(male) Biblical name, borne by the greatest of all the kings of Israel, whose history is recounted with great vividness in the first and second books of Samuel and elsewhere. As a boy he killed the giant Philistine Goliath with his slingshot. As king of Judah, and later of all Israel, he expanded the power of the Israelites and established the security of their kingdom. He was also noted as a poet, many of the Psalms being attributed to him. The Hebrew derivation of the name is uncertain; it is said by some to represent a nursery word meaning ‘darling’. It is a very popular Jewish name, but is almost equally common among Gentiles in the English-speaking world. It is particularly common in Wales and Scotland, having been borne by the patron saint of Wales (see Dewi) and by two medieval kings of Scotland.
Short form: Dave.
Pet forms: Davy, Davey, Davie (mainly Scottish); Dai.
Cognates: Irish: Dáibhídh. Scottish Gaelic: Dàibhidh. Welsh: Dafydd, Dewi. German, Dutch: David. French: David. Spanish: David. Italian: Davide. Russian: David. Polish: Dawid. Czech: David. Finnish: Taavi. Hungarian: Dávid.
English, French, Dutch, Polish, Czech, and Slovenian: from a Germanic personal name (see Bernhard). The popularity of the personal name was greatly increased by virtue of its having been borne by St. Bernard of Clairvaux (c.1090–1153), founder and abbot of the Cistercian monastery at Clairvaux.
Americanized form of German Bernhard or any of the other cognates in European languages; for forms see Hanks and Hodges 1988.
FOREBEARS The first bearer of the name in Canada was from the Lorraine region of France. He is documented in Quebec city in 1666 as Jean Bernard. He and some of his descendants bore the secondary surnames Anse and Hanse, because his original forename must have been Hans (the German equivalent of French Jean, English John). Another bearer, from La Rochelle, is documented in Quebec city in 1676; and a third, from the Poitou region of France, was also documented in Quebec city, in 1713, with the secondary surname Léveillé. Other documented secondary names are Jolicoeur, Larivière, and Lajoie.The Bernard families of LA have origins in France, Acadia, the West Indies, and Germany; they have been in the U.S. since the earliest days of settlement.
