Lucinda

Lucinda is a literary name invention, first coined by Miguel de Cervantes in his early 17th century Spanish masterpiece “Don Quixote” (considered one of the greatest works of Western literature and the first novel ever written). It is believed Cervantes created the elaborate Lucinda as from Lucia, an Old Roman female name derived from the Latin “lux” meaning “light”. The famous playwright Molière used the French version, Lucinde, for a character in his 1666 comic play “Le Médecin malgré lui” (The Doctor, in spite of himself). So Lucinda is a name with some serious literary cachet. See literary references below for more information on these two lovely characters. Lucia comes from Lucius which was one of the most commonly used masculine names throughout Roman history. Given Lucius/Lucia’s etymology (light), these names were often bestowed upon babies born at dawn (which would explain the heavy usage). As a female given name, Lucia was made even more common throughout Europe during the Middle Ages thanks to St. Lucia of Syracuse, an early 4th century saint whose cult and legend grew in medieval times. Apropos, Lucia is the patron saint of blind people, as she was said to be the “way of light”. Born at the end of the 3rd century in Syracuse, Sicily, Lucia gave herself over to Christianity and refused her pagan bridegroom. Rejected and irate, her husband-to-be turned her over to the Roman authorities (at the time, the practice of Christianity was against Roman law). When the guards came to persecute her, they were unable to move her extraordinarily heavy body– apparently having been filled with the Holy Spirit (or so legend has it). Nor were they able to burn her. Finally, the frustrated guards gorged her eyes out with a fork. Moral of the story: you can take Lucia out of the light, but you can’t take the light out of Lucia. Lucinda is merely an elaboration on Lucia, compliments of Miguel de Cervantes in 1605.