Today:

the name verena where does it originate?

Since I’m interested in stuff like that, I shall give you a straight answer, unknown quester for knowledge. (But don’t get used to it.) And that answer is:

I don’t quite know.

So I did some research.

The name Verena is, depending on whom you ask, of Latin, Swiss, Russian, Dutch, Teutonic or Greek origin.

Verena might be derived from the Latin word for truth: veritas -atis f. [the truth , reality; truthfulness, telling of truth]; in gen. [honesty]. Same as the name Vera. Sounds good to me. If you don’t agree try vereor -eri -itus dep. [to be afraid , fear; to have respect for, revere].

As for Swiss: Verena is the name of a 3rd century Swiss saint. Only she’s not really Swiss, but from Egypt, and only settled in Switzerland after she sort of got stranded there when the army company she was with got slaughtered to the last man. Read the rest on Wikipedia if you like.

In Russian it’s supposed to mean faithful or loyal. I don’t know anything about Russian, so I can’t tell if that’s true or not. Maybe we’re still in the Latin realm here.

One lonely site claims that it means “from the bridge” in Dutch. Which reminds me of a bag of kittens weighed down with a brick in a rather uncomfortable way. Let’s move on.

And Teutonic? All I could find is that the name is, well, very Teutonic. The Germans use it, as do the Belgians and the Austrians (36th most popular girl’s name in 2004, yay!). So, if all the Germanic tribes use it, it must be, like, Teutonic, right? Anyway, it’s supposed to have originally meant “protective friend”. Fine by me.

As for Greek: I read in one place that it’s supposed to mean “true picture” and I guess we’re at the Latin theme again, with that. Jonas doesn’t know where that’s supposed to come from. Sometimes people confuse Ancient Greek and Latin.

The explanation that I like most comes from a birthday card that my grandmother gave me a couple of years back. It said that the name Verena originates from the Greek word fereniki which roughly translates as bringing victory. I’ve seen the same etymological origin claimed for Veronica, which is a very similar name. Who knows?

And if you want some statistics, here you go:

Verena ranked #2810 out of 4276 eligible names in a 1990 U.S. Census.

If you think that number is low you’ll be pleased to know thatVerena was most popular in 1898, God knows why. Maybe a lot of Swiss people moved to America in that year.

The current ranking of Verena is way past the 1000 mark at 11565, but one site says that the popularity of Verena is 4.349 on a scale of 1 to 6, whatever that may mean.

All the girls out there will be glad to hear that based on popular usage, it is 77.333 times more popular for Verena to be a girl’s name than a boy’s name.

According to one site it also rhymes with Andrena, Arena, Cyrena, Irena, Pyrena, Serena, and of course the ever popular Hyena; if you mispronounce it terribly, that is.