Talitha (given name)

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Talitha is an uncommon feminine name meaning "little girl" in Aramaic, given in reference to the Biblical story in the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus Christ was said to have resurrected a dead child with the words "Talitha cumi" or "Talitha kum" or "Talitha koum," meaning "Little girl, I say to you, arise!"^[1]

It was among many names taken from the Bible that were used by Puritans in the American colonial era. Talitha was used for a girl born in North Carolina in the 1740s; her brother's name was Lazarus. The Biblical Lazarus of Bethany was also raised from the dead by Jesus Christ in the Bible.^[2] Talitha Cumi Elderkin Stiles, a schoolteacher, born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1779, was one of only three original settlers of Cleveland who stayed there over the first winter of 1796–1797 when, attended by Seneca Native American women, she gave birth to Charles Stiles, the first white child born in the Western Reserve.^[3][4][5] Six decades later, eleven-year-old Talitha Dunlap was among the between 120 and 140 men, women and children who were killed during the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre.^[6] The name ranked 1,108 among names given to American girls born in 1881.^[7] The name was also occasionally used in England by 1861, when the christening of a girl named Talitha-Cumi People was reported in The Times.^[8] It remains in occasional use in the United States and other countries. Forty-two girls born in 2011 in the United States were given the name Talitha, while 38 newborn American girls were given the name in 2012 and 40 girls received the name in 2013.^[9]

In Brazil, Talita (or Talitha/Thalita) was the 100th most common name for newborn girls in 2009.^[10]

Star name

While the personal name is most often derived from the Biblical story, Talitha is also the name of two stars, Talitha Borealis and Talitha Australis, in the Ursa Major constellation. The names of the stars are derived from the Arabic word for 'third' in the phrase القفزة الثالثة (al-qafzah al-thālithah) meaning 'The third leap [of the gazelle]', referring to an Arabic story about a startled gazelle which leapt three times to different points in the constellation.^[11]

References

• Bardsley, Charles Wareing Endell (1880). Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature Chatto and Windus.

Notes