ROXANNE :
Pronounced: RAWK-san
Origin(s): Persian, Latin, French
Meaning: Bright, Dawn. Alexander the Great married Roxana, the daughter of Oxyartes, to consolidate his power in Persia. The movie Roxanne (1987), starring Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah, was based on the play “Cyrano de Bergerac” written by Edmond Rostand.
RUDOLPH :
Pronounced: ROO-dawlf
Origin(s): German, Teutonic, Dutch, Scandinavian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, English
Meaning: “Famous wolf” from Germanic hrod “fame” and wulf “wolf”. Canadian-born chemist Rudolph Marcus was awarded the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems. Actor Rudolph Valentino was a dancer and bit player until films such as The Sheik (1921) and Blood and Sand (1922) made him the idol of millions.
Information sources include Behind the Name, Baby Zone, and Fact Monster. I don’t know why I decided to do this little project, but I’m going to post two names each day for the month of October. The names for each day will begin with same letter, and I’ll work my way through the alphabet until I do “Z” on October 26th. The names for the rest of the month will come from reader submissions.
