Mai: yes, it seems to mean more than one thing depending on the language...
In Chinese, the meaning apparently is something like "ocean."
In Japanese, the meaning is "brightness."
In Vietnamese, the meaning is "tomorrow" or "future" - very fitting.
The whole "star of the sea" comes from it's association with Mary, who in the biblical sense had a name applied to her - "drop of the sea" or "star of the sea" depending on who's translation you trust. Since the bible was formerly translated to Latin, it was incorrectly stated that Mai was a direct translation of "star of the sea" when actually, the meaning is slightly more convoluted. It was a valid point brought up today by my mother, so I thought I'd put it out there!
Altogether all the different meanings kind of make the name even nicer... I like it more and more the more I know!
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2 comments:
Wow. It truly is fitting: "brightness", "future".
I'm looking at middle names for a daughter that have connotations of brightness, light. I like my childrens' names to have strong meanings. The more you tell me about Isobella Mai's name, the more I love it.
Meanings mean so much more now :)
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