(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 (mainly East Midlands), Dutch, and German: from Middle English pi(c)k, Middle Dutch picke, Middle High German bicke ‘pick’, ‘pickaxe’, hence a metonymic occupational name for someone who made pickaxes or used them as an agricultural or excavating tool.
North German: metonymic occupational name for a pitch-burner, from Low German pick ‘pitch’.
English: possibly from Middle English pike ‘pike’ (the fish), applied as a metonymic occupational name for a fisherman or seller of these fish, or as a descriptive nickname for someone thought to resemple a pike in some way.
Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic): unexplained.