What is Tessa short for?

[SicknSpan]

Saw this on another thread and quite liked it. Is it short for something else?

Te

Can be Teresa, but our Tessa is just Tessa on the bc.

Whoops. Ignore me.....

Can be short for Esther or Hester too.

:) Sunny

Our last dog was called Tessa.

Oh yes, the dog factor. There are a lot of dogs called Tessa, just in case that bothers you. It doesn't bother me, and my daughter loves it. She was thrilled to discover her teacher's dog has the same name as her!

Our last dog was called Henry but that's on the list for this baby if it's a boy! No doesn't worry me in the slightest :)

My grandads dog was Tessa. She was calm friendly well trained and amazingly well behaved.

You could do worse than share a name with her :)

If I could guarantee those characteristics Giles then I would rename all my children :)

I wanted to name mine the same name as my uncles dog

Again she was a gorgeous friendly little thing.

Dds nothing like her though

It's often cited as a diminutive of Teresa, but I was reading on another forum that it actually has two origins. While Tessa is often used as a nickname now for Teresa, that is a modern usage and it appeared as a complete name - on its own - in medieval Tuscany, probably as a nickname for Contessa. (The name Conte - Italian for "count" - was a popular male name then.) Her usage can at least be partially traced to the popularity of Monna Tessa, a 13th century nurse and a Franciscan oblate. She died in 1327, while St. Teresa de Avila did not become well-known until the late 1500s, early 1600s. Tessa was apparently introduced to England in the 19th century, when it was often used by writers when naming Italian characters.

I also knew a girl named Thessaly - you could easily get Tessa out of that.

I learnt recently (from MN) that the name of the tiger used on the Esso adverts in the 1980s was Tessa. I really like the name.