Name of the Week

 

Is there anyone finer? the famous song says.
Jemima, Tabitha and Lois are all on the rise, so perhaps it's time again
for gentle, overlooked, Dinah to have her time in the sun.

 

Origin:

A Hebrew name derived from the word דִּין (din) "to judge," sometimes also used to mean "judgement," "lawsuit," "vindication" and "defense." In the Old Testament, Dinah is the name of the daughter of Jacob and Leah, and it is interesting to note that, essentially, Dinah is the feminine form of Dan, a name of one of her brothers. Her story is told in Genesis 34, and referred to as "the rape of Dinah." Traditional interpretation of the story has it that Dinah was kidnapped and violated by a Canaanite prince named Shechem, causing her brothers to retaliate violently, and for this reason her name has often been translated as meaning "vindicated" or "lawsuit." The events in the original text regarding Dinah's abduction are vague, however, and many scholars now believe that it has been mistranslated and misunderstood. We are told of Shechem that "his soul was drawn to Dinah ... he loved the maiden and spoke tenderly to her" and several compelling arguments have been written supporting the notion that Dinah and Shechem's relationship was not violent, representing either an old custom of abduction marriage or indicating that their relationship was impulsive and against their families' wishes.

Usage:

Records of the name Dinah in use in Britain date back to the 16th century. From this time the name steadily grew in usage, and was particularly notable during the 18th century. At this time it was often spelled Dina — the spelling used in the Greek and Latin translations of the Old Testament — and so frequently became confused with Diana in written records.  In his study of forty English parishes from 1538-1700, Smith-Bannister ranks Dinah within the Top 50 in three later decades of this period: #43 in 1650-59; #32 in 1680-89; #36 in 1690-1700.  The 1841 UK census lists 13,140 women named Dinah (84%) or Dina (9%) in various spellings. One quarter of those recorded were born before 1800 (indicating its popularity in the previous century), with 92% were living in England, 7% in Wales and 1% in Scotland. Similarly, there were between 13,000-13,500 Dinahs recorded on the 1851, 1861, and 1871 UK censuses, but this figure had fallen to 12,592 in 1881, 11,522 in 1891 and 10,777 in 1901. Notably, 25% of Dinahs recorded in 1841 were aged 10 or under, compared to 20% in 1861, 15% in 1881 and 13% in 1901, demonstrating that throughout the 19th century, Dinah declined in popularity for newborns. Dinah ranked #174 (133 births) in 1890, and #190 (136 births) in 1900.  Dinah very gradually declined in usage through the 20th century. In 1996, 16 girls were registered with the name in England and Wales (#1168). Since then the name has had a count of between 2 and 10 births per year. In 2011, 4 were registered in England and Wales (#4764), none in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Famous Bearers:

History: * Dinah Craik (1826—1887), British novelist and poet. * Dinah Shore (1916—1994), American singer and actress. * Dinah Washington (1924—1963), American singer. Contemporary: * Dinah Sheridan (1920—2012), British actress. * Dinah Lenney (b.1956), American actress and writer. * Dinah Manoff (b.1958), American actress.  Literature and Media: * Dinah Morris, a character in George Eliot's novel Adam Bede (1859). * Dinah, Alice's cat in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. * Dinah Drake Lance, the Black Canary, a DC Comics superheroine. * Dinah Hunter, the main character in The Demon Headmaster by Gillian Cross. Other: * Dinah, a popular song from the 1925 musical Kid Boots. * 17472 Dinah, a main-belt asteroid.

Variants:

Dina (Biblical Greek & Latin)

Pronunciation:

DĪ-nə  [key]

Possible  Diminutives:

Di, Didi

Sibling Names:

Sarai     Mercy     Jemima     Ruth     Esther     Sylvia  Amos     Simeon     Ezra     Gideon     Silas     Giles

Name Lists:

Funky-Clunky   Quirky Biblical Names   Gorgeously Georgian    Names from Enid Blyton

 

If you like Dinah you may also like:   Tabitha, Delilah, Keziah, Myra, Dahlia, Hadassah, Thirza, Zilla, Leona, Moriah

 

Thanks to Gwennan for requesting Dinah as this week's NotW.