13th century to describe a woman of prophetic vision in Northern Italy. Oftentimes given to women who were also to be killed because of said "sight" after the inquisition came into Italy and destroyed its customs and traditions.

Prior, Marina was a variant of Minerva and Marive, also known as Maud. How the Celts picked up the name Marive from Minerva, which originated in Rome after the Romans invaded Greece, is beyond me. Minerva was the name given to the greek goddess, Athena, who was well known for her wisdom and her profession as a goddess of both wisdom and crafts, as well as War, being the matron of Athens for several consecutive years/rulings. Nike, not the shoe, was a name used prior to Athena. However, Nike was portrayed with wings, whereas Athena was not.

Today, Marina oftentimes means, in Italy, a woman who is the matriarch of the family, in honor of the olde tradition. (When using "olde", it is referring to prechristianity's slaughter of the Italian traditions, or any culture's tradition for that matter that was heavily influenced by the Catholic Church. When using old, you would be stopping at the inquisition and moving forward, not backwards, though the Catholic Church forbade the word "olde" be to be used shortly after the downfall of Wayse)

Knowing what type of character I wanted play, I thought Marina fit well with her personality. Afterall, Minerva/Athena was prone to temper flares, but was also extremely motherly and oftentimes over protective of her followers. The word "Migraine" comes from Minerva which comes from Athena, which literally meant "splitting head" or something along those lines.

This is completely not mentioning that the Catholics didn't care what your vernacular languages sounded like. You spoke Latin when dealing with the Church.

Referring to your post:

Of old "of old times" is from c.1386.

Historic records predating christianity are referred to as "olde" when speaking of forgotten traditions or records, when using the English language since archaic Latin (prior St. Gregory VII's rule (1073-85) ) has all but been forgotten, replaced shortly thereafter with Modern Latin. Go Here to learn more.

Also Here
And Here
Also Here and Here as well as here

You can learn more about this topic and other topics that concern it by reading the books
Egypt, Greece and Rome : Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean by Charles Freeman as well as Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language by Norman Fairclough. If you want to discuss this in detail, you can PM me. :smile:

So who else has names they want to discuss?

Smithsonian search for "Wayse"

Google search for Wayse, England

So, there's no town called Wayse in England, either current or of historical significance.

Judging by the entymology, we're looking for a Middle English word, which puts us at about 1100 AD, of which there is plenty of records.

Then you have to account for the Medieval Inquistion running in the late 1100's to the early 1200's in England and no mentions of "old" or "olde" in that time period, and pretty much no activity in the 1400's.

And the scholarly recognition of "olde" as fake archaic.

And, again, the fact that the Church really didn't care.

Ball's in your court!

John Wycliff. His "middle name" or the name given to him by his followers was "Wayse".

The Inquisition faded and bloomed repeatedly. That is well known amongst all circles of historians. The term "olde", as I will have to repeat myself again for you, is the English word used when speaking of anything dating pre-christian rule. When using the word "olde", a catholic/pre-modernist historian, as any will tell you, is referring to prior overall rule.

Proper Modern Latin terms would consist of: vetus, senex senis, provectus, grandaevus, antiquus, altus, with vetus cro being popular amongst those in the far Western parts of Europe and Antiquus being popular in the mid-western parts of Europe.

Shall we move this to PMs now or would you like to continue?

No, we should continue.

Google search for "old vs. olde"

Google search for John Wycliff Wayse

Google search for John Wycliffe Wayse

There's three more strikes.

The Inquisition did indeed bloom and fade repeatedly. In only happened once in England, regardless, and there was no word "olde" at the time for Church to ban.

And you still haven't said why the Church would be so prejudiced against our humble fifth letter that it would ban "olde" but not "old" and would feel the need to dig up a corpse and burn some books to make the point.

EDIT: And old Latin wasn't forgotten. I can read Cicero, and I'm no great Latin scholar.

My charatcer's name comes from an Irish Gaelic word for wisdom which I left a letter out of during the creation process.

Heh. John Wycliffe would be the name you would want to search for, as "Wayse" is similar to slang used in that period of his life. You would to have taken either several Pre-Modernist History classes to know his "nick name" or a Gay/Lesbian Studies course at a University.

And you can speak Old Latin? That's odd. Old Latin hasn't been taught in any school outside Vatican City since Modern Latin was brought into the picture. In fact, the last recorded literature written in Old Latin would have been Flora Brasiliensis by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius in 1840, with the Neo-Latin piece being . Apollo et Hyacinthus which was written prior the 19th century. The Catholic Chuch, well known for its prayer said in Latin, don't even use the Old Latin verses anymore nor have they for near 130 years. Where did you learn to speak and read Old Latin.

As for the reason behind it, that would be speculation on both our parts. Why did the Catholic Church kill Wycliffe? Was it because he was an openly gay religious man protesting the Church? Or was it because he was, indeed, guilty of "heresy"? Why did the Catholic Church begin the Inquisition? Why did they kill near 10,000 people inbetween the 10th century to the 16th century? Why did the Catholic Church order all paraphanelia be burned in the 17th century that was of any occult semblance? Part should say out of mere idiocy and the other part should say, "Its the Catholic Church. When have they ever made sense?"

All strikes nulled and void. But you, dear, have a good few. Shall we now take this to PMs? *points to the Admin glaring at the MBs*

Not to interrupt your or anything, but here are my thoughts on the origin of Marina's name

Edit: And as for her Last name

It's always made sense to me, they go together...

Yes!! You've uncovered the truth! I am secretly a man named Bobbo Spungabakesies who is a spy for the Empire of New Celest, who is also a fancy-shmancy dresser who enjoys long walks on the beach, beheading novices at random, cooking poisoned food and feeding it to puppies and kittens, as well as enjoys attacking toe nails with peanut butter and jelly.

Wesmin.

Xavius, I'd be interested to see your reference for that definition of old. It's semi-correct - the middle English variant would more usually have been 'old' or 'oold' rather than 'olde'. However, there were (of course) no strict spelling rules and 'olde' does appear now and again. For instance, in Chaucer's description of the Doctour of Phisik in his General Prologue, the Riverside edition transliterates one line as follows: "Wel knew he the olde Esculapius" (line 429, fragment I).

Marina, I'm not quite sure why you cited sources. Anyone with an education will have assumed (as I did) that you either cut and pasted your post from a spoof website or you invented it on the spot. The more common meaning of the word Marina is the one Zenji posted. The name is, like the collection of pontoons in a harbour, one which is derived from words meaning sea. Presumably the same root gives us 'maritime'.

I don't dispute your claim that Marina was a name used in the early 13th century to describe a woman of prophetic vision. I don't know differently on that. You might be right. I've never heard of Marive, and you might be right there too. Presumably the Celts would have picked up the name after one of the Roman invasion of Britain. Around Bath, the goddess was identified with the local goddess Sulis, who became known as Sulis-Minerva. You may also be right about the migraine-Minerva link: one of the myths about Minerva/Athena's origin involves Zeus splitting open his head to relieve a pounding headache and her popping out.

However, a link between Marina and Minerva seems implausible to me. Perhaps a linguist might comment? I might add that your potted history of the Athenian relationship with Athena was painful to read, as was your intelligence-defying claim that 'olde' is a word used to refer to "prechristianity's slaughter of the Italian traditions". What the hell are you talking about? You are aware, presumably that 1 AD fell during the reign of Augustus, and arguably during the acme of the pre-Byzantine Roman Empire. Are you referring to the conquest by the Latins of the surrounding Italian tribes several hundred years before? Regarding your claim about 'old' as opposed to 'olde', why would an English word be changed in order to refer to a movement that had almost no impact on England?

I'll let Xavius fight the Wayse battle. It is clearly wrong, but Xavius has it in hand. Instead, I'll take the old Latin point. Modern Latin? What on earth is that? The Latin people learn is the Latin of Virgil and Ovid. It is ancient Latin. More modern Latin might be medieval Latin, which has various pronunciation differences but is essentially the same thing.

You aren't from around here, are you?

Google is quite the repository of information. If it ain't on Google, it ain't anywhere, especially since many universities publish research and class notes on the 'Net. A search of "Wayse" by itself shows it being used as an alternate spelling of "ways." Add in a city or a name, and the pages pretty much disappear. Coincidence? Doubtful.



Wheelock's Latin. The where is rather irrelevant. The textbook, however, seems to be a very popular choice among high schools and colleges, and you translate old Roman writers in pretty much every chapter. Alhough, for the record, Ecclesial Latin is almost entirely identical to Classical Latin, barring pronunciations. The only difference you'll notice in writing is the lack of accented characters.



Ok, one, the Church didn't kill Wycliffe.

Two, his anti-papal writings aren't all that hard to find.

Three, your timelines are still completely and totally wrong.

I'm as big of a detractor of the Catholic Church as there is, but when you try to attack the Church based on lies, you undermine attacks made from responsible, well-researched positions.



And ecclesial bias against the letter "e" is still ridiculous.

Dictionary.com. If you've found a primary source, though, you win by default.

Admittedly women's studies is more my thing, but as a history major, if we're quoting dictionary for dictionary, here's Oxford's definition of "olde", and it has NOTHING to do with Italians being wiped out or whatnot.



"Olde" has something of a "mystique" surrounding it as an archaic and obsolete word - "ye olde (whatever)" and whatnot. I'd have to pull out my copy of Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (400 miles away, how I miss you so, book of wonder) to see if it's in the vernacular, but I'm not particularly pro-church and I still think the theory of the church going "omg olde is bad!" is a little...out there. Okay, way out there.

Also, Wycliffe died of a stroke/apoplexy. He was not actually "killed" by anything.

P.S. OED > Dictionary.com, but the online version is a "premium service". If you have academic access (as I do) it's easy to get to, but I'm not going to bother posting a direct link since I can't count on most forum-goers having a personal or institutional subscription.

Arak comes from arachnid, as if you couldn't guess. Not for any particular reason, though. My older character's name came from another small animal. And the character that I'm playing now has a name I just sort of thought up, but the name was so cool it pretty much forced me make a character for it, who I now play almost exclusively. Cool eh? If only you knew who that character is, it would be even cooler.