(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: patronymic from the Middle English personal name Hawkin, a diminutive of Hawk 1 with the Anglo-Norman French hypocoristic suffix -in.
English: in the case of one family (see note below), this is a variant of Hawkinge, a habitational name from a place in Kent, so called from Old English Hafocing ‘hawk place’.
Irish: sometimes used as an English equivalent of Gaelic Ó hEacháin (see Haughn).
FOREBEARS Sir John Hawkyns (1532–95) was a renowned English naval commander who was knighted for his services against the Spanish Armada in 1588. Until recent times the family still used the spelling Hawkyns. They had been established in Plymouth as far back as 1480, when a certain John Hawkyns held land there. They were originally a branch of a Kentish family from the village of Hawkinge (see 2 above), but the name had early on become assimilated to the form of the more common patronymic.
