1945: colene and colin Apr 12, 2020

According to the Irish folk song, "Star of the County Down", the belle of the local town is named Rosie, but also called 'Colleen', or 'Colene' in the more English spelling. This apparent discrepancy is not an error at all in fact though, but comes from the fact that a 'colleen' (or 'cailin') is a diminutive of 'caile', an Irish word for 'countrywoman', i.e. "young woman". Indeed, 'Colene', and the masculine 'Colin' both come from this root which basically means 'person', but not 'Kayla', despite the phonetic resemblance.

Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts