A female name. from late Latin veraiconica, compound of f. of verus ‘true’ and iconicus 'of or belonging to an image’; the name given to a famous relic, a cloth supposed to retain the image of the face of Christ. Later Veronica was taken to be the name of the woman who had wiped His face with the cloth, and in some medieval apocryphal writings (e.g. the Acts of Pilate, the Book of Resurrection by Bartholomew) she was identified with the woman who was cured of an issue of blood. The name was also sometimes confused with Bernice (q.v.). Véronique has been used a good deal in France, and it was probably from France that it was introduced into Scotland where it has been in use for some centuries (one of James Boswell’s dd. bore this name). In England it seems not to have been used until about the end of the 19th C.

Originally a mongrel word from Latin verus, ‘true,’ ‘real,’ and Greek είκών (eikon), ‘an image,’ which were ‘jumbled together by the popular tongue in the name of a crucifix at Lucca (in Italy), which was called the Veraiconica’, soon shortened to Veronica, ‘and was that Holy Face of Lucca by which William Rufus... was wont to swear,’ Yonge. Somewhere about the year 1300 there arose a legendary patron saint so named; moreover, Veronica of Binasco, canonized in C18, was ‘an Augustinian nun at Milan who lived a life of wonderful penance and high prayer, passing away in universal repute of sanctity... (in) 1497,’ Benedictines.

Hebrew & Greek (feminine) - The true image of Christ.

A Latin-Greek name, meaning: True image. Some authorities give this as a corrupted form of Berenice.