AMY AYDELOTTE

Anglicized form of Old French Amee ‘beloved’. This originated in part as a vernacular nickname, in part as a form of Latin Amata. The latter is ostensibly the feminine form of the past participle of amare ‘to love’, but in fact it may have had a different, pre-Roman, origin; it was borne in classical mythology by the wife of King Latinus, whose daughter Lavinia married Aeneas and (according to the story in the Aeneid) became the mother of the Roman people.

French: from the personal name Edelot, a pet form of any of various Old French names of Germanic origin containing the element edel ‘noble’. American families bearing this name, as well as French families named Aydalot, are traceable to Gascony and Guyenne.