belinda

As you can probably surmise. I use aliases when talking about the people in my life.

Since Belinda is so special to me, and a supporter of my blog and my blogging (and probably its only reader), I gave her the opportunity to choose her own alias. She politely declined, saying something like, "Oh, it's your blog, you decide." Or something like that.

So I did, I chose Belinda. It's not my favorite name in the world, but it's worlds apart from Belinda's real name. Also, I don't personally know or have I ever met a single person with that name. The only celebrity I could think of with that name was, of course, Belinda Carlisle. I could've done a lot worse there.

Today I get this email:

"BELINDA? Ugh. What a yucky name!!!!!"

I gave you the opportunity to choose your own name... you declined, I chose for you. Belinda means beautiful (scientific wild ass guess, here), you should be happy...

And this:

"Belinda means fat. It just sounds fat!"

No, Bertha sounds fat... You can change it any time you want.

And finally this:

"Belinda is fine. Just funny."

Now we all know what that means, change it now if you ever want to have sex with me again, ever. I am not going to succumb to her mafia-esque pressures. What I need is some information to battle her with. I need to know the true meaning, hopefully it will be good, and I can say, "Look Belinda means ... isn't that sweet!?!?"

So I google "meaning of names" and got this from Behind the Name:

BELINDA f
Usage: English
Pronounced: be-LIN-da
The meaning of this name is not known for certain. The first element could be related Italian bella "beautiful". The second element could be related to Germanic lind "serpent, dragon" or linde "soft, tender". This name first arose in the 17th century, and was subsequently used by Alexander Pope in his poem 'The Rape of the Lock'.

So it either means beautiful dragon, or soft beauty.

It's even better than I thought!