# Barbara
## English
### Alternative forms

* Barbra

### Etymology

From Latin Barbara, the name of Saint Barbara, feminine form of barbarus, from Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (bárbaros, “strange, foreign”). Doublet of Varvara.

### Pronunciation

* (General American) IPA: /ˈbɑɹb(ə)ɹə/
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈbɑːb(ə)ɹə/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Hyphenation: Bar‧ba‧ra

### Proper noun

Barbara (plural Barbaras)
* A female given name from Latin.
** c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:: Scene 3:
    My mother had a maid call'd Barbara; / She was in love, and he she lov'd prov'd mad / And did forsake her; […]
** 17th century or before: English folk song: Barbara Allen: 1839 version by Thomas Percy:
    All in the merrye month of May / When greene buds they were swellin / Yong Jemmye Grove on his death-bed lay / For love of Barbara Allen.
** 1860, Mrs Henry Wood (Ellen Wood), East Lynne, Kessinger Publishing, published 2004, →ISBN, page 29:"What do you think they are going to name the baby? Anne; after her and her mamma. So very ugly a name!" "I don't think so," said Mr Carlyle. "It is simple and unpretending. I like it much. Look at the long, pretentious names in our family - Archibald! Cornelia! And yours, too - Barbara! What a mouthful they all are!" Barbara contracted her eyebrows. It was equivalent to saying that he did not like her name.
** 1922, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, (please specify |book=1, 2, or 3), page 76:"Everybody in the next generation," suggested Dick, "will be named Peter or Barbara - because at present all piquant literary characters are named Peter or Barbara."
** 2007, Marina Lewycka, Two Caravans, Fig Tree, →ISBN, page 299:'Barbara?' Barr―baah―rrah. Barbarian woman. Wild. Untamed. An incredibly sexy name.

#### Derived terms

* Pet forms: Babs, Barb, Barbie
* herb Barbara (Barbarea vulgaris)

#### Translations
## Danish
### Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

### Proper noun

Barbara
* a female given name, equivalent to English Barbara

## Dutch
### Etymology

Ultimately from Latin Barbara.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbɑr.baːˌraː/, /ˈbɑr.bəˌraː/
* Audio:(file)
* Hyphenation: Bar‧ba‧ra

### Proper noun

Barbara f
* a female given name, equivalent to English Barbara

## Faroese
### Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

### Proper noun

Barbara f
* a female given name

#### Usage notes

Matronymics
* son of Barbara: Barbaruson
* daughter of Barbara: Barbarudóttir

#### Declension
## French
### Etymology

From Latin Barbara (name of a legendary saint), feminine form of barbarus, from Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (bárbaros, “strange, foreign”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /baʁ.ba.ʁa/
* Audio:(file)

### Proper noun

Barbara f
* a female given name, equivalent to English Barbara

#### Related terms

* Barbe

## German
### Etymology

Borrowed from Latin Barbara, from the saint's name.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbarbara/, [ˈbaʁ.bɐ.ʁa], [ˈbaɐ̯-], [ˈbaː-], [-bə-], [-ˌʁaː]
* Audio:(file)

### Proper noun

Barbara
* a female given name, equivalent to English Barbara; popular especially in the mid-twentieth century

#### Related terms

* Bärbel

## Hungarian
### Etymology

From Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (bárbaros, “non-Greek-speaking, foreign”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: [ˈbɒrbɒrɒ]
* Audio:(file)
* Hyphenation: Bar‧ba‧ra
* Rhymes: -rɒ

### Proper noun

Barbara
* a female given name

#### Declension
### References

* ↑ Fercsik Erzsébet, Raátz Judit: Keresztnevek enciklopédiája, Tinta Könyvkiadó, 2009

## Italian
### Proper noun

Barbara f
* a female given name, equivalent to English Barbara

### Anagrams

* abbarra

## Latin
### Etymology

Probably a substantivisation, used as a proper noun, of the feminine forms of barbarus (“wild”, “savage”, “cruel”, “barbarous”), in elliptical use for Prensiō Barbara (“the Cruel Prison”). Compare barbara (“a wild, savage, cruel, or barbarous woman”).

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈbar.ba.ra/, [ˈbärbärä]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈbar.ba.ra/, [ˈbärbärä]
* Homophone: barbara

### Proper noun

Barbara f sg (genitive Barbarae); first declension
* (Medieval Latin) the name of one of the more abominable prisons of the Grand Châtelet of Paris

#### Declension

First-declension noun, singular only.

#### Holonyms

* (prison of the Grand Châtelet): Castelletum

### References

* 2. BARBARA in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

## Polish
### Etymology

Ultimately from from Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (bárbaros). Doublet of Barbórka.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /barˈba.ra/
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -ara
* Syllabification: Bar‧ba‧ra

### Proper noun

Barbara f
* a female given name, equivalent to English Barbara

#### Derived terms

* Basia

### Further reading

* Barbara in Polish dictionaries at PWN

## Slovak
### Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbarbara/

### Proper noun

Barbara f
* a female given name

#### Declension
### Further reading

* “Barbora”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2003–2025

## Swedish
### Pronunciation

* Audio:(file)

### Proper noun

Barbara c (genitive Barbaras)
* a female given name, equivalent to English Barbara

#### Derived terms

* uppblåsbar Barbara (“blow-up doll”)