Namesake

Top row: Anna Sophia Tatar, Anna Clara Simonik, Anna Margaret Kozlina
Bottom row: Nancy Gilbride, Anne Katherine Casey

By Nancy Gilbride Casey

 

 

The origins of the given name Anna or Anne goes back in my family to at least 1883. The name has been carried down with little interruption through at least 5 generations to today. 

 

The name itself is a form of Channah (Hannah), meaning "favored," "grace" or "beautiful," used in the Greek and Latin Old Testament.¹ The name became common among Western Christians due to the veneration of Saint Anna, the name traditionally assigned to the mother of the Virgin Mary.²

 

8th Century depiction of St. Anne³

 

Anna Sophia Tatar (1883-1950) is my Slovakia-born great grandmother, the first to have the name. Given names in Slovakia are called baptismal names or krstné mená. Slovak names usually fall into one of several categories, including Slavic names of pre-Christian origin, names of past kings and rulers, or as is likely in Anna's case, Christian names inspired by saints.⁴

The next bestowed the name was Anna Clara Simonik (1907-1933), Anna's daughter, and my great aunt. She was the American-born second daughter of Anna and my great grandfather John Simonik.

 

My mother Anna Margaret Kozlina (1937-2010) was next in line for the given name Anna, and adding Margaret, her mother's name, as a middle name. Though I am not certain, I imagine that the name Anna was given to her by my grandmother in honor of her older sister Anna Clara, who had died a few years prior to my mother's birth. It was a bonus that it also honored her mother.

My mother told me that she named me Nancy as it was a diminutive (small) of Anna. It was just different enough from Anna, but kept this naming tradition intact. My mother had a deep veneration for the Virgin Mary, as well as a special fondness for St. Anne, Mary's mother. I'm certain that my name was also my Mom's way of paying tribute to these patronesses of motherhood.

When I was to become a mother myself, I wanted to honor the two most important women in my life—my mother and my maternal grandmother—with the choice of our daughter's name. At the time I did not know much about my great-grandmother or my great aunt; my knowledge of them and their names came much later. 

 

I chose the name Anne Katherine for our daughter: Anne, as a slight variation on my mother's first name, and Katherine, my grandmother's middle name. This choice now feels all the more meaningful with the added knowledge that the name Anna has been passed down through my maternal line for over 100 years.

Until next time...
 

This post was inspired by Amy Johnson Crowe's 52 Ancestor in 52 Weeks Challenge. 

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NOTES
 

¹ Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_(given_name) : accessed 24 January 2021), "Anna" rev. 11:42, 21 January 2021.
² Campbell, Michael, "Anna," Behind the Names (https://www.behindthename.com/name/anna : accessed 24 January 2021).
³ Anonymous, "Faras Saint Anne," National Museum of Warsaw, 8th century; digital image, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Saint_Anne : accessed 24 January 2021). In the Public Domain.
⁴ Campbell, Michael, "Anna," Behind the Names.