July 31, 2014 § 1 Comment
Diminutive of “Rebecca“, from the Hebrew name “Rivkah”, meaning “yoke” or “snare”.
VARIATIONS and NICKNAMES:
Becca, Becka, Beckah, Beckie, etc.
REFERENCES IN LITERATURE:
– Great Aunt Becky, Lily’s elderly relative, who believes her deceased nephew is still alive and living in Alaska because no one in the family has the heart to break the news to her, in Sleeping Arrangements, by Laura Cunningham (published 1989, set in the 1950s).
– Becky Hawkins, a sharp and saucy “parcel-girl” who is as brave and generous as she is quick-witted, in “Becky”, from Nora Perry’s A Flock of Girls and Boys (1895).
– Becky (Rebecca) Moore, the plain, hard-working farm girl with the heart of a poet in “Mountain-Laurel and Maiden-Hair”, from A Garland for Girls, by Louisa May Alcott, 1887.
– Becky (Rebecca) Sharp, the clever and self-centered anti-heroine of Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray (published in 1847-48, but set in the 1810s-20s).