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Emily vs Rebecca - What's the difference?

emily | rebecca |

As proper nouns the difference between emily and rebecca

is that emily is {{given name|female|from=Latin}} while Rebecca is {{given name|female|from=Hebrew|}}, in regular use since the Reformation.

emily

English

Proper noun

(en proper noun)
  • .
  • * 1380s-1390s , (Geoffrey Chaucer),
  • I am thy mortal foe, and it am I
    That so hot loveth Emily the bright,
    That I would die here present in her sight.
  • * 1830 (Mary Russell Mitford), Our Village: Fourth Series: Cottage Names:
  • People will please their fancies, and every lady has her favourite names. I myself have several, and they are mostly short and simple. - - - Emily', in which all womanly sweetness seems bound up - perhaps this is the effect of association of ideas - I have known so many charming ' Emilys
  • * 1980 Barbara Pym: A Few Green Leaves ISBN 0060805498 page 8:
  • This may have accounted for Emma's Christian name, for it had seemed to Beatrix unfair to call her daughter Emily , a name associated with her grandmother's servants rather than the author of The Wuthering Heights , so Emma had been chosen, perhaps with the hope that some of the qualities possessed by the heroine of the novel might be perpetuated.
  • * 2010 (Joanne Harris), blueeyedboy , Doubleday, ISBN 9780385609500, page 102:
  • Emily . Em-il-y, three syllables, like a knock on the door of destiny. Such an odd, old-fashioned name, compared to those Kylies and Traceys and Jades — names that reeked of Impulse and grease and stood out in gaudy neon colours — whilst hers was that muted, dusky pink, like bubblegum, like roses —

    Usage notes

    * Emily has been used as a vernacular form of the Germanic Amelia, up to the nineteenth century. * Used since the Middle Ages; popular in the 19th century and once again today.

    See also

    * Amelia * Emma

    Anagrams

    * ----

    rebecca

    English

    Alternative forms

    * Rebekah * Rebekka

    Proper noun

    (s)
  • , in regular use since the Reformation.
  • * :
  • And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
  • * 1809 , Poetry for Children: Choosing a Name :
  • They would say, if 'twas Rebecca ,
    That she is a little Quaker.
  • * 1949 , Sexus , Grove Press 1965, ISBN 0802151809, page 312:
  • "What's her name?" I asked. "Rebecca. Rebecca' Valentine." The name '''Rebecca''' excited me. I had always wanted to meet a woman called '''Rebecca''' - and not Becky. ( ' Rebecca , Ruth, Roxane, Rosalind, Frederika, Ursula, Sheila, Norma, Guinevere, Leonora, Sabina, Malvina, Solange, Deirdre. What wonderful names women had! Like flowers, stars, constellations...)
  • * 1997 Robert T. Tauber, Self-fulfilling Prophecy , Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0275955028, page 61:
  • Our daughter's name, Rebecca', summons up similar visions. Although our family is not Jewish, both names (David and ' Rebecca ) have a Hebrew ancestry which, in the eyes of many beholders ( i.e. teachers ) invokes a vision of a family that values education.

    Usage notes

    The spelling Rebecca'' originates from the Latin Vulgate, which from the 4th century onward was the Bible that was used for centuries in Western Christianity. When the King James Version appeared in 1611, the spelling ''Rebekah'' was used in the Old Testament, but the spelling ''Rebecca was retained in the New Testament.