Women's names as epithets (aemula, glabella)

[Luis A. Ruedas]

Glabella: feminine diminutive of hairless, bald, smooth: glaber (m.:
glabellus).  Not sure about aemula, but could be from emulatus, rivaling
(emulating), hence aemulor, to rival or envy, thence a feminine.  Not
very likely to have been names!

Luis

christian thompson wrote:

>Taxacomers:
>
>There is a masculine genus of flower flies in which a few epithets are clearly female first names. The authors of these epithet never made any statement about the derivation of the epithets. But Eristalis claudia, cora, doris, dorothea, thalia, and vera, are all female names and were used as nouns.
>
>My question is a couple other names which look to me like they are also female fore names, but I can not find them in my Webster (English) dictionary as such. Google was of little help beyond finding some plants which have them as epithets and noting that one is a morphological term. So, does the taxacom community know whether "glabella" or "aemula" in other cultures have been used as female forenames?
>
>Cheers
>
>F. Christian Thompson
>Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
>c/o Smithsonian Institution
>MRC-0169 NHB
>PO Box 37012
>Washington, DC 20013-7012
>(202) 382-1800 voice
>(202) 786-9422 FAX
>cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov e-mail
>www.diptera.org  web site
>
>
>

--
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Luis A. Ruedas, Ph.D.             vox: 503/725-9526 (Pacific)
Director, Museum of Vertebrate Biology      fax: 503/725-3888
Department of Biology
Portland State University
Box 0751              web: http://sevilleta.unm.edu/~lruedas/
Portland, OR 97207-0751                e-mail: ruedas at pdx.edu
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