The name Barbara

Where does the name Barbara come from?

Does it come from the word barbarian? That would be unfortunate.

Barbarian comes from the Greek word Barbaros, which means foreigner. The Greeks considered anyone who couldn't speak Greek to be a barbarian. Apparently, the Greeks could only make out bar bar bar from the ramblings of foreigners. Kind of like watching the Spanish channel and all you can make out is the name of some product, say Crest toothpaste or Fleichmann's margarine.

I suppose Barbara could come from a more pleasent definition of barbaros, simply "foreigner", and not the modern definition of barbarian, namely an uncivilised, uncultured, unwashed qwijibo.

The world may never know... unless it does know, which it apparently does.