Will there finally be a meaning to a name I made up out of thin air ![Grin :D](http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/Smileys/evesmileys/icon_biggrin.gif)
Hahahahahaha.
That happened to me today. Horatius, consider this a rambling thank you note.
I noticed the latest round on the etymology of names (
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1502986) and said to myself "Huh, you never did get around to figuring out what Vieve's middle name meant".
Her middle name is "Amhaline". When I created the name, I just threw together syllables that sounded vaguely Arabic, since her Amarr god worshiping father gave her that name. (He picked his own name -- Alons Tisserand -- out of a Federation comm directory.)
I did a Web search for parts of "Amhaline" and came up with an Omani proverb:
man amhal ... ahmal, translated as "He who delays ... neglects".
This made me go 'huh'. It probably would have made me go 'huh' more if I understood Arabic.
I then hit the Amarrad glossary. I didn't find words close to
amhal or
ahmal, or definitions for 'delay', 'wait', 'hesitate,' 'neglect', 'ignore' or 'abandon'. I did find the lovely pronoun
lav 'she/her', which, for giggles, I appended to
amhal.
amha'lavUnfortunately, this construction's got an apostrophe in it. That combined with that terminal 'v', and I can't help but look at it and think Vieve's dad might have grown up next door to Ze'ev and Shin in Tierjiev ... which so didn't happen.
So I peered at the verbs in the Amarrad glossary, and made some minor adjustments to the proverb text.
amhal became 'amhah' - which I think means 'to delay', 'to wait', 'to hesitate', and feel free to think so too (or suggest otherwise, if that won't fit the new conjugation schema). I turned
ahmal into 'ahmak' - 'to neglect', 'to ignore', 'to abandon'.
amhahlav looked a little better to my eyes, but not perfect. I'm not familiar enough with the constructions here to feel right about using pronouns as suffixes. So I dropped the 'lav', and took another look at the '-ine' suffix in Amhaline. That's used in Greek, French and Latin to suggest "like or of", and stuck on the end of a bunch of male names to make them feminine (e.g. Francine, Claudine).
And then I imagined a conversation between Alons and Celeste that might have gone like this.
Alons: Amhah.
Celeste: Patience?
Alons: You could translate it as that.
Celeste: But
you aren't.
Alons shrugs slightly.
Celeste: One of these days I'll get a straight answer from you...
Alons: ... and you won't like it.
Celeste: Very likely not. Hmm. Vieve Amhah ... I don't like it. People will forever be thinking we just bastardized the spelling of Emma. And it just doesn't
flow.
Alons: Fine. Name her Emma.
Celeste: You're horrid at looking like you don't care...
Alons: I'll work on that.
Celeste ... and it'd have to be Emmaline in order to flow, and that's just one step away from giving her both of my grandmother's names. Genevieve Emmaline? Can you just imagine? She'd grow up to be a...
Alons: Librarian.
Celeste: I was thinking romance novelist.
Alons: The medication is polluting your mind.
Celeste: Quite. So ... Vieve Amhaline?
Alons: If you like.
Celeste: I believe I do. It seems strangely appropriate, even if it doesn't entirely mean patience.
Alons: Mmm.
I believe the translation, particularly with Celeste's appending that '-ine' suffix is very close to 'obstacle; thing that causes waits, delays and hesitation'.