From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 42056
Date: 2005-11-11
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
To: "Patrick Ryan" <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 10:17 AM
Subject: Re[2]: [tied] Re: Also an Austro-Asiatic Disconnect
> At 1:36:00 AM on Thursday, November 10, 2005, Patrick Ryan
> wrote:
>
> > Ryan, by the way, means 'king'.
>
> Hereditary surnames don't have meanings;
***
Patrick:
Of course surnames have meanings.
Just a 'little middle-class king'.
I would like to poll the list on that question.
Another of my ancestors is surnamed <Wolf>. I suppose that does not mean
'wolf' but only has an etymology.
Get real.
Maybe <Patrick> does not mean 'noble' either?
***
what you're talking
> about is the etymology. The English
***
Patrick:
It is _not_ an English surname. It is an Irish surname.
***
surname <Ryan> can in
> fact represent any of several Irish surnames, including <Ó
> Riagháin>, <Ó Riain>, <Ó Maoil Riain>, <Ó Ruaidhín>, and <Ó
> Ruadháin>, though the first two are, I believe, much the
> most common sources. <Ó Riain> is from earlier <ua Ríáin>
> 'male descendant of Ríán'; to the extent that <Ryan> has a
> meaning, that's it (for those instances that are Englished
> from <Ó Riain>). <Ríán> itself is simply a masculine
> idionym. It's clearly a diminutive in <-án>, most likely of
> <rí> 'king', though the name <Rígán> is the expected
> diminutive.
>
> Brian