Emma

Brought to England by the Normans; short form of compound given names beginning with a Frankish prototheme Ermin- or Irmin- "entire", from Proto-Germanic *ermunaz.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛmə/
• Rhymes: -ɛmə

• Audio (Southern England)

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Emma

1. A female given name from the Germanic languages.
   • 1854, Matthew Hall, The Queens Before the Conquest, pages 259–260:

     Both Saxon and Norman chroniclers unite in representing the youthful Queen Emma as in a peculiar degree gifted with elegance and beauty; so that many flattering epithets had been bestowed on her - as "the Pearl," "the Flower," or "the Fair Maid" of Normandy.

   • 1917, Carl Van Vechten, Interpreters and Interpretations., A.A.Knopf, page 92:

     Emma Calvé...since Madame Bovary the name Emma suggests a solid bourgeois foundation, a country family...Emma Eames, a chilly name...a wind from the East.

   • 1980, Barbara Pym, A Few Green Leaves, →ISBN, page 8:

     The cottage now belonged to Emma's mother Beatrix, who was a tutor in English literature at a women's college, specialising in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novel. This may have accounted for Emma's Christian name, for it had seemed to Beatrix unfair to call her daughter Emily, a name associated with her grandmother's servants rather than the author of The Wuthering Heights, so Emma had been chosen, perhaps with the hope that some of the qualities possessed by the heroine of the novel might be perpetuated.

• Used in England since the Norman Conquest, fashionable in the 19th century, and again in the U.K. from the 1970s to the 1990s, and in the U.S.A. in the 1990s and the 2000s.

• (pet forms) Em, Emmie, Emmy
• (female given names) Ermengarde, Irma
• (surnames) Emmett, Emmitt, Emmott

From English Emma.

Emma

1. a female given name from English [in turn from the Germanic languages]

From German Emma.

Emma

1. a female given name

• Danskernes Navne, based on CPR data: 21 325 females with the given name have been registered in Denmark between about 1890 (the population alive in 1967) and January 2005, with the frequency peak in the 2000s. Accessed on 19 June 2011.

From German Emma.

Emma

1. a female given name

Emma f

1. a female given name

Matronymics

• son of Emma: Emmuson
• daughter of Emma: Emmudóttir

From German Emma.

• IPA^(key): /ˈemːɑ/, [ˈe̞mːɑ̝]
• Rhymes: -emːɑ
• Syllabification^(key): Em‧ma

Emma

1. a female given name
   • 1929 Väinö Siikaniemi/folk melody, Emma (song), in Suuri Toivelaulukirja, F-Kustannus Oy (2003), →ISBN, page 210:

     Oi muistatkos, Emma, sen kuutamoillan,
     kun yhdessä tansseista kuljettiin?
     Sinä sanasi annoit ja valasi vannoit
     ja lupasit olla mun omani.
     Oi Emma, Emma, oi Emma, Emma,
     kun lupasit olla mun omani.

     Oh Emma, do you remember that moonlit night
     when we were walking back from the dance together?
     You gave your word and made your vows
     and promised to be mine.
     Oh Emma, Emma, oh Emma, Emma,
     when you promised to be mine.

   • 1964, Kaarina Helakisa, Kaarina Helakisan satukirja, WSOY, page 10:

     ―Kuulepa lintu, sinun nimesi olkoon Emma, se on totta vieköön iloinen ja hupsu nimi, poika sanoi.

     ―Listen birdie, your name shall be Emma, that is indeed a happy and silly name, the boy said.

   • 1985, Keijo Siekkinen, Äidin hauta, Gummerus, →ISBN, page 9:

     Minulla on sana, josta pidän erityisen paljon, vaikka se ei ole paljon minkään näköinen, se on pulska niin kuin sinä ennen kuin rupesit laihtumaan. Sen sanan nimi on semmoinen. Minä laitan sen sinnekin minne se ei käy. Vaikka se on pulska niin se on kevyt. Se on niin kuin Emma. Emmalle me löydettiin nimi Messukylän vanhalta hautausmaalta.

     I have a word that I really like, even if it doesn't look like it much, it's rotund like you before you started losing weight. The name of the word is just like that. I'll stick it even in places where it doesn't belong, even if it's fleshy yet light. It's like Emma, whose name we found from the old Messukylä graveyard.

• Popular in Finland at the end of the 19th century and again in the 2000s.

• Emmi, Irma, Irmeli

• Emma is the 42^nd most common female given name in Finland, belonging to 14,963 female individuals (and as a middle name to 2,647 more), according to February 2023 data from the Digital and Population Data Services Agency of Finland.

• amme

• IPA^(key): /ɛ.ma/, /e.ma/

• Audio

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Emma f

1. a female given name, equivalent to English Emma
   • 1857, Gustave Flaubert, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Madame Bovary: Part II, Chapter III::

     Charles désirait qu’on appelât l’enfant comme sa mère ; Emma s’y opposait. On parcourut le calendrier d’un bout à l’autre, et l’on consulta les étrangers.

     Charles wanted the child to be called after her mother; Emma opposed this. They ran over the calendar from end to end, and then consulted outsiders.

• Popular in France in the 2000s.

Short form of compound female given names beginning with Proto-Germanic *ermana, Proto-Germanic *irmina "whole, entire".

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Emma

1. a female given name

• Name of medieval German saints and queens. Popular in Germany in the 19th century and becoming popular in the 2000s.

• Emmi, Emmy, Irma, Irmgard

First recorded as a given name of Latvians in 1852. From German Emma.

Emma f

1. a female given name

• Popular in Latvia in the end of the 19th century

• Klāvs Siliņš: Latviešu personvārdu vārdnīca. Riga "Zinātne" 1990, →ISBN
• Population Register of Latvia: Emma was the only given name of 687 persons in Latvia on May 21st 2010.

From German Emma. First recorded in Norway in the 1790s.

Emma

1. a female given name

• Kristoffer Kruken - Ola Stemshaug: Norsk personnamnleksikon, Det Norske Samlaget, Oslo 1995, →ISBN
• Statistisk sentralbyrå, Namnestatistikk: 8 241 females with the given name Emma living in Norway on January 1st 2011, with the frequency peak in the 2000s. Accessed on 19 May, 2011.

• IPA^(key): /ˈema/ [ˈe.ma]
• Rhymes: -ema
• Syllabification: Em‧ma

Emma f

1. a female given name

From German Emma. First recorded in Sweden in 1766.

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Emma c (genitive Emmas)

1. a female given name

• Emmy, Irma

• Roland Otterbjörk: Svenska förnamn, Almqvist & Wiksell 1996, →ISBN
• Statistiska centralbyrån and Sture Allén, Staffan Wåhlin, Förnamnsboken, Norstedts 1995, →ISBN: 69 488 females with the given name Emma living in Sweden on December 31st, 2010, with frequency peaks in the 19th century and in the 2000s. Accessed on 19 June 2011.

Borrowed from English Emma.

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /ˈʔema/ [ˈʔɛ.mɐ]
• Rhymes: -ema
• Syllabification: E‧mma

Emma (Baybayin spelling ᜁᜋ)

1. a female given name from English