Pamela (name)
Encyclopedia
Pamela is a feminine given name
. Pamela is commonly abbreviated to Pam. Pamela is infrequently used as a surname
.
invented the name Pamela for a pivotal character in his epic prose work, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, written in the late 16th century and published posthumously. It is widely thought that Sidney intended the name to mean "all sweetness" having in mind the Greek
words pan ("all") and meli ("honey").
The Samuel Richardson
novel Pamela in 1740 or 1741 inaugurated the use of Pamela as a given name but it was not in common usage until the 20th century.
A rare early bearer of the name is Lady Edward FitzGerald
(c.1773-1831) and although she went by the name Pamela her true name was Stephanie Caroline Anne Syms.
The name's popularity may have been hindered by the tendency to pronounce it pəˈmiːlə which was not fully superseded by the now-standard ˈpæmələ until the start of the 20th century.
People with the name or its variants include:
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...
. Pamela is commonly abbreviated to Pam. Pamela is infrequently used as a surname
Surname
A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...
.
Background
Sir Philip SidneyPhilip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier and soldier, and is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan Age...
invented the name Pamela for a pivotal character in his epic prose work, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, written in the late 16th century and published posthumously. It is widely thought that Sidney intended the name to mean "all sweetness" having in mind the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
words pan ("all") and meli ("honey").
The Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison...
novel Pamela in 1740 or 1741 inaugurated the use of Pamela as a given name but it was not in common usage until the 20th century.
A rare early bearer of the name is Lady Edward FitzGerald
Lady Edward FitzGerald
Lady Edward FitzGerald was married to Lord Edward FitzGerald, and was an enthusiastic supporter of Irish independence, scarcely less celebrated at the time than Lord Edward himself.-Background:...
(c.1773-1831) and although she went by the name Pamela her true name was Stephanie Caroline Anne Syms.
The name's popularity may have been hindered by the tendency to pronounce it pəˈmiːlə which was not fully superseded by the now-standard ˈpæmələ until the start of the 20th century.
People with the name or its variants include:
Given name
- Pamela AndersonPamela AndersonPamela Denise Anderson is a Canadian-American actress, model, producer, author, activist, and former showgirl, known for her roles on the television series Home Improvement, Baywatch, and V.I.P. She was chosen as a Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine in February 1990...
- Pam AyresPam AyresPam Ayres MBE is an English poet, songwriter and presenter of radio and television programmes. Her 1975 appearance on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks led to a variety of appearances on TV and radio shows, a one woman touring stage show and performing before the Queen.-Early life:Pam...
- Pamela BellwoodPamela BellwoodPamela Bellwood is an American actress most famous for her role as Claudia Blaisdel Carrington on the 1980s prime time soap opera, Dynasty....
- Pamela J. BjorkmanPamela J. BjorkmanPamela J. Bjorkman is an American biochemist. She is the Max Delbrück Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology , Adjunct Professor of biochemistry at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute...
- Pamela Bordes
- Pamela BrittonPamela BrittonPamela Britton was an American actress best known for appearing as "Loralee Brown" in the television series My Favorite Martian . She also starred in the film noir classic D.O.A. .-Early career:...
- Pamela Brown (disambiguation), multiple people
- Pamela Bustin
- Pamela Copus
- Pamela CoursonPamela CoursonPamela Susan Courson was the long-term companion of Jim Morrison, vocalist of The Doors. After the deaths of Morrison and Courson, her parents petitioned an out-of-state court to declare that the couple had a common-law marriage.-Early life and involvement with Morrison:Courson was born in Weed,...
- Pamela Kyle CrossleyPamela Kyle CrossleyPamela Kyle Crossley is an historian of modern China, northern Asia, and global history. She is author of The Wobbling Pivot: China since 1800: An Interpretive History , as well as influential studies of the Qing dynasty and leading textbooks in global history...
- Pamela CrowePamela CrowePamela Mavis Crowe is a former Member of the Legislative Council of the Isle of Man. Prior to entering politics she was a director of Crowes Ltd and an author of several books...
- Pamela CundellPamela CundellPamela I. Cundell is a British character actress. Her best known role was Mrs Fox in the long-running TV comedy Dad's Army....
- Pamela DeanPamela DeanPamela Dean Dyer-Bennet is an American fantasy author whose most notable book is Tam Lin, based on the Child Ballad of the same name, in which the Scottish fairy story is set on a midwestern college campus loosely based on her alma mater, Carleton College in Minnesota.She was a member of the...
- Pamela Des BarresPamela Des BarresPamela Des Barres aka Miss Pamela is a former rock 'n' roll groupie, author, and magazine writer.- Early life :...
born Pamela Ann Miller - Pamela Duncan
- Pamelyn Ferdin (or 'Pamela Lynn')Pamelyn FerdinPamelyn Ferdin is a former American television and film child actor, active both in live action and as a voice actress in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s and has since appeared in several voice acting roles as late as 2009...
, former child actress, animal rights activist - Pamela Fitzgerald (disambiguation), multiple people
- Pamela FrankPamela FrankPamela Frank is an American violinist, equally well known as a soloist and as a proponent of chamber music.-Biography:She was born in New York City, the daughter of two pianists, Claude Frank and Lilian Kallir. She studied under Shirley Givens using the Givens Method, unlike many of her...
- Pamela FrankauPamela FrankauPamela Frankau was a popular British novelist. Her parents were Dorothea Frances Markham Drummond-Black and the novelist Gilbert Frankau and her grandmother the satirist Julia Frankau. Her uncle was the British radio comedian, Ronald Frankau.She had success as a writer from a young age...
- Pamela FranklinPamela FranklinPamela Franklin is a British actress who appeared in feature films from 1961 until 1976, and on American television throughout the 1970s.-Early life and career as a child actress:...
- Pamela GeminPamela GeminPamela Gemin is an author and editor. She is also an Associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh.-Works:...
- Pamela GidleyPamela GidleyPamela Catherine Gidley is an American actress and model.-Early life:Gidley was born in Methuen, Massachusetts but was raised in Nashua, New Hampshire and the youngest of the family with four older brothers...
- Pamela GreenPamela GreenPamela Green was an English glamour model and actress, best known at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s...
- Pamela Green (DJ)
- Pamela Harmsworth, Viscountess RothermerePamela Harmsworth, Viscountess RothermerePatricia Evelyn Beverley Matthews Harmsworth, Viscountess Rothermere was an English socialite and actress. As Beverly Brooks, she appeared in several films, such as Reach for the Sky ....
- Pamela HarrimanPamela HarrimanPamela Beryl Harriman , also known as Pamela Churchill Harriman, was an English-born socialite who was married and linked to important and powerful men. In later life, she became a political activist for the United States Democratic Party and a diplomat...
- Pamela HaydenPamela HaydenPamela Hayden is an American actress, best known for providing various voices for the animated television show The Simpsons.-Biography:...
- Pamela HealyPamela HealyPamela Katherine Healy is a retired female sailor from the United States, who won a bronze medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. She did so in the 470 class , alongside Jennifer Isler....
- Pamela HensleyPamela HensleyPamela Gail Hensley is an American actress. She is best known for playing Princess Ardala on the 1979-1981 television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and C.J...
- Lady Pamela HicksLady Pamela HicksLady Pamela Carmen Louise Hicks, née Mountbatten is a British aristocrat. She is the younger daughter of the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma by his wife, the former Edwina Ashley. Through her father, Lady Hicks is a first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.- Family background :Hicks was...
- Pamela IsaacsPamela Isaacs-Theatre:In 1987 Isaacs appeared in Conrack, a musical based on Pat Conroy's novel The River Is Wide, at AMAS Repertory Theater. The show is set in 1969 and recounts the adventures of Pat Conroy, a young white teacher who teaches black children on the remote South Carolina island of Yamacraw....
- Pamela Hansford JohnsonPamela Hansford JohnsonPamela Hansford Johnson, Baroness Snow was an English novelist, playwright, poet, literary and social critic.-Career:...
- Pamela JonesPamela JonesPamela Jones, commonly known as PJ, is the creator and editor of Groklaw, an award-winning website that covers legal news of interest to the free and open-source software community...
- Pamela M. KilmartinPamela M. KilmartinPamela M. Kilmartin is a New Zealand astronomer.She has discovered some forty asteroids, each one in collaboration with Alan C. Gilmore; both of them are also active comet-hunters.She is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand ....
- Pamela LevyPamela LevyPamela Levy was an Israeli artist.Pamela Levy was born in Fairfield, Iowa. She completed a B.A. at the University of Northern Iowa .In 1976 she immigrated to Israel where she started exhibiting her work in solo shows soon after...
- Pamela LondonPamela LondonPamela London is a female boxer from Guyana. She forms part of a group of young women boxers to come from that country.London is well known in her nation...
- Pam LongPam LongPamela K. Long is an American actress and writer, most known for her stints writing the CBS Daytime soap opera Guiding Light, from 1983 to 1986 and from 1987 to 1990....
- Pamela MartinPamela MartinPamela Martin is an American-born television reporter on Canadian TV. She formerly co-anchored the weekday 6pm newscasts on CTV British Columbia alongside Bill Good....
- Pamela Sue MartinPamela Sue MartinPamela Sue Martin is an American actress best known for playing Nancy Drew on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries TV series and Fallon Carrington Colby on the ABC nighttime soap opera Dynasty.-Biography:...
- Pamela MelroyPamela MelroyPamela Anne Melroy is a retired United States Air Force officer and a former NASA astronaut. She served as pilot on Space Shuttle missions STS-92 and STS-112 and commanded mission STS-120.-Early life and education:...
- Pamela MunroPamela MunroPamela Munro is an American linguist who specializes in Native American languages. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, her graduate adviser was Margaret Langdon. She teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles...
- Pamela Payton-WrightPamela Payton-Wright-Biography:Payton-Wright was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Eleanor Ruth and Gordon Edgar Payton-Wright. She graduated from the Birmingham-Southern College in 1963. She began her television career in 1972 as Rhonda on Corky...
- Pamela RamboPamela RamboPamela Rambo is a colorist who has worked in the comics industry, perhaps best known for her work on Dark Horse Comics's Star Wars series. Additionally, she has worked for DC Comics's Vertigo imprint on such titles as Preacher and Y: The Last Man...
- Pamela Ramljak
- Pamela C. RasmussenPamela C. RasmussenProfessor Pamela Cecile Rasmussen is a prominent American ornithologist and expert on Asian birds. She was formerly a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and is based at the Michigan State University...
- Pamela ReedPamela ReedPamela Reed is an American actress. She is known for playing Ruth Powers in various episodes of TV's The Simpsons, as Arnold Schwarzenegger's hypoglycemic partner in the 1990 movie Kindergarten Cop and as the matriarch Gail Green in Jericho...
- Pamela RibonPamela RibonPamela Ribon is an American author, screenwriter and actress.Also known as Pamie, Pop Culture Princess and Wonder Killer, she runs the website...
- Pamela SalemPamela SalemPamela Salem is a British film and television actress.She was born in Bombay, India, and educated at Heidelberg University in Germany and later at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England...
- Pamela SamuelsonPamela SamuelsonPamela Samuelson is the Richard M. Sherman '74 Distinguished Professor of Law and Information Management at the University of California, Berkeley with a joint appointment in the UC Berkeley School of Information and Boalt Hall, the School of Law. She was appointed Visiting Professor of Law at...
- Pamela SargentPamela SargentPamela Sargent is an American, feminist, science fiction author, and editor. She has an MA in classical philosophy and has won a Nebula Award. She wrote a series concerning the terraforming of Venus that is sometimes compared to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, but predates it...
- Pamela Segall
- Pamela Sharples
- Pamela Susan ShoopPamela Susan ShoopPamela Susan Shoop is an American character actress in film and on television. She often appeared in shows created by Glen A. Larson.Shoop's best known film role was in the 1981 horror film Halloween II, as Karen, a nurse...
- Pamela SilverPamela SilverPamela Silver is a Professor in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. She is the first Director of the Harvard University PhD Program in Systems Biology. Silver is also a core faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University...
- Pamela SmartPamela SmartPamela Ann Smart is serving a life sentence for accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and witness tampering in New Hampshire...
- Pamela Colman SmithPamela Colman SmithPamela Colman Smith , also nicknamed Pixie, was an artist, illustrator, and writer. She is best known for designing the Waite-Smith deck of divinatory tarot cards for Arthur Edward Waite.-Biography:Smith was born in Pimlico, Middlesex , England the only child of an...
- Pamela SpencePamela SpencePamela Aslı Spence is a Turkish pop-rock singer.Born in Heidelberg, Germany, to a British American father and a Turkish mother, she sings in Turkish, which she learned at the age of 15, after her family moved to Turkey. In addition to her solo career, she has collaborated with a number of other...
- Pamela SpencerPamela SpencerPamela Ann Spencer is a retired high jumper from the United States, who set her personal best on 1981-08-28, jumping 1.97 metres at a meet in Brussels, Belgium...
- Pamela Stein
- Pamela StephensonPamela StephensonPamela Helen Stephenson Connolly is a New Zealand-born Australian clinical psychologist and writer now resident in the United Kingdom. She is best known for her work as an actress and comedian during the 1980s...
- Pamela Lyndon TraversP. L. TraversPamela Lyndon Travers OBE was an Australian novelist, actress and journalist, popularly remembered for her series of children's novels about the mystical and magical nanny Mary Poppins...
- Pamela Rogers TurnerPamela Rogers TurnerPamela Joan Rogers , a former elementary school physical education teacher and coach in McMinnville, Tennessee, had a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy who was one of her students in Centertown Elementary School....
- Pamela Vitale
- Pamela WallinPamela WallinPamela Wallin, OC, SOM is a former Canadian television journalist and diplomat. On January 2, 2009, she was seated in the Canadian Senate, where she sits as a Conservative.-Early life and career:...
- Pamela WillefordPamela WillefordPamela Pitzer Willeford was the United States Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein between 2003 and 2006. She is also notable as being the sole eyewitness of the 2006 hunting incident where then-United States Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot attorney Harry Whittington in the...
- Pamela WilliamsPamela WilliamsPamela Williams is an American smooth jazz saxophonist, songwriter, producer and painter. Williams exhibits diverse musical elements in her repertoire, including Nu Jazz, Funk, R&B, House, Latin and Pop...
- Pamela ZolinePamela ZolinePamela Zoline or Pamela Lifton-Zoline is a writer and painter living in the United States in Telluride, Colorado.Among science fiction fans, she is known for her controversial 1967 short story "The Heat Death of the Universe"...
Fictional characters
- Pamela Andrews, heroine of Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740–41)
- Pamela of the Jungle, a comic-book jungle girl created by Italian author Enrico Teodorani
- Pam Halpert, a character in The Office
- Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley or Poison Ivy
- Pam, from the film The Texas Chain Saw MassacreThe Texas Chain Saw MassacreThe Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American independent horror film directed and produced by Tobe Hooper, who cowrote it with Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the...
- Pamela VoorheesPamela VoorheesPamela Sue Voorhees is a fictional character in the Friday the 13th films, and the antagonist of the original Friday the 13th film. She is a former camp cook and the mother of Jason Voorhees, the main character of the series....
, a character in the Friday the 13th films - Pamela Barnes EwingPamela Barnes EwingPamela Jean "Pam" Barnes is a fictional character in the popular American television series Dallas, played by Victoria Principal and Margaret Michaels.-Early pre-series life:...
, a character in TV series Dallas - PamPam (vampire)Pam Ravenscroft is a fictional character from the The Southern Vampire Mysteries/Sookie Stackhouse Series by author Charlaine Harris. She is a vampire and Eric's second-in-command and co-owner of Fangtasia, a vampire bar...
, a vampire bouncer from The Southern Vampire Mysteries/Sookie Stackhouse Series by author Charlaine Harris and an American television drama series True Blood. - Pamela Abbott, one of the Abbot sisters and Doug's love interest (Joaquin PhoenixJoaquin PhoenixJoaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
) in the movie, Inventing the AbbottsInventing the AbbottsInventing the Abbotts is a 1997 romance film directed by Pat O'Connor, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Crudup, Liv Tyler, Jennifer Connelly, and Michael Keaton. The screenplay by Ken Hixon is based on a short story by Sue Miller. The original music score is composed by Michael Kamen... - Pamela "Pam" James, from the TV series MartinMartin (TV series)Martin is an American sitcom produced by HBO Independent Productions that aired for five seasons, from August 27, 1992 to May 1, 1997 on Fox...
See also
- Pam (disambiguation)
- List of Wikipedia articles starting with Pamela
- List of Wikipedia articles starting with Pam