(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.
Scottish: habitational name from a place in Berwickshire (Borders), named with Welsh gor ‘spacious’ + din ‘fort’.
English (of Norman origin) and French: habitational name from Gourdon in Saône-et-Loire, so called from the Gallo-Roman personal name Gordus + the locative suffix -o, -ōnis.
Irish: adopted as an English equivalent of Gaelic Mag Mhuirneacháin, a patronymic from the personal name Muirneachán, a diminutive of muirneach ‘beloved’.
Jewish (from Lithuania): probably a habitational name from the Belorussian city of Grodno. It goes back at least to 1657. Various suggestions, more or less fanciful, have been put forward as to its origin. There is a family tradition among some bearers that they are descended from a son of a Duke of Gordon, who converted to Judaism in the 18th century, but the Jewish surname was in existence long before the 18th century; others claim descent from earlier Scottish converts, but this is implausible.
Spanish and Galician Gordón, and Basque: habitational name from a place called Gordon (Basque) or Gordón (Spanish, Galician), of which there are examples in Salamanca, Galicia, and Basque Country.
Spanish: possibly in some instances from an augmentative of the nickname Gordo (see Gordillo).
