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In Southern India which traces Christianity to the time of St. Thomas the Apostle (who is believed to have reached India in AD 52) and to the missionaries including those from Portugal and Spain, christening of children often owed its source to the Syriac, Portuguese or Latin name of the saint (or Jesus himself!) after whom the child was proposed to be named.
It is not necessary that those names rhyme with their counterparts in English, for the very reason that English language has not been very kind to the original names when they are adapted. My language Malayalam, which is considered to be the sister-language of Tamil, has many such names. For instance : Yesu / Eeso for Jesus; Ouseph for Joseph; Marriyam for Mary : Varghese for George; Maathukkutty for Matthew; Yohannan for John; Looka for Luke; Markose for Mark ; Peelippose for Philip ; Yaacoob for Jacob; Thressiamma for Theresa and so on. I am sorry I can't tell how these names appear in Tamil.
The point I want to reinforce is that Christian names in Southern India may not rhyme with their counterparts in English; but could be more true to the original names in Syriac, Portuguese, Latin or Spanish.
By the way, St. Xavier was called Shouriar in Malayalam in the good old days'. Here,
sh'is not pronounced as in she' but somewhere between
s'of sad'and
sh'of `shaft'.
Upvote:4
Is the Tamil name Savari derived from the name Xavier?
It appears that the Tamil name Savari is not a Christian name and is unrelated to Xavier, after St. Francis Xavier.
The given name Xavier is a masculine name derived from the 16th-century Spanish Navarrese Roman Catholic Saint Francis Xavier.
St. Francis Xavier’s last name indicates where he is from: Javier, Spain.
Although not a very common name in Tamil, Hindi or Sanskrit, it could be used as a baptismal name in the Catholic Church for it is not offensive to the dignity of Christianity.
In Hindi it means a passenger.
In Sanskrit it means gift of God.
In Tamil it means mounted state or riding.
No exact English transliteration of the Tamil name can be found at the moment, but the above should suffice for now.
The Wikipedia page on the given name of Xavier states that it is as follows in the Tamil language: Savari (சவாரி). However, seeing that it gives no sources for this connection, it must be treated as dubious for the moment. In the Basque language it is a place-name (and surname) etxe berri, meaning 'castle', 'new house' or 'new home'. This does not agree with the above information as regards to the Tamil definitions of this name and is thus doubtful until proven that the contrary is true.
For more information on non-Catholic Christian names and baptism, please read my response to this question: Is Nessa or Vanessa a Catholic name?