Meanings
emma1
Emma2
- A female given name from the Germanic languages.
Emma Calvé...since Madame Bovary the name Emma suggests a solid bourgeois foundation, a country family...Emma Eames, a chilly name...a wind from the East.
1917, Carl Van Vechten, Interpreters and Interpretations., A.A.Knopf, page 923 more examples
Both Saxon and Norman chroniclers unite in representing the youthful Queen Emma as in a peculiar degree gifted with elegance and beauty; so that many flattering epithets had been bestowed on her - as "the Pearl," "the Flower," or "the Fair Maid" of Normandy.
1854, Matthew Hall, The Queens Before the Conquest, pages 259–260The cottage now belonged to Emma's mother Beatrix, who was a tutor in English literature at a women's college, specialising in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novel. This may have accounted for Emma's Christian name, for it had seemed to Beatrix unfair to call her daughter Emily, a name associated with her grandmother's servants rather than the author of The Wuthering Heights, so Emma had been chosen, perhaps with the hope that some of the qualities possessed by the heroine of the novel might be perpetuated.
1980, Barbara Pym, A Few Green Leaves, →ISBN, page 8Ken Cuccinelli tweaked the famous poem from Emma Lazarus – whose words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” are long associated with immigration to the US and the nation’s history as a haven – as part of a case for strict new measures pushed Monday by the Trump administration that could dramatically change the legal immigration system.
2019 August 13, Devan Cole and Caroline Kelly, “Cuccinelli rewrites Statue of Liberty poem to make case for limiting immigration”, in CNN
Origin
Emma · proper noun
- Proto-Germanic*ermunaz
- EnglishEmma
Brought to England by the Normans; short form of compound given names beginning with a Frankish prototheme Ermin- or Irmin- "entire", from Proto-Germanic *ermunaz.
More words from Proto-Germanic
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Chinese Mandarin 埃瑪 /埃玛, 艾瑪 /艾玛
- 埃瑪 /埃玛 (Āimǎ)female given name
- 艾瑪 /艾玛 (Àimǎ)female given name
Czech Ema
- Emafemale given name
Danish Emma
- Emmafemale given name
Dutch Emma
- Emmafemale given name
Estonian Emma
- Emmafemale given name
Finnish Emma
- Emmafemale given name
French Emma
- Emmafemale given name
German Emma
- Emmafemale given name
Hawaiian ʻEma
- ʻEmafemale given name
Hebrew אמה
- אמהfemale given name
Icelandic Emma
- Emmafemale given name
Japanese エマ
- エマ (ema)female given name
Korean 엠마
- 엠마female given name
Norwegian Emma
- Emmafemale given name
Persian اما
- اما (emâ)female given name
Portuguese Ema
- Emafemale given name
Russian Э́мма
- Э́мма (Émma)female given name
Slovak Ema
- Emafemale given name
Spanish Ema
- Emafemale given name
Swedish Emma
- Emmafemale given name
Thai เอ็มม่า
- เอ็มม่าfemale given name
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with emma
Cite this entry
emma. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/emma
“emma.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/emma. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “emma,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/emma.
Source: emma on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.