Seth, Now there’s a name I wouldn’t want, if I were living in medieval England.
I had always thought of the name ‘Seth’ in the biblical sense of the third son of Adam and Eve. Www.babynamewizard had this to say about the name “Seth.:
Hebrew origin. Means “appointed” (Eve gave birth to Seth as a third son, the first and second being Cain and Abel. When Cain slew Abel, Eve believed God “appointed” her Seth). Sete means otter in Old French (from ancestry.com) Set /sɛt/ or Seth (/sɛθ/; also spelled Setesh, Sutekh, Setekh, or Suty) is a god of the desert, storms, disorder, violence and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion. In Ancient Greek, the god’s name is given as Sēth (Σήθ). Set is not, however, a god to be ignored or avoided; he has a positive role where he is employed by Ra on his solar boat to repel the serpent of Chaos Apep. Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant. He was lord of the red (desert) land where he was the balance to Horus’ role as lord of the black (soil) land. (from Wikipedia)
All of that is well and good, and pretty impressive for the modern day Seths of this world. But none of that applies in Medieval England, where most of the people–noble and peasant alike–couldn’t read and only knew the bible from what their priests told them and had translated–not necessarily with any accuracy–from Latin. A majority of Middle and Old English speakers would have thought of ‘Seth’ (with or without the initial capital letter) as The Middle English Dictionary (MED) explains it to be “a pit; a grave.” Graves and pits are not precisely the kinds of places I would want to be associated with or to be named after.
One of the examples given in the MED for usage of ‘Seth’ is from a set of medieval homilies. This one in particular about the biblical hero, Daniel. “Daniel se witega laeig seofon niht betwux seofen leonen on anen seath (seth) ungewaemmod.” A very loose translation in to modern English gives “Daniel, so says the prophet, lay seven nights between seven lions and next to the grave, unharmed. The quote is metaphoric in its use of seth. Who wouldn’t be lying next to the grave when sleeping among seven lions?
I am past the age of having children. Fortunately, I named none of mine, Seth. I can promise you also, I’ll not be giving any medieval romance heroes the name of Seth.
Please leave a comment and let me know if you’d name a chile (or a medieval character) Seth.
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