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[Facts] Amardeo
I encountered the name Amardeo. It is a male name and seems to come from India (probably not a misspelling of Amadeo, as I first suspected). What does it mean?
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Have to see it written in some Indian script, but I guess it comes from (amara = privative a- + mR, to die + nominative suffix -a, someone who does not die) + (deva = dyu/div + nominative suffix -a, heavenly being, excellent persion, used as a mark of respect for high caste). The Indo-european cognates of the roots are easy to see (murder, deus, etc.), and the words individually are very old. The Sanskrit construction would be amaradeva, and is attested as a name at least since the 6th century (the famous person by that name, one of the nine "gems" in the court of vikramAditya, was also called amarasiMha, siMha, meaning lion, also being a popular last part of a name). Modern north/west Indian pronunciation would reduce it to amardeo, where both the a's would be pronounced schwa (like the beginning of English about), the m an ordinary bilabial nasal like in English, the d dental (as in English the) and the -eo could be a dipthong (between the sounds of English late and cold, though somewhat shorter), but more likely the -o becomes a labiodental glide.In short, a good translation is probably "Sir Immortal" :-)
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Thank you very much. I have seen the name only in latin script, the name-bearer Amardeo Sarma is one of the most prominent skepticists in Germany.
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