(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, Scottish, and Irish: variant spelling of Hamill.
French: topographic name for someone who lived and worked at an outlying farm dependent on the main village, Old French hamel (a diminutive from a Germanic element cognate with Old English hām ‘homestead’).
German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): habitational name from the city of Hamlin, German Hameln, Yiddish Haml, where the Hamel river empties into the Weser. The name of the river probably derives from the Germanic element ham ‘water meadow’.
Dutch: metonymic occupational name for a shepherd, from Middle Dutch hamel ‘wether’, ‘castrated ram’.
FOREBEARS A Hamel from Normandy is documented in St. Jean et St. François, Quebec, in 1666.
