Dido's sister and confidante Anna has a name that I believe to be unusual in Latin. Where did this name come from? Is it perhaps Semitic and related to Hebrew Hannah and the derived name Anna? The Carthaginians no doubt spoke a Semitic language. How did it come into Latin: did Virgil make it up based on some other example, or was there truly an historical Anna that he knew about?

Bonus question: why no h, while the Romans did have an h? Did they take the name from Greek stories (which in turn took it from a Semitic language)?

Aenedid IV.20 ff.:

Anna (fatebor enim) miseri post fata Sychaei
coniugis et sparsos fraterna caede penatis
solus hic inflexit sensus animumque labantem
impulit. agnosco ueteris uestigia flammae.

Such a great passage, by the way.

Dido's sister and confidante Anna has a name that I believe to be unusual in Latin. Where did this name come from? Is it perhaps Semitic and related to Hebrew Hannah and the derived name Anna? The Carthaginians no doubt spoke a Semitic language. How did it come into Latin: did Virgil make it up based on some other example, or was there truly an historical Anna that he knew about?

Bonus question: why no h, while the Romans did have an h? Did they take the name from Greek stories (which in turn took it from a Semitic language)?

Aeneid IV.20 ff.:

Anna (fatebor enim) miseri post fata Sychaei
coniugis et sparsos fraterna caede penatis
solus hic inflexit sensus animumque labantem
impulit. agnosco ueteris uestigia flammae.

Such a great passage, by the way.