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Hi,
I'm a Valerie too. The name "Valerie" is French. It is the French
version of the Latin name "Valeria", which is the feminine form of
a Roman gens (family) name "Valerius". "Valerius" comes from a Roman
greeting "valere", meaning "be strong", which comes from the Latin verb
for "to be strong".
Therefore, "Valerie" means "strong".
Just as a bit of trivia:
In Roman families, the sons were given their own first names in
addition to the family name (e.g. Julius Valerius), but the daughters
were only given the feminine form of the family name -- that is, all of
the girls in the Valerius family would be called Valeria, meaning "a
girl in the Valerius family"! Typically, if there were several girls
in the family, they would be given nick-names, based on appearance or
personality traits, etc. or based on their order of birth (like Valeria
number 1, Valeria number 2, etc.). When the girls got married, they
would take on their husband's last name (e.g. a girl's name could
become Valeria Caesar).
Valerie
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