Name Origins
by Julie Helen Otto, Genealogist Of NEHGS newletter
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SENA (f): Often a nickname for ASENATH (or for any other name with middle or ending element -sen- [e.g. POLYXENA]. ASENATH is Old Testament Biblical, originally Egyptian ("And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath-paaneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath, daughter of Potipherah, priest of On --" Gen. 41:45), while POLYXENA (not mentioned by Homer) was a Trojan princess, betrothed or married to Achilles (accounts differ) and sacrificed by the victorious Greeks on his tomb "to appease his shade." (Clarence L. Barnhart, William D. Halsey et al., The New Century Cyclopedia of Names, 3 vols. [1954], 3:3218). Here the specific meaning of a name has given way to phonetic convenience, if you will. In such cases it may be important to seek names in other forms: a woman may be Asenath in her birth record, Sena in her marriage record -- or Sena in her birth record and Polly X. at marriage.
Sena Luddington, daughter of Titus and Merriam Luddington, was born July 20, 1773, in Wallingford, New Haven County, Connecticut. (Connecticut Vital Records to 1870, The Barbour Collection, AmericanAncestors.org.) In his 1815 will, Joseph Van Falkenburgh of Sharon, Schoharie County, New York, gave $200 to his daughter, Sena Van Falkenburgh. (Abstracts of Wills, Admins. and Guardianships in NY State, 1787-1835, AmericanAncestors.org.)
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