# Xavier



## Josh_

This is a question I've had for some time.  I always thought the name 'Xavier' was from Basque, but many websites and books that list names list the name 'Xavier' as coming from an Arabic word meaning bright.  But for the life of me I cannot think of what word this is (if it exists -- this notion may just be a common misunderstanding).  So I was wondering what others think and if anyone knows the Arabic word in question (if indeed there is one).


----------



## jmx

Conventional wisdom in Spain is that the name "Javier" (Xavier is an old spelling in Spanish, also the Catalan spelling) comes from a saint, San Francisco Javier :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Javier


----------



## Lore bat

Derived from the Basque place name _Etxabier_ meaning "the new house". Saint Francis Xavier was the Jesuit priest who popularized the name. He was a missionary to India, Japan, China, and other areas in eastern Asia. He is the patron saint of the Orient and missionaries.

You were right, it's a Basque name.  The name has been incorrectly associated with various similar-sounding but unrelated names.

They are a lot of variants:  Xabier, Xavier, Javier, Saviero, Savion, Savyon, Xaviell Xayvion, Xever, Zavier...


----------



## Little_Little

Hi!
Xavier is the way we say this name in Catalan!


----------



## Beate

Hello,

as far as I know the name is derived from the name of a castle in Navarra (Spain).
The castle's name is Xaverio.
bye


----------



## Lore bat

Francisco Jasso Azpilikueta (Saint Francis Xavier) was born in a casttle placed in Xabier (or Javier).  It's named that way since Middle Ages.

He signed some letters as "Francisco de Xabier".

The name comes from the place but people have been named Xabier, Javier, Xavier, Saviero... because of him.


----------



## Josh_

Thank you guys for your information.  I agree the origin of the name is most likely Basque.   As I said many books and websites also list Arabic as a source, so now I wonder about the source of this apparent misinformation.  I wonder if it has anything to do with the Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages, which of course, was completely over by the time Saint Francis Xavier was born. [/musing]


----------



## MarcB

Josh,
We know that Xavier-Javier is a Basque name as has been pointed out by several forer@s. The Arabic version is a derived name possibly from Zahir Arabic and possibly Zohar Hebrew.
This name developed independently of the Basque name.
The Basque name existed before it was popularized by St. Francis.
Could the two separate names have merged somehow?


----------



## Lore bat

Maybe I didn't explain it well.

Xabier comes from "Etxeberri". Etxe-berri -> Etxa-berri -> Etxabier -> Xabier. It meens "new house".  So it's a Basque name.  But the name has been incorrectly associated with various similar-sounding but unrelated names.

They are nouns in differents languages that have the same sound but it doesn´t meen that they have the same origin or that they have merged somehow.
For example, "but" in English  meens "one" in  Basque (bat) and there isn't any relation between them.  Or "gateau" in French (cake) and "gato" in Spanish (cat). Or "kiitos" in Finnish (thank you) and "kitto" in Basque (quits, settled).

If it helps, Basque is the oldest language in Europe.


----------



## MarcB

I agree with Lor bat. The Basque name and the Arabic have different origins as per my post # 8. When I said, merge I mean the sounds have become the same nothing to do with the words themselves. As the examples show there are many words with the same sound and unrelated meanings, in various languages.


----------



## Beate

Hello,

there are more names that are written the same way and have different origins.
There ist the arabic name Laila and the russian name Laila.
There ist the arabic name Nadja and also the russian version Nadja.
Sometimes the arab name Safiya is written Sofia and takes the same form as the greek name Sophia.

There is indeed one common female name in the West which has an arab origin. It is Eleonora.
Eleonora is "Allahu nuuri". It came to Europa through Andalusia and is now a very common name in Europe.

Bye Beate


----------



## ladymacbeth83

I know this thread is really old, but I stumbled upon it when researching the same thing (we are giving our new son Xavier as a middle name, and I'm always curious about these things). It seems the Arabic word for "bright" is *زاهر, *pronounced "Zahir," and some of the phonetic pronunciations of the "h" sound I've heard in Arabic do sound a bit like a "v," which is likely where this translation of the name came from. I agree that the word is originally Basque in origin, but may have been embraced by the Arab community as well and given the meaning that sounded more accurate to them. Personally, I prefer the meaning "bright" for a child's name rather than "new house," so it doesn't surprise me that that translation would be readily accepted. I'm fascinated by the evolution of language in this way, especially proper names!


----------



## PlanC

^Well, the most plausible hypothesis is that the sound 'f' could be pronounced 'v' and vice versa, However to push further the research about the origin of name: Xavier
we could encounter this explanation





> Saverio is a given name of Italian origin. It is a cognate of Xavier and Javier, both of which originate from Xabier, the Basque name for the Spanish town Javier. Xabier is itself the romanization of _'etxe berri_' meaning "new house" or "new home". However, in her 1863 book History of Christian Names, Charlotte Mary Yonge claims that Xavier is a Moorish name, coming from the Arabic *Ga'afar* meaning "splendid", "bright".
> [source: Wikipedia]


Then according to this website:


> XAVIER.  French.  A Basque name, derived from Arabic Giaffar (q.v.), meaning "bright, splendid."  Zavier is a Walloon form.  Also see Xabier, Xaviar, and Xzavier.
> ... Xavier is Moorish, coming from the Arabic Ga'afar, splendid, the same as that of our old friend, the *Giaffar* of the Arabian Nights, the Jaffier of old historians.  Wherever Jesuits have been, there it is;... (History of Christian Names, Yonge, 1884)


Then returning back to Wikipedia


> Ja'far also appears (under the name of *"Giafar"* in most translations) along with Harun al-Rashid in several Arabian Nights tales, often acting as a protagonist...[a *visir* and adviser* more accurately]


According to this I think, the fact of being wisir /visier and adviser of a Caliph, _Jafar al-Barmaki _was certainly wise and advisable man who often come up with bright ideas, and this is where the idea of "splendid", "bright" comes from.
However concerning the metamorphose of  _Jafar  into _Xavier passing by Giafar and maybe Jaffier, I think the key resides in the pronouciation of the word Giafar itself:
- The transformation of the sound 'f' into 'v' is possible I mention the the word Jaffa: appelation given by the Goa'uld t to their servants / army leaders , which is ofen heard as Ja'v'a in this famous  sci-fictionnal TV series.
- Then comming to the sound 'X'a.. : _ˈzeɪ.. or Gu'za..._(like in G'ze for Xenon), Maybe over the years *G'ia*'v'ar was rendered to be written like X'iavar ...and so on, but these are only assumptions which deserves to be quoted, without the need to give any subjective oriotation to the acctual subject.


----------



## Alfaaz

Could one possible origin of زاویار - _zaavyaar_ be Persian...meaning _brave, powerful, etc._...!?


> زاو Noun Noun -Adjective _R_ 1. A clink or cleft. 2. Powerful, strong.





> زاو _zāv,_ A mason; a plasterer; a master of any craft; athletic, powerful; a cleft, chink; a narrow mountain-pass; a brick- bat.





> P يار _yār_, suff. (another form of _wār_, q.v.), Lord, possessor (used to form possessive adjectives, e.g. _shahr-yār_, q.v.).


 Other names that are formed from this suffix and popular in the region (Persian/Urdu): 

بختیار - _bakhtyaar_
شہریار - _shahryaar _
مہریار - _mihryaar_
شہوار - _shahwaar_

درِّ شہوار - _durr-e-shahwaar_
(Note: A short "_i_" sound is sometimes added by some people between the root word and suffix while pronouncing such words.)


----------



## ladymacbeth83

That's very interesting, PlanC! The only definition I seem to be able to find for Jaafar or variations of it is "spring or rivulet." However, different words certainly do, and have had, different meanings throughout history...I also wonder if "Jaafar" and "Zahir" were perhaps somehow amalgamated and then came to be associated with the very similar Basque "Xavier." The evolution of words is a wonderful thing. The best part of all these different possible origins for me is that when I think of the name Xavier, I will now have a lovely image of a bright, sparkling rivulet flowing past a sunny new house.


----------



## ladymacbeth83

Alfaaz, that's also an interesting theory!


----------



## Ronshel

I am researching this now from a different angle, the similarity to the Ethiopic (Ge'ez) and Amharic word for God, igziabeher, which is prounounced very similarly to Xavier or Xabier (b and v interchange very easily in semitic languages). I find it very interesting that Xavier might be Moorish because the Moors were North African in descent...  so if you go back to the Roman Empire that bordered the Axum kingdom is it not possible that there were South Arabian influences in the languages that migrated to Morocco? I find the Afro-Asiatic connection here intriguing!

If you look on Wikipedia, Xavier comes from Francis Xavier who was born in and named after the castle of Xavier in Navarre. That castle was captured by Sancho VII, who was the brother-in-law of King Richard the Lionheart who had done crusades in The Holy Land.

Around 525 AD, The already-Christian Ethiopian kingdom of Axum controlled Yemen and bordered the Roman empire, with whom they battled when the Jewish King of Yemen demanded to kill all Christians. Interchanging lands and people in that area could have easily spread the Semitic and South Arabian languages (Linguistically speaking, Yemen falls under the jurisdiction of the South Arabian languages of which Ge'ez is strongly related to) across the Roman empire all the way to Morocco. Berber (of which the Moors were descendents of) is a great example of an Afroasiatic language spoken in Morocco, not to mention Arabic itself as an example of the Semitic being brought to Morocco... which brings us back to Sancho VII, who had campaigned in Africa under the Almohads, a Berber movement whose main agenda was to unify the concept of God to be more monotheistic (remember that the Ge'ez Xavier means God...).

BTW If you break down the Ge'ez / Amharic word, the first part means "Lord of", and the second part probably means "the Universe", but it is noticeable that most Amharic and Tigrinya (two immediate descendants of Ge'ez) words use the "ber" sound to convey "bright" and "light".

If the castle was named by Sancho VII, is it possible that he had been influenced by the Afroasiatic Berber Monothoeists, or from his Crusader brother-in-law?

However if the castle / town was already named Xavier before Sancho came along, the origin would be pre-Basque, and you'd have
to look into who was living in Navarre (an autonomous community BTW, not necessarily Basque). Navarre was undoubtedly part of the Roman
Empire, and could have already been easily influenced by its proximity to Morocco, bringing us back to the Ethio-South Arabian-Roman-Moroccan connection
I mentioned earlier.

It should also be noted that although the Basque language and people's origin is highly disputable, it is thought that the Vascones (who were living in Navarre) had a lot to do with them. The Vascones battled the Vandals, who had a Kingdom in Roman North Africa.

More importantly, there was Muslim rule there for a long time (the Moors), and in fact it was the Muslims who put the Basque chieftain Inigo Arista in charge in 824, establishing the Basque kingdom that was later called Navarre!

So is it possible that Xavier is a word that shows fusions of language, culture and religion all the way from Spain to Ethiopia, via the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity and Islam, and even a Jewish Yemenese King????

This Rastafarian scholar certainly thinks so:
[Moderator's Note: Videos removed according to Forum Rules#4, replaced by their corresponding Youtube titles]
IGZIABEHER: Let Jah Be Praised, 7-Letter Shemiramoth & Hashem Study by Rasiadonis 
pt2 EGZIABHER: Let there be Light; Igziabeher, Xavier & Menorah Mystery - Wendim Yadon

Here he attempts to explain the connections between the Ge'ez Igziabeher and Light, and connects it to Rastafarianism, Judaism and Kabala, and even gives Xavier a mention although IMHO he fails to properly explain the connection between Xavier and Igziabeher.

If anyone could help me expand on this I would greatly appreciate it!


----------



## Outsider

I just want to point out that, in Spanish and other Iberian languages, the first letter in this name, X or J, is not and has never been pronounced as a Z. Some of the alternate etymologies presented here seem to make that incorrect assumption.


----------



## Ronshel

The pronounciation in Ahmahric is Igz... It starts in your diaphragm, not in your teeth


----------

