What do you think of the name Daisy f...

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-21-2007
What do you think of the name Daisy f...
12
Thu, 06-05-2008 - 5:11pm

What do you think of the name Daisy for our baby girl?



  • like it
  • don't like it


You will be able to change your vote.


Pages

Avatar for dr_kae
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 06-10-2008 - 2:02am

Hmmm...all I know is what the dictionaries said. Why they list "marguerite" as meaning "daisy" (and "marguerite" was actually the first entry under "daisy" or "daisy wheel" in both of my dictionaries) and not "pearl" ("marguerite" was not listed as an option there at all--of course, not everything fits into a dictionary) is not my call to make, but since Larousse is French based and Langenscheidt has German roots, maybe they have their finger on the more common European usage. (Are you Quebecois? I know there are some marked differences between Quebecois and continental French, as there are between American English and the Queen's English.) I'm guessing that this common usage was what the previous poster was talking about. She wasn't wrong in saying that "marguerite" is the French word for "daisy." It means "pearl" at the root (Latin as well as Greek) but the common usage (on a dictionary level, at least) seems to swing more towards flowers. I suppose it's rather like saying that "petit chou" is the French term for "darling." It initially means "little cabbage," but it's also used as a term of endearment on par with "darling." The use of the word for one concept doesn't exclude it from use on another. Considering the whimsical way many flowers are "named" (baby's breath, forget-me-nots, Dutchman's Breeches, so on) calling a dewy white flower a "pearl" doesn't seem unlikely.

English is a Germanic language on a base/structural level, but it's such a borrowing language that we've got words of long standing that hail from Greek, Latin and Aramaic nestling cheek by jowl with Hindustani, Turkish and Celtic ...the Germanic roots are just the broth that the chunks of other languages are stewing in. When we borrow words, we sometimes make some meanings of a word more dominant than others--but the meanings of those words may be mutating in a completely different direction in their original space. And I wonder if that's what we're seeing here.

Anyway, long story short...traditionally, for whatever reason, Daisy is a nn for Margaret. Whether it's because the French call marguerites daisies or some Cockney rhyming thing like Margaret->Maisy->Daisy or what, it's a connection in old usage. I'm sure it predates the Civil War, but I do remember that Meg's daughter Margaret in "Little Women" was called Daisy, so we're looking at at least 140 years (assuming Louisa May Alcott wasn't being anachronistic.)

Photobucket


<Photobucket
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-15-2008
Tue, 06-10-2008 - 10:56am

To me the etymology is very interesting, but

Pages