(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 northern Middle English Spragge, either a personal name or a byname meaning ‘lively’, a metathesized and voiced form of Spark 1.
FOREBEARS William Sprague came from England to Salem, MA, in 1628 with his brothers Ralph and Richard. He was one of the founders of Charlestown, MA, and later of Hingham, MA. His descendants include Peleg Sprague, a jurist and MA legislator, who was born in 1793 in Duxbury, MA; William Sprague a textile manufacturer born in 1773 in Cranston, RI; and Yale College educator Homer Baxter Sprague, who was born in 1829 in South Sutton, MA, and whose legacy lives on in Yale's Sprague concert hall.
