| The girl name Ida [ 2 syll. i-da, id-a ] is pronounced as AYDah KEY. Ida is used mostly in English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Scandinavian, and Spanish, and its language of origin is Germanic. Developed from the elements 'id' which means labor, work ; 'itis' which means woman, virgin. The name is of obscure or multiple origins; it could be derived via Norman French from the Germanic 'id' or 'itis', or else it could be from the short form of olden names with the element 'Ida-' such as Idaburga. The first name could also be from the name of the goddess Iduna in Norse mythology, or from the name of Mount Ida of Crete, known in Greek mythology as the place where Zeus was brought up. In Ireland, the name is sometimes taken as the Anglicized form of the Gaelic Ita or Ide, which is from the element 'ita' meaning 'thirsty'. The name was brought by the Normans into England in the 11th century, but it fell into disuse by the 15th century. It saw a revival in the 19th century, promoted by its appearance in the Lord Tennyson narrative poem The Princess (1847) and the Sullivan and Gilbert comic opera Princess Ida (1884). The Finnish name Iida is a variant form of Ida. Ida is a rare baby name for girls. At the peak of its usage in 1901, 0.722% of baby girls were named Ida. Its ranking then was #34. The baby name has since steeply slipped in popularity, and is currently used on a very modest scale. Out of all girl names in its group, Ida was nevertheless the most widely used in 2007. The name Ida has been predominantly given to girls, though it has also been used as a boy name in the past century. In 1911, girls named Ida outnumbered boys by 83 times. Baby names that sound like Ida include the Arabic Ayda, the English and Irish Addie, the English Addy, the Arabic A'idah, and the Arabic, English, Italian, and Spanish Aida. KEY: Pronunciation for Ida: AY as in "hide (HH.AY.D)" ; D as in "dee (D.IY)" ; AH as in "hut (HH.AH.T)"
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