Andrea

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Andrea
Given Name
Gender Unisex
Meaning Manly
Origin Greek
Wikipedia articles All pages beginning with Andrea
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For other uses, see Andrea (disambiguation).

Andrea is a given name common in many parts of the world:

  • In English, German, Hungarian and Spanish, Andrea is used as a woman's name, as the feminine form of Andrew, Andreas, András or Andre.
  • In Italy and Albania, Andrea is a masculine name, the equivalent of Andrew.
  • In Croatia and Slovenia, Andre(j)a is a feminine name, while Andrija, Andre and Andrej are masculine forms.
  • Andréa, with an accent mark, is a Brazilian Portuguese form of Andrea. The Portuguese equivalent (feminine of André) would be Andreia.

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[edit] Origin of the name

It derives from the Greek ανήρ (anēr), genitive ανδρός (andrós), that indicates the man with reference to its masculinity, as opposed to the woman (while man in the meaning of human genre is άνθρωπος, ánthropos, ανθρώπου, anthrópou).

The original Greek name, Andréas, represents the hypocoristic, with endearment functions, of male Greek names composed with the andr- prefix, like Androgeos, Androcles, Andronikos.

[edit] Pronunciations of Andrea

  • ANN-dree-uh
  • Ann-DREE-uh
  • Ann-DREH-ah (Italian pronunciation)
  • Ahn-DREE-uh
  • Ahn-DRAY-uh
  • Ehn-DREE-uh
  • Ehn-DRAY-uh
  • Uhn-drey-uh

[edit] Andrea in popular culture

In Italy, Andrea is used exclusively as a masculine name (the feminine version, very rare, being Andreina). In the year 2004, it was the third most popular name with 3.2% of newborns.[1] It is one of the few male names ending in a, with others being Elia (Elias), Enea (Aeneas), Luca (Lucas), Mattia (Matthias), Nicola (Nicholas).

It is traditionally popular because, according to the Christian Bible, Saint Andrew was one of the earliest disciples of Jesus and one of the twelve Apostles.

In North America, some baby name books claim that the female name translates to womanly, but that is merely an attempt to avoid having to say that a female name was derived from a word that meant "manly" instead of giving a full explanation of how Andrea was created as the feminine form of Andrew.[citation needed]

Nicknames for Andrea include:[citation needed] Andie/Andi(andita)/Andy/Ande, Ann, Drea, Andre, Andry, Dea, Dree, Rea, Dre, Dre Dre, Drae, Dreli, Drueggeli, Annie, Anne, Andra, Ang, Angy, Andika, Anja, Anj, Anna, Ania.

In various Latin-American countries the name Andrea is one of the most common and popular between girl names.[citation needed]

[edit] Notable people named Andrea

[edit] Females

[edit] Males

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ ISTAT 2004

[edit] References

  • ISTAT (2004). "Natalità e fecondità della popolazione residente: caratteristiche e tendenze recenti", Istituto nazionale di statistica.[1]