<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> On 3/8/2011 9:05 AM, Terry Parcel wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:842529.46155.qm@web112906.mail.gq1.yahoo.com" type="cite"> <style type="text/css">div { margin: 0px; }</style> <div style="font-family: tahoma,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(68, 79, 117);"> <div>Anyone know if Ida is an abbreviation for a woman's first name.  Hitting a roadblock.  Thanks.</div> </div> </blockquote> ------------------------------------------------------------- Terry: Ida is a name in its own right, not a nickname in the usual sense. A nickname for Ida is sometimes Idie. That's what my Missouri-born grandfather called me, in his _Mark Twain Tonight_ accent, when he wasn't calling me Li'l Sistuh.  Mount Ida was 2 sacred mountains in Greek mythology (present-day Crete and Turkey). Gilbert  and Sullivan's comic opera, _Princess Ida or Castle Adamant_ , opened in 1884. It was based on the 1847 poem "The Princess: A Medley" by Alfred Lord Tennyson. The name's popularity in the US was extended most likely because Ida Saxton was President McKinley's wife. Ida was very popular around the turn of the 20th Century but waned thereafter. You don't know how many people have told me they had an aunt or a grandmother named Ida. Over the years Ida got paired with  and merged with other names (maybe 2 people to name the baby after), such as Ida + Lee -> Idalee, Ida + Mae -> Idamae, Ida + Elaine -> Idalaine. The Idalaine I knew in college was called Idie. Ida was frequently used by immigrant women for themselves or their daughters as a substitute for an Old Country name. Some immigrants carried over Old Country naming patterns but substituted American names beginning with the same or similar sound(s). Among the Norwegian immigrants, for example, an American name beginning with any vowel could be substituted for a name beginning with a vowel in Norway. I was named after my mother's schoolmate whose parents came from my father's parish in Norway. A number of Jewish women are named Ida. There was a 19th Century Black feminist leader named Ida B. Wells-Barnett, for whom some Black women are named. My name is pronounced with a long "I," but I respond, also, to EE-da in a doctor's office, restaurant, etc. That pronunciation is used by some named Ida, primarily Spanish speaking, I believe. If you give us more information about the Ida you are inquiring about, such as full name, dates, location, and ethnicity, perhaps we can provide more specific help. See Wikpedia.com for some information about Mount Ida, _Princess Ida_, Ida Saxton McKinley, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. --Ida Skarson McCormick, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:idamc@seanet.com">idamc@seanet.com</a>, Seattle </body> </html>