Aphra

Aphra f

English: of uncertain origin, perhaps an Anglicization of an Irish name; see AFRICA (SEE Africa), EITHRIG (SEE Eithrig). It could also be a hypercorrected spelling of a Late Latin name, Afra. This was originally an ethnic name for a woman from Africa (in Roman times meaning the area around Carthage). It was used in the post-classical period as a nickname for someone with dark colouring, and eventually became a given name, being borne, for example, by saints martyred at Brescia under the Roman emperor Hadrian and at Augsburg under Diocletian. The respelling of the name may have been prompted by Micah I: 10 ‘in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust’, where Aphrah is often taken as a personal name, but is in fact a placename meaning ‘dust’. The first name has never been frequently used, but is remembered as the name of the English writer Aphra Behn (1640–89).