Choir is from Proto Indo European ghoro, which came into Greek as khoros, “band of singers”. In the great Greek tragedies, the khoros gave voice to the moral and religious sentiments going on in the play. Khoros was borrowed into Latin as chorus, meaning “choir”; and from there it descended into Old French as quer, “choir of a church”. In about 1300 quer was borrowed into English as quyre. As spelling was standardized in the 16th and 17th centuries, quyre was changed to choir to reflect the old Latin spelling.

The phonosemantics of choir suggest a contained, controlled, willful energy that is expressed in a roomy, expansive, artistic manner, with great power.

Muhammad is from Arabic, a language of the Semitic language family. Muhammad comes from the Proto-Semitic root hmd, “praise, extol”, from which came the verb hammada, “to praise highly”. From that was derived the adjective muhammad, “praised; commendable”. Muhammad, then, means “the Praiseworthy” — similar to the original meaning of the English word worship .

Since this name is Semitic in origin, there are some curious linguistic features here that aren’t present in most English etymologies. Note that the “h” in Muhammad, hmd, and hammad isn’t really an “h” sound as in English; instead, it’s pronounced like the “ch” in German Bach, except rather further back in the throat. Arabic has a fair number of consonants pronounced deep in the throat in this way. Native English speakers tend to hack and gargle when they first try to pronounce these consonants, but in the skilled larynx of a native Arabic speaker, they are quite beautiful. Second, notice that the Proto-Semitic root hmd has no vowels at all. This is not because it was pronounced with no vowels, but because the vowels were on a separate root. In Semitic languages, consonant roots and vowel roots are interleaved to create words. In this case, the vowel root a-a-a (probably indicating a verb, but honestly I’m just making an educated guess) combines with hmd to create hammada.

The primary syllable of Muhammad is “-hamm-”; it recalls the English word home, but instead of the vowel indicating a healthy, earthy energy, it is a connection to Source. In “-hamm-”, the Source energy originates from a place of safety and belonging, and results in manifestation. The first syllable, “mu-”, shows that the secure Source energy is manifested in a thoughtful and relaxed way; while the final syllable, “-ad”, shows that the manifestation of Source energy leads to a final decision.

A Norn is a kind of female spirit found in Norse theology, who can cause great toil and trouble, or bring blessings and happiness. There are a great many of them, but according to Snorri Sturluson, author of the Prose Edda, the three most important Norns are giantess sisters who draw water from the Well of Fate and with it water the roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. The names of these three Norns were Urðr (wyrd, “fate” or simply “future”), Verðandi (derived from the Old Norse verb verða, “to become”) and Skuld (related to shall); thus they were all concerned with the future, in one way or another.

The origin of the name Norn is unknown. One possibility is that it is related to the Swedish word norna, “to warn, to speak secretly”, which may be imitative (like mutter, growl, and howl, the sound of the word imitates the sound itself). It may also be related to a word meaning “to twist, to twine”, and may refer to the twisting of fate, although the idea that the Norns wove the fate of the world appears to have been borrowed from Greek theology.

Norn is a word that thrums with earthy, solid energy, directed powerfully toward one goal — the future. Compare it to other earthy, directed words with a similar sound pattern, such as thorn, born, morn(ing), horn, and warn.