The Meaning of My Name

Pic: Shanny (Blennius pholis), a common European blenny (credit: Jane Burton — Bruce Coleman Ltd.)

A Conversation

A: What’s your name?
B: Blenure
A: What????
B: B-l-e-n-u-r-e.. Blenure
A: Unique name. What does it mean?
B: I don’t know.

Alas, this conversation gets repeated like a broken record player nearly every second day. And unfortunately for me I still do not know the meaning of my name. I know it’s a French name but the French dictionary doesn’t seem to be interested in lending a space for my name. Poor me..

My pet name happens to be Blen, its easier then Blenure and people don’t get stuck on the ‘ure’ part. Besides Blen a lot of my friends call me Blenny so thought of adding these two names to my search.

Anyway, I was supposed to do a research on the meaning of my name for ages. I did it a couple of days back and hence this post reporting the findings..

Macwyn Cardozo, my brother’s friend (who happens to be my friend too) emailed me his findings:

hey bluie,

well I am back with the thesis about ur name and its origins though its very funny and I just dont know how to go ahead. The internet hardly helped, till I just happened to meet an idiot doctor friend of mine.I asked him the meaning and he was like I have heard this word in some case.He suggested to try searching for ur name with a double nn.. and I did..Well experimenting with the endings, I stumbled on an odd result.. Blennuria means the presence of mucus in the urine...
Will continue to get more factoids, but before that U need a strong story about ur name if u happen to come across some doctor worth his salt.. :)

Take care ma'am..

MacWyn with the capital W..

Ha ha… That was a real yucky meaning..

I next went on google and typed blen.. Got a lot of acronyms & meanings some of which are listed below:

BLEN- Bobbin Lace European Network
(Hmmm… Not bad.. Lace looks good on clothes.)

BLEN- Bilingualism & Literacies Education Network which is a non-profit, forward looking, dedicated, education forum with an interest in language education and literacy in the widest sense.
(Yup, nice organization.. Anyone wanna make a donation?)

Blen Blen Blen

Artist: Machito

Type: Compilation
Styles: Cuban Jazz, Mambo, Afro-Cuban Jazz

Blen Blen Blen is a greatest-hits compilation of sorts from Machito, one of the primary leaders in the Cubop movement but largely ignored since his prime in the later Latin revivals. The arrangements are tight, with a punchy brass section taking shots throughout in the style embraced as Afro-Cuban jazz soon after. Machito and co-leader Mario Bauza lead the Afro-Cubans on a tour de force through number after number of high-energy Cuban jazz and more straightforward bits of son here and there.
(Aha! Music Album with my pet name.. Famous huh?)

Blen Corn- Wheat mixed with rye, hence blended corn.
(That’s food for thought)

blen·ny (blĕn'ē) n., pl. -nies.
Any of several widely distributed, chiefly marine fishes that are primarily of the families Blenniidae and Clinidae and have small, elongated, often scaleless bodies.
[Latin blennius, a kind of sea fish, from Greek blennos, slime, blenny.]

A genus of small (4- to 6-inch-long) freshwater and saltwater fish characterized by its lack of scales; instead, its body is covered by a mucous membrane. The blenny has a mild, white, flavorful flesh and is best served fried.
(FRIED????? Help!!!!)

The noun blenny has one meaning: small usually scaleless fishes with comb-like teeth living about rocky shores; territorial and hole-dwelling

Synonym: combtooth blenny

Eeeeeehhhhh… scary… sounds like a monster..

Anyway, I’ve saved the best for the last...

This is an excerpt from the book 'Metaphors of Mind: Conceptions of the Nature of Intelligence' By Robert J. Sternberg

Sternberg and Powell (1983 a) have presented a theory of verbal comprehension ability based on learning from context. The theory has 3 parts: contextual cues, mediating variables, and component processes of verbal learning. Context cues are hints contained in a passage that facilitate (or, in theory and sometime sin practice, impede) deciphering the meaning of an unknown word.

An example of the use of some of these cues in textual analysis might help concretize this descriptive framework. Consider the sentence, “At dawn, the blen arose on the horizon and shone brightly.” This sentence contains several external contextual cues that could facilitate one’s inferring that blen probably means sun.

“At dawn” provides a temporal cue describing when the rising of the blen occurred. “arose” provides a functional descriptive cue, describing an action that a blen could perform; “on the horizon”, provides a spatial cue describing when the arising of the blen took place. “shone” provides another functional descriptive cue, describing a sound action a blen could do; finally “brightly” provides a stative descriptive cue, describing a property (brightness) of the shining of the blen. With all of these different cues, it is no wonder most people would find it very easy to figure out that the neologism blen is a synonym for the familiar word sun.

I’ll vote for this one.. as its my all time favourite.. (especially when compared to slimy & scaleless creatures!!)

Yup, I wholeheartedly support your theory Mr. Sternberg & Mr. Powell.

I still haven’t found a concrete meaning for Blenure and so, I’m looking forward to your suggestions/comments on the meaning of my name..