Every Monday we will post an entry that hasn’t yet been published with a view towards harnessing the collective onomastic power of the internet. If you have any thoughts about the name’s origin, other variants it might be related to, other examples of its use, etc., please share them in the comments! If you wish to browse other Mystery Monday names, there is an index.
Today’s name fascinates me. We have two variants of it, from records 20 years apart, where context makes it clear that both spellings are referring to the same woman. In one form, it feels like the deuterotheme should be related to Latin crescens; in the other, it looks like it should be related to Lucretia. We have no evidence to support either one of these claims. Does anyone else recognize the name? Or have other examples of similar names? Please share in the comments!
Bonjour,
En référence peut-être à sainte Leocritie, ou Leocricia, chrétienne de Cordoue d’origine musulmane, martyrisée le 15 mars 859, quatre jours après sont bienfaiteur, le prêtre Euloge. Fêtée le 15 mars.
Du grec léô, peuple, et crinô, juger.
Pierre Yves Quémener
She was one of the “Martyrs of Cordoba”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs_of_C%C3%B3rdoba.
I’m tempted to analyse the name in terms of Germanic themes as liut ‘people’ and *grēwaz ‘grey’ (the prototheme of Griselda, a rare name element). But this is my own more or less educated guess with no references.
I was also tempted by the ‘liut’ explanation of the prototheme.
I’d be very much surprised if it weren’t at least influenced by Lucrecia ~ Lucretia; note that the martyr of Cordoba is also known as Lucretia. The name may well be a Germanic/Romance hybrid, perhaps a variant of Lucrecia ~ Lucretia influenced by the Gmc. ‘people’ prototheme; Morlet has several starting at I:161b.