(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.
Americanized form of any of the numerous Continental European surnames derived from Latin Cornelius (see Cornelius), for example French Corneille or German Kornel.
Swedish: Latinized form of Horn, meaning ‘horn’; probably a soldier's name.
English: reduced form of Cornwell or of Cornhill, a habitational name from a place in Northumberland named Cornhill, from Old English corn, a metathesized form of cron, cran ‘crane’ + halh ‘nook’, ‘recess’; or from Cornhill in London, a medieval grain exchange, named with Old English corn ‘corn’, ‘grain’ + hyll ‘hill’, or from some other place elsewhere similarly named.
FOREBEARS Ezra Cornell (1807–74), the founder of Cornell University, was born of New England Quaker stock in Westchester Co., NY, a descendant of Thomas Cornell of Saffron Walden, Essex, England, who emigrated sometime before 1642, when he is recorded as being married in Portsmouth, Newport Co., RI.
