(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: from either of two Old Norse personal names: Ingjaldr, in which the prefix in- probably reinforces the element -gjaldr, related to Old Norse gjalda ‘to pay or recompense’, or Ingólfr ‘Ing's wolf’ (Ing was an ancient Germanic fertility god).
English: habitational name from Ingol in Lancashire, which is named from the Old English personal name Inga + holh ‘hollow’, ‘depression’.
Probably a variant of German Ingel, from a short form of any of several Germanic personal names formed with Ing- (see 1 above).
FOREBEARS An early bearer, Richard Ingle (1609–c. 1653), was a rebel and a pirate who first came to the colonies in 1631 or 1632 as a tobacco merchant. He is known to have practiced piracy in MD.
