David (name)

David, Davit
Pronunciation /ˈdeɪvɪd/
Gender Male
Origin
Word/name Hebrew
Meaning "beloved"
Look up David, Davit in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

David is a common male English, French and Spanish given name of Hebrew origin. It is also a surname.

The name David is a derivation of an ancient Mesopotamian given name and appears in the Bible as the Biblical Hebrew name דָּוִד (Dāwīḏ  pronunciation: [dɔːˈviːð]; Modern Hebrew: [daˈvid]), meaning "Darling" or "Beloved". Dudi is a common nickname for David in Hebrew, while Dave and Davy are common English nicknames.[1] The Arabic and Assyrian versions of David are Daud (pronounced "Da-ood") and Dāwūd داود (pronounced [dæːˈwuːd, dæˈwuːd]).

Name days are celebrated on 8 February (for David IV of Georgia), 1 March (for St. David of Wales) and 29 December (for King David), as well as 25 June (St. David of Sweden), 26 June, 26 August, 11 December, and 30 December (Hungary, Latvia, Norway).

Variations

David is often shortened to "Davey/Davie/Davy". In Wales, such variants as "Dafydd" and "Dewi" and such diminutives as "Dai" or "Daf" are fairly common (although "Dai" was formerly used as a name in its own right prior to the late fifteenth century, possibly derived from a word meaning "shining" in Celtic). The name was very popular in Wales, leading to the situation whereby outside Wales, particularly in England, "Taffy" or "Taff" (crude imitations of the Welsh pronunciation of "Dafydd") became used as a nickname, pejorative or not, for Welshmen whatever their actual name. The oldest, most popular and most commonly used diminutive form in the English speaking countries of "David" is "Dave", which first appeared in written form in the 16th century (but is probably much older). In Ashkenazi Jewish culture, including outside Israel, it is common to apply the nicknames "Dovi" and "Dov". The nickname "Dave" has been used as a name in its own right in the 19th and 20th centuries, at least in the U.S. At the height of its popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s, the name Dave was bestowed upon more than 3,000 infants each year.[2] "Davo" is also used as a nickname, and is quite common in Armenia and Australia while nickname 'Dato' for 'Davit' is popular in Georgia. A less common variant is "Daveth", the origin of which is uncertain (but could be an anglicised form of the Welsh "Dafydd").

Female equivalents of the name David include "Davida" (no longer in common usage) and "Davina". The girl's name "Davinia" may also have originated from David, though some have argued it is actually the female version of the Gaelic name "Devin".

Statistics

In other languages

People with the given name David

Monarchs

Saints

Actors

Biologists

Politicians

Musicians

Athletes

Authors

Other figures

Fictional characters

People with the surname David

Fiction

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition – Page 342 by Dan Isaac Slobin
  2. ↑ U.S. Social Security Administration. "Popular Baby Names."
  3. ↑ "Jack and Emma were the most popular first names in Northern Ireland in 2003" (PDF) (Press release). Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. 2 January 2004. Retrieved 14 February 2008. (see tables "Comparison with 1975" and "Top 20 Names 2000–2003")
  4. ↑ pokemyname.com
Look up David in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.