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Talk:Sigourney

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What is the meaning/origin of the name? Drutt (talk) 11:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wondering the same. All I've been able find out online so far is that a minor character in The Great Gatsby (1925) is called Sigourney Howard and Sigourney Weaver named herself after this character. I can only guess that Sigourney was borrowed from French (considering the spelling), but is of ultimately Germanic origin (presumably from a Frankish or perhaps Norman/Norse name with a descendant of Proto-Germanic *segaz – compare Old High German and Old Dutch sigi – as the first part of the compound, compare Old Norse Sigrún for a similar-sounding name). But I might be totally off ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:00, 1 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it seems I'm not. Wiktionary says that the name is derived from a French surname, which is also spelt Sigournay. By searching the web for this name, you get Sigournay Family History, which does not lead to the etymology, but at least traces the origin of the surname as far back as the 17th century – not bad. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:20, 1 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]