> On Tuesday, January 6, 2004, at 10:17 AM, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>> At 17:18 6.1.2004, Dirk Elzinga wrote:
>>> What about a 'dirk'? Looking in the OED online, I find that they
>>> discredit a Gaelic origin for the word. The Scots word was 'durk' or
>>> 'dork' (stop snickering), itself possibly borrowed from N. Germanic
>>> 'dolk' (German 'dolch') "dagger".
>>> Dirk "the knife"
>>
>> According to
http://www.behindthename.com:
>> DIRK m Dutch, English
>> Pronounced: DURK
>> Short form of DIEDERIK. This is also the word for a type of dagger.
>
> [snip]
> I'm aware of the etymology of my name and am rather proud of it, too.
> All of my other siblings have Hebrew or Romance names (Pieter, Steven,
> Yolanda, Monique); I'm the only one with a genuine Germanic given name
> to go with the genuine Germanic surname! But it's fun to take advantage
> of the homophony between my name and the etymologically unrelated knife
> word, too.
> Dirk