Katharine, Catharine, Katherine and Katheryn

BY CATHARINE MORRIS

The other day the Editor stopped me on the way out of his office. “We’ve spelt Katherine Mansfield right, haven’t we. Why are there so many different spellings? You’re the authority . . . . Can we have a blog post?”

I certainly should be the authority by now, especially since my first name, though given a boost by the Cambridge college and Catharine Macaulay, remains one of the rarer variants, and therefore problematic. It was spelt wrongly on my bank card for years, just as it is wrong on my current work pass. When I give my email address out over the phone, I have to decelerate early on and lend the middle vowel a stern gravitas. The first time I met another Catharine, at a New Year’s Day party about four years ago, we gasped, and then hugged. I wonder how life is for the Katherines and the Katharines, the Kathryns and the Cathryns, the Katheryns and the Catheryns and the Cathrins and the Kathrins . . . .

And yes, where did we all come from? The Oxford Dictionary of First Names (2006) lists “Katherine” as the primary English form of the name of the saint martyred at Alexandria in 307 at the hands of the Emperor Maxentius. (The online OED prefers “Catherine”, as does the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, 2005.) According to legend, Katherine of Alexandria, a well-educated woman of noble birth (and a virgin), had converted fifty pagan savants, as well as the empress and Maxentius’s chief of staff, to Christianity. Her punishment was to be tortured on a wheel; this miraculously fell apart, at which point she was beheaded. Her cult spread from Egypt and became vastly popular, though whether she actually existed as a historical figure, no one can say. (In The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Early Medieval Europe, 2007, Christine Walsh writes that the cult “probably originated in oral traditions from the fourth-century Diocletianic Persecutions of Christians in Alexandria”; and that St Katherine "may well have been a composite drawn from memories of women persecuted for their faith. Many aspects of her Passio . . . conform to well-known hagiographical topoi”.)

According to the ODFN, the earliest mentions of Katherine of Alexandria are in Greek, in the form Αικατερίνη (Aikaterine). The name is of unknown etymology – the theory that it may be derived from Hecate, the pagan goddess of magic and enchantment, is deemed to be unconvincing – but an association with the adjective καθαρός (katharos), “pure”, led to spellings with -th- and to a change in the middle vowel. It seems likely that a variant starting with C emerged thanks to Latin’s aversion to the letter K; and that the various forms cross-pollinated. The ODFN says that “Katheryn” was informed by the use of the suffix -yn in other names. Personal fancy has surely played a role too. Perhaps the linguists among you can tell me more . . . .

Incidentally, my mother doesn’t know why I’m Catharine with an a, but my sister grandly tells me that my father was “probably thinking of the Cathars”.

 

Top: Katharine Hepburn, 1940s
Below: Saint Katherine of Alexandria, c.1507, by Raphael; 
Catherine the Great by Dmitry Levitsky;
Katherine Mansfield, 1912 

Comments

[Katerine Niedinger]

Here is another one, my name is Katerine.

[Kathleen]

What about the Kathleens??

[David Collard]

I assume that Kate was Shakespeare's favourite name because he uses it so often! For a princess, a royal consort, a shrew and a whore (Kate Keepdown in Measure for Measure). Plus variants (the Shrew is aka Katerina).

In linguistics the multiple spellings of names (and other things) is usually down to nothing more interesting than a lack of standardisation (to which we seem to be returning) and Katherine (let's say that's the standard setting) is open to a wider number of variants than, say, Anne.

[Nora Crook]

Fascinatingly informative.
Do you know a book called Mrs Gatty and Mrs Ewing (1949) by Christabel Maxwell? Wonderful read, using Gatty family papers. When the Victorian children's writer and popularizer of science, Margaret Gatty, insisted on calling her fifth child (b. 1848) Undine, her sisters and aunts protested. One proposed that even "Hecate" would be preferable. Margaret Gatty counterproposed: "What do you say to 'Horatia'? I like it excessively myself—'Horatia Katharine Frances.' But pray do not spoil the spell of Katharine by spelling it Catherine again! And after all too, you never hit upon the most ridiculous possibility connected with the name of Catherine namely, that someone should abbreviate it to Kitty— Miss Kitty Gatty! and then reduce it to 'Kit Cat!' "
This passionate attachment to the Katharine spelling suggests that Margaret Gatty, for one, was enchanted by the supposed Greek derivation from Katharos. (She was very up in languages, ancient and modern.) In the end, she went back to her first choice. The babe was called "Undine Marcia"!
Milton's sonnet "Methought I saw my late espoused saint" is generally agreed to have been written after the death of his second wife, Katherine Woodcock, in childbirth. It has been suggested that the lines "Mine as whom washed from spot of childbed taint | Purification in the old law did save" encode a pun on Katharos-Katherine. (This must be in spite of the er spelling).
Shelley spells Catherine the Great "Catharine", Mary Shelley spells her "Catherine". This may be significant of something but of what I can't figure out!

[Catharine Morris]

Kathleen – To return to the The Oxford Dictionary of First Names (online edition): here are the entries relevant to your name:

“Kathleen (Irish)
Traditional Anglicized form of Caitlín.”

"Caitlín (Irish)
Equivalent of Katherine, pronounced ‘kat-leen’. It is being used increasingly in the English-speaking world, generally without the accent and with the pronunciation ‘kate-lin’.
VARIANTS: Caitlyn, Kaitlyn.”

[Alex D-F]

For an etymology, has Greek καθαιρεῖν to take down, reduce, destroy ( < κατά down + αἱρεῖν to take) been considered? This could relate to St. Catherine's martyrdom (the fate of her wheel, or her being taken down from it). I'm just extrapolating speculatively from OED's etymology of 'catherectic'. Even if a red herring, the popularity of prefix cata-/kata- may have lent authority to the 'a' spelling..

[Jack Haggerty]

Catharine Morris writes: 'When I give my email address out over the phone, I have to decelerate early on and lend the middle vowel a certain gravitas.' This reminded me of the rather wonderful Irish star Kathleen Ryan, who appeared with James Mason in Carol Reed's Odd Man Out. When she spoke her own name she lent a musical note to the first syllable. She played an illiterate English servant girl in Esther Waters (based on the George Moore novel and available as a DVD). The Irish vowels are present in her speech, though they chime beautifully with Dirk Bogarde's impeccable delivery.