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Katrina is an English transliteration of Italian Caterina or Portuguese Catarina. These are all forms of Katherine (Catherine).

Katherine is from a Greek root, Aikaterina, which means "one of the two". Probably this name was originally given to a child who was one of twins.

Interestingly, the name Katharine, with an A in the middle, is different. Seventeenth-century scholars, trying to find an etymology for the name (which, of course, had a great variety of spellings) guessed that it came from the Greek katharos, meaning "pure". They were wrong - there is no evidence at all for this etymology. But this caused them to assume that Katharine was the "correct" spelling and Katherine was a mistake.

So Katharine (and Catharine) mean "pure", while Katherine (and Catherine) mean "one of the two". Since Katrina is a collapsed form, with no vowel in the middle, you can take it either way.

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12y ago

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