Aug 22, 2007

meaning of Kirk

In my bio i claim that my parents named me after the Star Trek Captain James T. Kirk. They deny it but i'm almost positive they did. What they probably didnt know is the origins of the name "kirk". I was curious about my name. Most names are short for something or have a nickname like "Dick" associated with them, but not Kirk. I'm just ... kirk. So I went to the ol' trusty Wikipedia and searched for "kirk". Lew and behold, my name has a much deeper meaning than just some space ship captain.

Most of you know i'm a pretty staunch Anti-Religionist (not to be associated with Atheists) so I find it pretty ironic that my name basically means "church" and that theres a ton of places in Scotland and England that have my name "kirk" in them which all are references to their having a church there.



As a common noun, kirk is the Scots and Scottish English word for 'church', attested as a noun from the 14th century onwards, but as an element in placenames much earlier. Both words, kirk and church, derive from the Koine Greek κυριακόν (δωμα) (kyriakon (dōma) meaning Lord's (house), which was borrowed into the Germanic languages in late antiquity, possibly in the course of the Gothic missions. (Only a connection with the idiosyncrasies of Gothic explains how a Greek neuter noun became a Germanic feminine.) Whereas church displays Old English palatalisation, kirk is likely to be a loanword from Old Norse and thus has the original mainland Germanic consonants. Compare cognates: Icelandic & Faroese kirkja; Swedish kyrka; Norwegian & Danish kirke; German Kirche; Dutch kerk; Frisian tsjerke; and borrowed into non-Germanic languages: Estonian kirik and Finnish kirkko.


so now i have a ton of foreign language options i can go by. this week i think i'd like to called "tsjerke" and dont be funny.. its not JERKY, its pronounced "Kghherk" the "tsj" makes a flemmy throatish "KHHE" sound. like your hawking up a loogie. next week you can call me κυριακόν, pronounced kyriakon. i like it, sounds like the leader of some crazy tribe somewhere. I AM KYRIAKON, LEADER OF THE KYRIANITES. FEEL MY WRATH!!!!




anyway, fucking Church. ugh. I knew there was a higher purpose to me hating my name.

1 comment:

Symple One said...

my attourneys name is Kirkland Robert. He likes to be called Kirk....

wor verification: idzzt