Language desk
< March 28	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 30 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 29

This needs polishing

In Jan Piwnik, it says his noms de guerre were "Ponury ("Gloomy"), Donat". What does "donat" mean? Clarityfiend (talk) 07:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe from one of the saints named Donatus? The first thing I thought of was St-Donat, in Quebec. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Would that make them holey saints ? :-) StuRat (talk) 16:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC) [reply]

It doesn't mean anything in Polish. Like Adam said, it's just a Christian name. — Kpalion^(talk) 19:30, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See http://www.20knames.com/male_d_names_3.htm, number 427. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:50, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As per user:Wavelength: Some Googling indicates that it is a derivative of the Latin donare, which means "to give". Donat would be the 3rd person singular of the indicative, "he (she/it) gives" or "He gives", ie equivalent to "gift of God". We have an article on the name Donatus. There is also Donatello, the artist and the turtle. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:26, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and a lot of early Christian names are just Latin (or Greek) calques from Hebrew. People were not normally called "Donatus", but it was a reasonable translation of "Nathan". (Another interesting one is Deusdedit, the Latin equivalent of Jonathan.) Anyway, "Donat" here is not the third person indicative verb, but the etymological evolution of the name from the original Donatus. In this case, French, and Polish I guess, lost the -us ending (and in French, at least, the T is silent). In Hungarian, for example, the ending was not lost, and the name is spelled Donatusz. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And talking about Latin and Greek Christian names from Hebrew, one is Χριστός itself, the Greek translation of Messiah (anointed). However, they started writing it as Χρήστος, with eta in place of iota, with similar pronounce but totally different meaning ("the best"). Maybe because the religious use of anointing people to bless them was after all less comprehensible to the Greek tradition? As to "Donat" I agree with Adam Bishop. The venetian dialect also has a truncated form, "Donà". Note however that there are many Christian names from Hebrew in form of sentences with a third person indicative verb; besides the mentioned Deusdedit another nice Latin one is Quodvultdeus, "What the Lord wants". --pma (talk) 16:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]