When Eleanor Mein was born on 24 June 1906, in South Shields, Durham, England, United Kingdom, her father, Cuthbert Carr Mein, was 35 and her mother, Eleanor Hall, was 34. She died on 16 October 1907, in her hometown, at the age of 1.
German and Dutch: from the ancient Germanic personal name Maino, Meino, a short form of various compound names with the first element magin ‘strength, might’, for example Meinhardt . Compare Main 7.
German: nickname from Middle High German mein ‘mean, nasty’.
Scottish and English: perhaps a variant of Main or Meen. Meen is either a nickname from Middle English mene ‘inferior, lowly; poor; unpleasant’, from the Middle English personal name Mene (which is of uncertain origin). Alternatively, it could conceivably be a habitational name from East and West Meon (Hampshire), which take their names from the river Meon (of unexplained etymology).
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