Many of us Pagan, New Age, and Independent Thinker folk believe that the universe is far more inter-connected than is generally accepted. Thus, when we encounter two things that look alike, many of us think that there is something joining them on a spiritual or ‘vibrational’ level.
Even those who would disagree, and call such similarities pure coincidence, still find it interesting to learn that a word or name familiar from one language has a completely different meaning in another — sometimes beautiful, sometimes not so…
And so, today’s collection of Sumerian features words which resemble established names:
Abgal – ‘sage’, ‘wise man’, ‘wizard’ < abba ‘elder’ + gal ‘great’
Ada — ‘father’, ‘shout’, ‘song’
Adda — ‘carcass’, ‘corpse’, ‘skeleton’
Agar – ‘field’, ‘commons’; ‘heavy rain’; ‘lead’; ‘embrace’
Al, Alan — ‘image’, ‘statue’, ‘figure’, ‘appearance’
Allan – oak tree < Akkadian allaanum ‘oak’
Ama – ‘mother’, ‘wild ox’, ‘cow’
Ambar — ‘marsh’; ‘reeds’, ‘canebrake’
Anna — ‘tin’, ‘yes’
Ara – ‘praise’, ‘glory’, ‘to shine’, ‘to blaze’; ‘bright’, ‘clear’, ‘polished’; ‘way’, ‘road’; ‘times’
Aria — ‘district’, ‘desert’, ‘waste’
Asa — ‘myrtle’, ‘cage’, ‘fetter’, ‘bear’
Ash — ‘what one needs’
Asha — ‘field’; ‘area’
Ashera — ‘lamentation’
Babbar — ‘bright’, ‘white’, ‘the rising sun’
Barbarra — ‘flames’
Dana — ‘road-length measure’
Dara — ‘belt’, ‘sash’; ‘dark’, ‘dim’, ‘high’
Daria — ‘driven (animal)’
Didi – ‘young’, ‘small’; ‘to play an instrument’
Ebla — ‘watery type of beer’; ‘light beer’
Eden, Edin — ‘steppe’, ‘plain’, ‘grazing land between the two long rivers’, ‘back’, ‘spine’ (NB — this could well be the source of the biblical Eden)
Emma, Imma — variant of enmen ‘thirst’ < en ‘time’ + mun ‘salt’
Erin, Eren — ‘man’, ‘servant’, ‘soldier’, ‘troops’, ‘army’, ‘gang of workers’, ‘people’, ‘folk’; ‘enemy’, ‘destruction’; ‘cedar’; ‘balance scale’
Gaz – ‘powder’, ‘break’, ‘fracture’, ‘war’
Gianna – ‘at night’
Gil, Gili, Gilim — ‘reed bundle’; ‘dancer’; ‘bride crown’
Gina, Gena, Ginna, Genna – ‘constant’, ‘regular’, ‘small’; ‘the planet Saturn’; ‘consent’
Hala — ‘share’, ‘lot’
Halba – ‘frost’, ‘freezing’
Ida — ‘river’, ‘main canal’, ‘water course’
Inda — ‘flower’; ‘bushel’; ‘pure-bred breeding bull’; ‘ancestors’; ‘fish-roe’; ‘funnel’, ‘hopper of the seed plough’
Izi – ‘waves’; ‘fire’
Izzi — ‘house wall’; ‘fire’; ‘current’, ‘flood’
Kal, Kala — ‘strong’, ‘swift’; ‘to repair’, ‘mend’
Kara — ‘to encircle’, ‘besiege’, ‘accuse’, ‘shine’, ‘be bright’
Kim — ‘willow-tree’
Kushla – ‘leather-cord’
Lal – ‘honey’, ‘date-syrup’; ‘light’, ‘deficient’, ‘to be high’, ‘to diminish’
Lala — ‘joy’, ‘appeal’, ‘charms’, ‘abundance’, ‘vigor’
Lil — ‘wind’, ‘breath’, ‘spirit’, ‘infection’
Lilla — ‘spirt of a place’
Lillan — ‘stalk with ripe ear of grain’
Lusua — ‘friend’; ‘acquaintance’
Madala – a thick bundle of reeds used to build a raft
Meli — ‘voice’, ‘throat’
Mia — ‘how?’ The similar Mea means ‘where?’
Mina, Mana — ‘partner’, ‘companion’, ‘equal’, ‘two’
Miu – ‘ewe lamb’
Musa — ‘to name’, ‘to give as a name’
Nia — ‘by itself’
Nila – ‘to inspire awe’, ‘to raise oneself’ < ní ‘self’ + íla ‘raise’; ‘to diminish/humiliate oneself’ < ní ‘self’ + lá ‘diminish’
Nissa, Nisi — ‘greens’, ‘vegetables’
Nita – ‘male’, ‘manly’
Nura — ‘not stamped with a seal’
Nusa — ‘not good’
Sal – ‘uterus’, ‘vulva’
Sali — a type of lyre
Sam — ‘equivalent (barter) purchase’, ‘sale price’, ‘merchandise’
Samana — ‘skin disease’; a grain disease, such as rust
Santana – ‘herbalist’, ‘horticulturist’, ‘date’, ‘orchard’, ‘administrator’ — also Shandana and Shandan.
Shada — ‘voluntarily’
Shala – ‘to engorge’, ‘to stuff’
Shakir, Shakira — ‘butter tub’, ‘churn’, ‘churning’, ‘pitcher’; ‘henbane’
Sharan, Sharin — ‘tick’, ‘bedbug’
Sharra, Shara — ‘numerous’; ‘to dry up’, ‘to wither’
Sheba – barley rations distributed by the administration of the temple/palace; ‘to be careless/negligent’
Sheli — ‘pine/juniper seeds’
Shem — ‘herb’, ‘aromatic wood’, ‘resin’, ‘spice’, ‘fragrance’, ‘perfume’, ‘fragrant’; ‘tambourine’
Shena — ‘swallow’
Sher — ‘to shine brightly’; ‘shine’, ‘light’, ‘glimmer’; ‘decision’
Shula — ‘entrusted’ < šu ‘hands’ + lá ‘hold’ + nominative; ‘paralyzed’, ‘idle’ < šu ‘hands’ + lá ‘to bind’, ‘diminish’
Shuluh — ‘ritual cleansing’, ‘purification ritual’
Shuna — ‘pestle’
Shushana — ‘one third (part)’
Sim — ‘kettledrum’
Sisi — ‘horse’
Sumur — ‘fierceness’
Sun — ‘wildcow’, ‘beerwort’; ‘modesty’; ‘quarrel’, ‘discord’
Sura — ‘far-reaching’
Suzi — ‘terror’
Tam — ‘polished’, ‘shiny’, ‘reflective’, ‘pure’, ‘reliable’
Tin — ‘life’, ‘wine’
Tina — ‘strongly’
Tutu — ‘incantations’
Uma, Una — ‘victory’, ‘triumph’
Uri, Urin — ‘eagle’, ‘standard’, ‘emblem’, ‘banner’; ‘blood’
Uria — ‘in those (far remote) days’
Ursa — ‘to be/make comfortable/happy’.
Zana — ‘caterpillar’
Zara — ‘to spin’, ‘twine’, ‘to roll up’; ‘pole’, ‘shaft of chariots’, etc
Zena — ‘palm-frond’
Zizi – ‘subtraction’; ‘to rebel’
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