Why does names have a meaning?

Answer 1

At one time, personal names were thought to have magical power and were chosen with that in mind. A person would be called by the word for an animal or force of nature in order to bring valued attributes to that person. Later names described something about a person and referred to what they did, what they looked like or where they came from.

As a result, most names derive from a word with some meaning. However, in many cases the knowledge of that meaning is lost in everyday usage ad is merely an interesting but trivial piece of information, not expected to reflect any actual aspect of the person using the name.

For example, a very famous surname in Spanish history is Cabesa de Vaca, which means cow head - but no one encountering a person of that name today would expect the to look like a cow.

Answer 2

yes