When Virginia Rose Best was born on 18 January 1904, in Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States, her father, Harry Cassie Best, was 40 and her mother, Sarah Anne Rippey, was 24. She married Ansel Easton Adams on 2 January 1928, in Yosemite Village, Mariposa, California, United States. They were the parents of at least 1 daughter. She lived in El Portal, Mariposa, California, United States in 1940 and Yosemite Village, Mariposa, California, United States in 1950. She died on 29 January 2000, in Monterey, Monterey, California, United States, at the age of 96.
English and northern Irish: nickname from Middle English best(e) (Old English betst) ‘best, finest (person)’.
English, northern Irish, and French: nickname from Middle English best(e), Old French beste ‘beast, animal’ (especially those used for food or work), applied either as a metonymic occupational name for someone who looked after beasts, such as a herdsman, or as a nickname for someone thought to resemble an animal. Compare English Bester 1.
English: from a Middle English adverbial expression of the Best, but the meaning is unknown.
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