You know it's nearly Christmas when you start hearing all the Christmas Carols. There's nothing quite like them for creating a festive mood.
The singing of songs at the Winter Solstice dates back thousands of years. It was only much later that the practice became adopted by Christianity, and many of the Pagan songs were adapted or replaced with Christian hymns. One of the earliest known of these hymns dates back to 129 AD when Telesphorus, Bishop of Rome, ordained that a song called the 'Angels Hymn' should be sung at Christmas services in Rome.
St Francis of Assisi, having used carols in his Nativity plays, is generally credited with promoting a wave of new carols in the 13th century. They became popular in France in the Middle Ages when they were used in circle dances.
Among the first evidence of carols used in Britain dates back to 1426, when a Shropshire chaplain named John Audelay listed twenty-five "caroles of Cristemas." They were later banned by Cromwell but became very popularly with the Victorians.
Our word for carol comes from the Medieval French carole, which was a dance performed in a ring to singing. The origin is ambiguous, but popular theories derives it either from the Latin choraula "a dance to a flute," from the Greek χορός (khoros) "chorus" and αὐλός (aulos) "flute;" or with the Latin corolla "small garland, wreath, chaplet." The two may even have been conflated. Carol is not only a noun, but it is also a verb in the English language. To carol means "to sing songs, especially carols, in a loud and happy way"*
The Hebrew word רֹן (ron) means "singing, joyful sounds," very much like carol. It is found in the names Liron, Ran, Rani, Ranit, Renana, Rina, Ron, Rona, Ronel, Ronen, Roni, Ronit, Ronli, Shir, Shira, Shiri, Shirli, Shiran, and Yaron.
Polymnia was the ancient Greek muse of music, song and dance. Her name derived from πολύ (poly) "many" and ὕμνος (hymnos) "hymn." Aoide "to sing" was an earlier muse of song, while Eumelia is an Ancient Greek name meaning "melody, good song". The English term Melody derives from the Greek μελος (melos) "song" and αειδω (aeido) "to sing."
The Latin carmen "song" is found as Carmen, Carmel, Carmela, Carmina and Carmelo.
Riya is a Sankrit name used for girls in India which means "singer" and Gita means "song". Shadi, from شادي "singer" is a masculine name in Arabic, while Shadiya is the feminine form.
Other musical names include Beste ("melody") in Turkish and Tarana ("music") in Azerbaijani, Musical terms include Aria, Selah, Calypso and Lyric.
Carol, as a first name, also has its own origins. It has been used for both boys or girls: either as a short form for Carolus, or Caroline, both of which derive from the Germanic Karl "man." A multitude of names derive from this source including: (m) Carl, Carlo, Carloman, Carlos, Charles, Charlie, Karlo, Karel, Karolis, Karoly, Searlas, Siarl, Tearlach, (f) Carlotta, Carly, Carola, Carolien, Carolina, Charlotte, Kaja.