French: from the Old French personal name Germain. This
was popular in France, where it had been borne by a 5th-century saint,
bishop of Auxerre. It derives from Latin Germanus ‘brother’,
‘cousin’ (originally an adjective meaning ‘of the same stock’, from
Latin germen ‘bud’, ‘shoot’). In the Romance languages,
especially Italian, the popularity of the equivalent personal name has
been enhanced by association with the meaning ‘brother (in God)’, and
in Spanish the cognate surname is derived from the vocabulary word
meaning ‘brother’ rather than from a personal name. The feminine form,
Germaine, which occurs as a place name in Aisne, Marne, and
Haute-Marne, is associated with a late 16th-century saint from
Provençal, the daughter of a poor farmer, who was canonized in
1867.
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