Clementina

Historical scholarship

Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.

• 1884From the archives

  Clementina— “merciful”

  …There is a pretty legend that St. Clement was martyred by being beheaded, and thrown into the sea, where a shrine (I think of coral) was formed round his head, and he thus became the patron of sailors, above all, of Danes and Dutchmen. In Germany Clemens has preserved its Latin form, but cuts down into Klenim, Mente, Menz, Mentzel; as in Denmark into Klemet and Mens. The English surname, Mence, may perhaps be from this source; and Clement and Clementi are French and Italian…

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  …There is a pretty legend that St. Clement was martyred by being beheaded, and thrown into the sea, where a shrine (I think of coral) was formed round his head, and he thus became the patron of sailors, above all, of Danes and Dutchmen. In Germany Clemens has preserved its Latin form, but cuts down into Klenim, Mente, Menz, Mentzel; as in Denmark into Klemet and Mens. The English surname, Mence, may perhaps be from this source; and Clement and Clementi are French and Italian surnames, as Clement and Clemente are the Christian ones. Italy probably first modernized the abstract goddess into Clemenza, whence France took up Clémence, while Germany invented Clementine for the feminine, whence our Clementina, rendered popular for a time in honour of the Italian lady in _Sir C. Grandison_. The Russians have Kliment, the Hungarians Kelemen, and the Esthonians contract the name into Lemet. It must have been from the Dutch connections of eastern England, that Clement and Clemency were both at one time frequent.[64]

  Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part IV, Chapter IV (Cognomina), Section IV (Cæsar, &c) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)