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Baby Names That Mean “Magic”
One of the most magical things in life is becoming a parent. It has its challenges, of course, but it is also the opportunity to love someone more than you’ve ever loved anything in your life, and make that a lifelong commitment. With baby on the way, there is undoubtedly about to be a lot more magic in the world, so it’s no surprise you’ve found yourself here. A magical baby girl, boy, or gender-neutral name will help you get one step closer to showing baby just how wonderful and fantastical life is now that they’re here.
Explore Baby Girl and Boy Names That Mean “Magic”
How long has magic been around?
Magic came about at least as early as 2700 BCE. When there were so little definitive ways to understand the world, it’s unsurprising that magic accompanied the same space as religion when looking for explanations and ways to change the world around them. Used through rituals and recitations, written texts, or specific ingredients mixed together, magic manipulated factors around them to their wishes. It could be used in love potions, to deter other people from standing in the way of certain desires, to encourage riches to fall upon them, or any other number of eternally human wishes. But on the flipside, magic also aided and abetted superstitious behaviors, warding off real and imagined threats—think scorpion stings to ill-wishes!
How did magic travel around the world?
Magic originated in European superstitions, and as a result, Western magic traveled to the rest of the worlds thanks to active trade routes. But what’s perhaps most interesting about how magic was that it was defined as the space between religious and scientific beliefs. If explanations were not wholly religion-based nor did they have a scientific basis and were not—and this is the most important aspect of the qualifications—able to be translated directly into Western languages, then the accompanying beliefs and value systems were seen as supernatural, or magical. Certain divine beliefs in Hawaii, Buddhist practices, or nearly any of the Asian folklore were typified as magic because it did not align with the Western Christian beliefs.
How has the concept of magic changed over time?
In the understood beginning of magic in the Greco-Roman beginning, it was a way of interpreting the world when faced with previously unknowable mysteries. This could involve potions and spells or relics imbued with specific powers. As time moved on, though, into the Christian era, magic was the label applied to traditions and beliefs defined as “other” by the Western Europeans. This eventually moved on to becoming a label for anyone with an extraordinary understanding of the natural world, slight of hand, or anything distinctly abnormal. In today’s information era aided by the age of technology, magic is largely dispelled. However, the tone around magic has become less driven by fear these days, and now it’s a word that celebrates the little mysteries and beauties of the world.
