WALTER :
Pronounced: WAL-tur
Origin(s): German, Teutonic, English, Scandinavian
Meaning: Powerful ruler, from a Germanic name meaning “ruler of the army”, composed of the elements wald “rule” and heri “army”. Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott is considered the father of both the regional and the historical novel. Ivanhoe (1820), his first prose reconstruction of a time long past, is a complicated romance set in 12th-century England. American humorist James Thurber wrote an enchanting short story about Walter Mitty, a daydreaming accountant with an overprotective mother, who likes to imagine himself as a hero experiencing great adventures. It was made into The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) starring Danny Kaye.
WINIFRED :
Pronounced: WIN-i-fred
Origin(s): Welsh, English
Meaning: Peaceful friend. This is an Anglicized form of GWENFREWI, which is derived from the Welsh elements gwen “white, fair, blessed” and frewi “reconciliation, peace”. Clemence Dane was the pseudonym of English novelist and playwright Winifred Ashton. Her first novel, A Regiment of Women (1917), is a compelling study of the hothouse emotional life in a girls’ school.
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.
