Gender Male | Related names | |
Word/name Christ or cross(in Bulgarian, Macedonian and Russian) | ||
Kristian is a name in several languages, often interpreted as a form of Christian.
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Meaning in different languages
The name is used in several languages, among them Slovak, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Bosnian, Bulgarian and Croatian.
In some languages people with the name are sometimes named after the cross, not after Christ. The word cross in in Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian is kr'st and in Russian is krest, in some cases pronounced krist. In contrast Christ in these Slavic languages is called Hristos, which confuses to which of both nouns the name sounds more similar. The name may have a third meaning in Bulgarian and Macedonian, in which the word kr'sten means baptized and has the same as the word for cross.
Though sounding similar, the words cross and Christian have different roots, Christian derives from the Koine Greek word Christós, possibly ultimately derived from the Egyptian kheru, "word" or "voice", used to replace the Biblical Hebrew term mashiach, "anointed". On the other the hand the Slavic and the English word for cross comes from the Latin word crux (cruci) "stake" which is perhaps of Phoencian or Punic (Phoencio-Carthaginian ) origin. It may come from the Latin word crio, "to torment".