MINERVA.  Found as a female baptismal name.  Conf. N. Q. 5th S. x. 376.  So named from Minerva, goddess of wisdom, war, and all the liberal arts.  The name, according to Quintilianus (1, 4, 6), was formerly Menerva, which is thought to be from meneo or meno, for moneo, to advise.  Littleton gives "menervo, moneo, antiqua vox; unde promenervat, monet, in Saliari carmine, Scal., et Menerva ap. vett. quae postea Minerva." (Praenomina, Charnock, 1882).

... The etymology of the Latin name Minerva is doubtful... Cicero (N. D., 3, 24) gives a very curious etymology, "Minervo, quia minuit, aut quia minatur;" but some of the ancient grammarians appear to have been more rational in considering it a shortened form of Meminerva, since she was also the goddess of memory.  Festus connects it with the verb monere.  Muller supposes that the word, like the worship of the goddess herself, came to the Romans from Etruria, and he makes the Etrurian original to have been Menerfa or Menrfa. (Etrusk., vol. 2, p. 48.) (A Classical Dictionary, Anthon, 1891).