Interesting. My Hebrew names, of course, have to do at least with religious and family history. But, my English names - well, Ellice is the French version of Elizabeth, but my mom didn't like the normal spellings, and actually I was nameless in the hospital, for 2 weeks, until she found my name in some diaper service book. Our family is from Austria and Southern Russia (Kiev and surroundings) - though with my coloring, and that of my mother & aunt, it would seem somewhere along the way some soldier or the like had their way with an ancestor in the days of the pogroms - some of my grandparents were born over there) - and our names are completely irrelevant. Though my nephew is named Max after grandfather.
DH - a.k.a. Jon - is actually Jonas (pronounced yawn-ahs) as they're Lithuanian. His dad changed the surname when working for the war dept. in the 40s - way back before DH was any kind of possibility. Though we've thought of going back to it (it's more interesting than the current 4 letter version).
My last name - means "silk" in german, but it was changed from starting with a "Z" by my grandfather around 1916 - when he was a little boy - because he got tired of being last in line in school. In high school, my best friend wanted to change her name back to Salha from Sally - her family also Russian.
I know another Gregor here.
It's a very nice spelling.
ellice
>