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ArchivesRe: any idea where my great-grandfather's extremely strange name comes from?
in reply to a message by AngelOfIce
Hi,
Just a longshot, and I doubt if it will be very helpful, but I found this link:
http://www.namespedia.com/index.php/Gogonea
stating the following:
Name: Gogonea
Language: Romanian
Meaning: the same as Gogoncea
The following link might be more helpful:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279633&highlight=ahmadinejad&page=4
Someone there posted this message:
"My surname might very well be bastardized, but that's not common at all around here as my language and almost all the surrounding languages have almost perfectly phonetic spellings.
The only thing is that my surname is completely weird, aparently it doesn't mean ANYTHING in ANY language that I know of. I've been researching around this apparently, and there are only 2 families with this name - mine, and one from the Romanian town of Galati. Thing is, my family is from an area not very far from there (about 100 km west) so the families might be distantly related.
My surname is "Gogoncea" and it resembles the Romanian word of a certain pickle (gogonea), but I really don't think it comes from it, because of 3 reasons:
1) Romanian usually simplifies words, it almost never adds sounds in the middle of a word.
2) the stress is different, in this language the stress stays the same even after transformations that make the word unrecognizable - in fact the stress is probably the most stable feature of the language
3) the "c" is read as "ch" (that's the rule in Romanian - and in Italian too for that matter - a "c" before an "e" or an "i" is read "ch"). This sound doesn't just show up in a word out of the blue. It's generally either generated from a normal, hard "c", or a deformation of other africates. So it's unlikely that the word would have ever evolved from that.
The "cea" termination (read almost like "cha", but with a short "e" in there too) is apparently common for Slavic languages. I have no idea.
The thing is, my surname shouldn't really be this one - my great grandfather (I think) was adopted by some somewhat distant cousin of his - and so he got his surname. In fact, my surname should be "Vatra" which can mean various thigs - fireplace or place of origin of something. Now those members of my family that are not directly descending from the adopted guy - so those who kept the "Vatra" surname changed it into "Vetrescu" which sounds incredibly terribly awfully stupid IMHO."
And finally I found this, when I searched for GogonAcea"
http://www.springerlink.com/content/u26nng2765133385/
"A new briareidae gray, 1859 (Octocorallia, Gogonacea) from the South Georgia Islands
Abstract A new species and genus of scleraxonian octocoral from the South Atlantic is described and illustrated. The specimen is characterized by a medulla highly penetrated with solenia and not separated from the cortex by a boundary of longitudinal canals; therefore, it belongs to the family Briareidae. The material studied differs from the genusBriareum, in which the colonies are unbranched, lobate, or digitate and the distinctive sclerites are triradiate. A key to the family Briareidae is given."
This is a little bit too technical for me, but perhaps it can be useful for you.
Just a longshot, and I doubt if it will be very helpful, but I found this link:
http://www.namespedia.com/index.php/Gogonea
stating the following:
Name: Gogonea
Language: Romanian
Meaning: the same as Gogoncea
The following link might be more helpful:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279633&highlight=ahmadinejad&page=4
Someone there posted this message:
"My surname might very well be bastardized, but that's not common at all around here as my language and almost all the surrounding languages have almost perfectly phonetic spellings.
The only thing is that my surname is completely weird, aparently it doesn't mean ANYTHING in ANY language that I know of. I've been researching around this apparently, and there are only 2 families with this name - mine, and one from the Romanian town of Galati. Thing is, my family is from an area not very far from there (about 100 km west) so the families might be distantly related.
My surname is "Gogoncea" and it resembles the Romanian word of a certain pickle (gogonea), but I really don't think it comes from it, because of 3 reasons:
1) Romanian usually simplifies words, it almost never adds sounds in the middle of a word.
2) the stress is different, in this language the stress stays the same even after transformations that make the word unrecognizable - in fact the stress is probably the most stable feature of the language
3) the "c" is read as "ch" (that's the rule in Romanian - and in Italian too for that matter - a "c" before an "e" or an "i" is read "ch"). This sound doesn't just show up in a word out of the blue. It's generally either generated from a normal, hard "c", or a deformation of other africates. So it's unlikely that the word would have ever evolved from that.
The "cea" termination (read almost like "cha", but with a short "e" in there too) is apparently common for Slavic languages. I have no idea.
The thing is, my surname shouldn't really be this one - my great grandfather (I think) was adopted by some somewhat distant cousin of his - and so he got his surname. In fact, my surname should be "Vatra" which can mean various thigs - fireplace or place of origin of something. Now those members of my family that are not directly descending from the adopted guy - so those who kept the "Vatra" surname changed it into "Vetrescu" which sounds incredibly terribly awfully stupid IMHO."
And finally I found this, when I searched for GogonAcea"
http://www.springerlink.com/content/u26nng2765133385/
"A new briareidae gray, 1859 (Octocorallia, Gogonacea) from the South Georgia Islands
Abstract A new species and genus of scleraxonian octocoral from the South Atlantic is described and illustrated. The specimen is characterized by a medulla highly penetrated with solenia and not separated from the cortex by a boundary of longitudinal canals; therefore, it belongs to the family Briareidae. The material studied differs from the genusBriareum, in which the colonies are unbranched, lobate, or digitate and the distinctive sclerites are triradiate. A key to the family Briareidae is given."
This is a little bit too technical for me, but perhaps it can be useful for you.
1
Replies
In addition one more link, concerning GoRgonAcea:
http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/suborder_gorgonacea.htm
http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/suborder_gorgonacea.htm
1
Thanks a lot for looking into this!!
Unfortunately I don't think it has any connection to the name I was wondering about... It's almost obvious for me (although I could always be wrong) that the name mentioned in those links is related to the Greek mythical creature Gorgon Medusa (which would make a lot of sense considering the biological term the links point me to refers to a particular kind of coral that seems to look a lot like the description of the creature, who allegedly had "living snakes as hair"), and not to that name.
Therefore I'm rather sure that this "GoRgonAcea" name is simply coined by scientists based on resemblance with the mythological Gorgon Medusa, and thus very hard to be related to a surname which I know has been in existence for some time.
But anyway, thanks a lot! I really appreciate you taking the time to write this!
All the best!
Unfortunately I don't think it has any connection to the name I was wondering about... It's almost obvious for me (although I could always be wrong) that the name mentioned in those links is related to the Greek mythical creature Gorgon Medusa (which would make a lot of sense considering the biological term the links point me to refers to a particular kind of coral that seems to look a lot like the description of the creature, who allegedly had "living snakes as hair"), and not to that name.
Therefore I'm rather sure that this "GoRgonAcea" name is simply coined by scientists based on resemblance with the mythological Gorgon Medusa, and thus very hard to be related to a surname which I know has been in existence for some time.
But anyway, thanks a lot! I really appreciate you taking the time to write this!
All the best!
1