Juniper (given name)

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Juniper
Mary Vaux Walcott - Mountain Juniper (Juniperus sibirica) - 1970.355.424 - Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg
Mountain Juniper by Mary Vaux Walcott, 1917.
GenderUnisex
Other names
Related names Guinevere, Geneva, Ginevra, Ginerpo, Junipero

The given name Juniper is either in reference to the English common name for the juniper tree or berry, or in reference to a derivation of the Welsh name Guinevere. Juniper has historically been used as both a boys' name and a girls' name.

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In 2011, Juniper entered the top 1000 list of given names in the United States for the first time and is quickly becoming a popular girls' name likely due to the popularity of a wide assortment of well-known fictional works, including the cartoon series The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, the movie Benny & Joon (where the Joon character was short for Juniper), Pamela Dean's novel Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary , and the Donovan song, "Jennifer Juniper".

The juniper tree's name is derived from the Latin word juniperus. In Latin, juniperus is combination of the word junio, which means young, and parere, to produce, hence youth producing, or evergreen. [1] Ginepro (Italian for Juniper), Ginevra (Italian variant form of Juniper), and Ginny are other names that also refer to the juniper tree.

Juniper is used to flavour the alcoholic spirit gin. The traditional drink jenever and its French name genièvre are names for juniper. The French name was shortened to geneva, sounding the same as the place name, and further abbreviated to 'gin'.

Another name which was originally unrelated is the British name Guinevere (Guenièvre in French), a variant Old French spelling[ citation needed ] of Gwenhwyfar, which in Welsh is a combination of the word gwen (mod. gwyn) which means "white" or "fair" and hwyfar which means a "spirit" or "fairy". This is also the origin of Jennifer, another name that sounds similar to Juniper. Because the Latin Juniperus family of names are the same or very similar-sounding to the Welsh Guinevere family of names, it is very difficult to determine, for names that begin with gin-, jen-, or jun-, which family they ultimately originated with.

Common nicknames of Juniper

Symbolism of the name Juniper

Ginevra de' Benci
Leonardo da Vinci - Ginevra de' Benci - Google Art Project.jpg
Artist Leonardo da Vinci
Yearcirca 1476
Typeoil on wood
Dimensions38.8 cm× 36.7 cm(15.3 in× 14.4 in)
LocationNational Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Notable people

Fictional characters

Related Research Articles

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Juniperus communis, the common juniper, is a species of small tree or shrub in the cypress family Cupressaceae. An evergreen conifer, it has the largest geographical range of any woody plant, with a circumpolar distribution throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenever</span> French, Dutch and Belgian juniper-flavoured liquor

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The juniper (Juniperus) is a type of shrub and tree in the cypress family.

Maleagant is a villain from Arthurian legend. In a number of versions of a popular episode, Maleagant abducts King Arthur’s wife, Queen Guinevere, necessitating her rescue by Arthur and his knights. The earliest surviving version of this episode names the abductor Melwas; as Maleagant, he debuts as Lancelot's archenemy in Chrétien de Troyes' French romance Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. However, all surviving versions seem to be later adaptations of a stock narrative of significantly earlier provenance.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Juniper Tree (fairy tale)</span> German fairy tale

"The Juniper Tree" is a German fairy tale published in Low German by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812. The story contains themes of child abuse, murder, cannibalism and biblical symbolism and is one of the Brothers Grimm's darker and more mature fairy tales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juniper berry</span> Spice, herbal drug

A juniper berry is the female seed cone produced by the various species of junipers. It is not a true berry but a cone with unusually fleshy and merged scales called a galbulus, which gives it a berry-like appearance. The cones from a handful of species, especially Juniperus communis, are used as a spice, particularly in European cuisine, and also give gin its distinctive flavour. Juniper berries are among the only spices derived from conifers, along with spruce buds.

Brinjevec is a strong alcoholic drink, produced in the Karst and Brkini regions in Slovenia. It is re-distilled from ground and fermented juniper berries only and it differs from similar drinks that have different alcohol bases with added juniper flavor. It has a clear transparent color and it is meant for folk medicinal use and not for regular drinking. It contains between 40% and 50% alcohol and has a very distinctive tart taste

<i>Junipers Knot</i> 2012 video game

Juniper's Knot is a short kinetic visual novel developed by Canadian studio Dischan Media. Created in under a month, Juniper's Knot revolves around a lost boy and an imprisoned demoness, as they help overcome each other's obstacles through wit and memory, respectively.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ginevra (given name)</span> Name list

Ginevra is a feminine given name. It was occasionally used in medieval and Renaissance Italy in reference to Queen Guinevere, King Arthur’s queen in the popular Arthurian legends. It is the Italian version of the name Guinevere, which is a Norman French version of the Welsh name Gwenhwyfar, meaning "white" and "smooth" or "white phantom." It is also associated with the juniper tree in Italy, where the name for the tree is ginepro. Geneva, Switzerland is called Ginevra in Italian. It is a currently popular name for girls in Italy, where it has been among the top 100 names given to newborn girls since 1999 and among the top 10 most popular names for baby girls since 2016. It is in occasional use in other countries, including the United States, where it was given to 12 newborn girls born in 2020, to 14 girls born in 2021, and to 16 girls in 2022, and Switzerland, where it was given to 17 girls born in 2020.

References

  1. University of Vermont: Derivation of Scientific Names The names Genefer, Jenefer and Jinifer (all old English variants for juniper), Richard Oliver Heslop, Northumberland Words Archived 24 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine , 1892–94: see Ginifer & Jinifer.Ernest Weekley, Words and Names, Page 24.
  2. New Oxford American Dictionary , 2e, ISBN   0-19-517077-6
  3. Meliora: Quarterly Review of Social Science, 1868, Page 47
  4. "Classical references to junipers: Myths of Astarte".

See also