Chapter CIX: Section I: From Amo

Of these are all the large class of names sprung from _amo_, which has descended into all the Southern languages of Western Europe nearly unaltered. The Gallic Christians seem to have had a particular delight in calling their children by derivatives of this word; for in their early times there occur in the calendar, Amabilis (loveable), Amator (a lover), Amandus (about to be loved), and Amatus and Amata (loved); Amadeus (loving God) seems to have been still older. Out of this collection, St. Amand has survived as a territorial surname; whilst Amanda, from its meaning, was one of the complimentary _noms de plume_ of the eighteenth century; and Amandine is sometimes found in France. Amabilis was a male saint of Riom, known to France as St. Amable; nevertheless, his name passed to Aimable, the Norman heiress of Gloucester, who so strongly protested against accepting even a king’s son without a surname. Her name became on English lips Amabel, which has been handed down unchanged in a few old English families, though country lips have altered it into Mabel, in which form it is still used among the northern peasantry. Ignorant etymologists have tried to make it come from _ma belle_ (my fair one), and lovers of false ornament turn it into Mabella.

Nothing is known of the female saint, Amata, or Aimée, but that the people of Northern France used to honour her, and she had namesakes in old French pedigrees, so that there can be little doubt that Norman families brought in the pretty simple Amy that has never been entirely disused, and has been a frequent peasant name in the West of England. St. Amatus, or Amé, was about the end of the seventh century a hermit in the Valais, and afterwards became Bishop of Sion, and was persecuted by one of the Merovingian kings. He thus became the patron saint of Savoy, and for a long succession the Counts were called Amé; but after a time, they altered the name to Amadeus, Amadée, or Amadeo, as it was differently called on the two sides of the mountain principality, and as it has continued to the present time. Amyot and Amyas in England, and in Romance the champion Amadis de Gaul, drew their names from this Savoyard source. This notable knight is believed to have been invented in Spain, and the Italians call him Amadigi. It is possible, however, that he may come from the Kymry, for Amaethon, son of Don, appears in the _Mabinogion_, and was a mystic personage in Welsh mythology. His name meant the husbandman, another offshoot from the universal Amal. He must have been the Sir Amadas of the Round Table.

The old English Amicia, so often found in old pedigrees, is probably a Latinizing of Aimée. The most notable instance of it is Amicia, the daughter of the Earl of Leicester, who brought her county to the fierce old persecutor, Simon de Montfort, and left it to the warlike earl, who imprisoned Henry III. His sister carried Amicie into the Flemish family of De Roye, where it continued in use, and it descended again into Amice in England. Amadore was in use in Florence, cut into Dore.[76]

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Footnote 75:

Max Müller, _Science of Language_; Keightley; Ruskin; Grimm;
Michaelis.

Footnote 76:

Butler; Pott; Dugdale; _Mabinogion_; Lady C. Guest; Dunlop, _Fiction_.