Effie

Effie comes to us from a couple different directions. For one, it’s the old English diminutive of the Greek Euphemia. In this case, Effie would come to mean “speaks well” from the Greek elements “eu” (ευ) meaning “good” and “phemi” (φημι) meaning “to speak”. Euphemia was a name resurrected by medieval Christians in homage to an earlier 4th century saint, commonly referred to as “The Great Martyr Euphemia”, who was martyred in the Roman city of Chalcedon (modern day Turkey) around 304 A.D. After refusing to worship the Greek pagan god of war (Ares), Euphemia joined other Christians in hiding so that they could freely worship in their own faith. Once discovered they were all subjected to tortuous punishment, but Euphemia was especially singled out. Apparently she was killed by a wild bear in front of spectators in an arena (those ancient Romans sure did know how to afflict cruel and unusual punishment!). In any case, a church was built over her grave and, about 150 years later (after the Roman Empire had converted to Christianity), a theological council met at Euphemia’s cathedral in Chalcedon to settle a doctrinal issue. The disagreement was settled by Euphemia, actually. The Church men placed two scrolls in her tomb – each professing their respective faith of the issue – and, after three days, the tomb was open. Miraculously, Euphemia held one of the scrolls – the “true” one – in her right hand while the other – the false one – lay at her feet. The issue was settled. Stories of such miracles became widespread in medieval times and cults grew up around those saints who had particularly interesting legends attached to them. As a result, Euphemia became a common baptismal name especially within the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Middle Ages. The name was anglicized to a pet form of Effie in England. Aside from Effie’s connection to the early saint, Effie is also considered the anglicized form of Oighrig which is an old Scottish-Gaelic female name meaning “speckled baby” which was used to describe a little freckled one. Lastly, it could be argued that Effie is also a short form for any female name beginning with the letter F such as Frances, Fatima or Faith.