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David (name)

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David
Michelangelo's statue of the biblical David.
Pronunciation"DAY-vid" or "Da-VEE"
GenderMale
Origin
Word/nameHebrew
Meaning"beloved"

David is a common English male given name and surname.

The name "David" (generally pronounced /ˈdeɪvɪd/ "DAY-vid" in modern English, but also pronounced like "Da-VEE" in other languages, such as the Romance languages) is derived from the Biblical Hebrew name דָּוִד (Hebrew pronunciation: [da:ˈvið]); Tiberian Hebrew: Dāwiḏ), meaning "Beloved". The most important bearer of the name is David, the second king of a united Kingdom of Israel and a major figure in the Bible and the Qur'an. The name occurs over 1000 times in the Hebrew Bible, making it the third most often-occurring name, after Moses and Abraham. In Israel, "Dudi" is a common nickname for David, in the same way Bill is for William in English.[1].

The Arabic and Persian versions are Daud (pronounced " Da-ood") and Dawood (pronounced " Da-wood"), respectively. Both versions are used in Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and also in Indonesia and Malaysia among Muslim families. The Quran has many references to Daud.

The Georgian version (or pronunciation) is Davit (pronounced Da-vit) but one usually says Dato (pronounced Da-to).

The old English and Irish version is Dowd, hence O'Dowd, suggesting an earlier export of Arabic Daud, via Moorish and Black Irish connections, to England and Ireland.

Name days are celebrated on 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 (Norway).

David is often shortened to "Davey/Davie/Davy" (additionally, in Wales, such variants as "Dafydd" and "Dewi" and such diminutives as "Dai", "Daf" and "Taff/Taffy" are fairly common, although "Dai" was formerly a name in its own right, meaning "shining" in Welsh, prior to the reign of King Henry VII). The oldest, most popular and most commonly-used diminutive form of "David" worldwide is "Dave", which first appeared in written form in the sixteenth century (but is probably much older).[citation needed] In South Africa and Australia it is also a common practice in the Jewish culture 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 3000 infants each year[2]. "Davo" is also used as a nickname, and is quite common in Australia, but in some cases is used for people with the surname Davidson.

Another 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 latter of which is very popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. 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.'

Frequency information

  • Northern Ireland: "David" was the most popular masculine given name for newborns in 1975 and had dropped into a fluctuating rank around 20th in the first few years of the 21st Century.[3]

People with the given name David

elmo knows where you live> so burn

Monarchs

  • David, the Biblical King of Israel (c. 1011–971 BC)
  • Edward VIII of Great Britain, whose name in personal use was David

Other monarchs

Saints

Actors

Biologists

Government figures, politicians

Music artists

Sports

Writers

Others

Fictional characters

People with the surname David

Fictional Characters

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. 2004-01-02. Retrieved 2008-02-14. (see tables "Comparison with 1975" and "Top 20 Names 2000-2003")
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