Valerie facts for kids

The name Valerie is an almost all-girl given name. The name was taken from the French Valérie and from the Latin Valeria. The name is extremely popular in several countries and United States. There are many celebrities by the name, including Valerie Harper, Valerie Perrine and the feminist Valerie Solanas. There are a lot of songs named as "Valerie". This name is being used on List Four of Atlantic Hurricane Names List.

Etymology

Romance

The name is generally of Romance origins. The Latin clan name, Valerius, is masculine and denotes strength, health or boldness. Valeria is simply the feminine form of this. Both masculine and feminine given names are derived via French into other languages.

In Catholic Europe, given names always related the individual to a saint, so the popularity of a name often reflected the importance of the cult of a saint. There were several important saints who bore the name and were widely venerated in the Middle Ages, as well as more locally in recent times. St Valerie of Limoges (French Sainte Valérie de Limoges) probably exercised the greatest influence in spreading the name. Her cult was practised on the very important Way of St James and she became a favourite subject for the early modern ceramics industry.

The majority of the variant spellings are of recent, mainly 20th century, origin, with fashions often following the forms adopted in popular songs.

Germanic

The modern masculine given name Valéry is ambiguous. While generally a cognate of Valérie, it can also be development of, or synonym for, the name Walaric(us) (English Walric), which is of Germanic origin and signifies “foreign power”. A notable example is Walric, abbot of Leuconay. Both “Saint-Valery” [valri] and “Saint-Valéry” [valeri] are common elements in French place-names, often used optionally for the same place. The second form is a modern misspelling for ‘Saint-Valery’, that is to say St Walric.

See also

In Spanish: Valerie para niños