Etymology
The etymology of the name Penda is unknown. Penda of Mercia is the only monarch with this name, but a number of Mercian commoners with the same name are on record.
Suggestions for etymologies of the name are essentially divided between a Celtic and a Germanic origin. The names of members of a Northumbrian brotherhood are recorded in the ninth century Liber vitae Dunelmensis, the name Penda occurs in this list and is categorised as a British (Welsh) name. John T. Koch noted that, "Penda and a number of other royal names from early Anglian Mercia have more obvious Brythonic than German explanations, though they do not correspond to known Welsh names." These royal names include those of Penda's father Pybba, and of his son Peada. It has been suggested that the firm alliance between Penda and various British princes might be the result of a "racial cause."
Others have suggested that the name Penda comes from an unrecorded, and therefore putative, Old English word meaning "pledge". Continental Germnic comparanda for the name include a feminine Penta (9th century) and a toponym Penti-lingen, suggesting an underlying personal name Pendi.
Read more about this topic: Penda Of Mercia
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)