IRENE SCHWAB

From Greek eirēnē ‘peace’ it was borne in Greek mythology by a minor goddess who personified peace, and by a Byzantine empress (752–803). The name was taken up in the English-speaking world at the end of the 19th century, and became popular in the 20th, partly as a result of being used as the name of a character in John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga (1922). It was formerly pronounced in three syllables, as in Greek, but is now thoroughly naturalized as an English name and usually pronounced as two syllables.

German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): regional name for someone from Swabia (German Schwaben), from Middle High German Swāp, German Schwabe ‘Swabian’. The region takes its name from a Germanic tribe recorded from the 1st century BC in the Latin form Suebi or Suevi, of uncertain origin; it was an independent duchy from the 10th century until 1313, when the territory was broken up.