name meaning analysis
The name Anna, a form of the original "Hannah", first appeared briefly in the New Testament of the Bible where it belonged to a prophetess who recognized Jesus as the Messiah. The name of Anna was made popular in Russia in the 18th century by author Leo Tolstoy, who employed the name for a character and namesake of his book, Anna Karenina. Anna has stated that her parents named her after the character. Besides being seen in Biblical and Russian usage, the name Anna is also common in English, Italian, German, Dutch, Scandinavian, Finnish, Estonian, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Icelandic, Catalan, and Breton heritage. The name of Anna was most popular in America in 1880, with nearly 30,000 girls named Anna every 1 million births. This name has been in the Top 1,000 names for girls every decade since 1880, though its popularity waned in the 1950's to the 1970's. "Anna" is making a comeback, though, with about 4,500 - 5,000 babies named Anna every 1 million births in the USA in the 2000's.So what exactly does the name Anna mean? It means grace or gracious in Russian, Swedish, Hebrew, and English. It also means "mother" in the Native American Algonquin. According to popular name analysis site Kabalarians.com, Anna can mean that this name creates the urge to understand others in a person, but it can make the owner of the name very emotional and even temperamental. With a quick mind and sensitive nature, people with the name Anna are usually clever, have a creative ability in art, music, singing, or drama and have an appreciation for refined surroundings. People with this name are also usually sociable, and express kindness, affection, and thoughtfulness toward all. People with the name Anna can also be somewhat romantic and dreamy in nature.
The middle name of Katherine is another thing to look at that's important. The name has been around since the early days of the Greek civilization, and is a form of the Greek name "Hekaterine" or "Aikaterine". In Roman times, this name was closely associated with the term "katharos", which means purity. The spelling of the name was thus changed from Katerina to Katharina to reflect this.
Anna's last name of Popplewell can be broken down into two part. "Popple" derives from the Middle English word "popler", which means a tree in the populus (Latin; genus) family of the willow. Willow trees are defined as having soft fibrous wood, rapid growth, and many flowers. The word "well" can be several different things. The two most likely either seem to be "best" and "desirable", or "a flow of water from the earth". When added to the first part of her last name, Anna's surname might possibly mean "a spring in the earth [from which] a willow drinks".
When we put all this information together, you get one beautiful name. Loosely translated, Anna Katherine Popplewell means "gracious purity [from the] spring [from which] a willow drinks". Pretty interesting!
Information gathered from online sources and compiled by the webmistress.