What's in a Name? Demelza

[Tanya, Moderator/Hostess]

page 190 of the 2015 edition published by Macmillan

..."I was driving across the Goss Moor between Roche and Bodmin, and saw a signpost. It read Demelza. For many months I had had the female character somewhat vaguely in my mind, a dark-haired waif whom Ross picked up at Redruth Fair, but I could find no name and no proper identity for her. The signpost changed all that. Not only did it provide the name; by that curious alchemy which sometimes happens to writers, the character became vivid at the same time. To me, at least, it has never faded.

So Demelza became a girl's Christian name. The first girl to be so named in real life was Delmelza Val Baker, the daughter of Denys Val Baker, the novelist and essayist."

..."I hope it is not too far out to consider the name means 'Thy sweetness'."