Latin Meaning: The name Clarissa is a Latin baby name. In Latin the meaning of the name Clarissa is: The Latinized form of the English Clarice, meaning famous. Famous bearer: Samuel Richardson's 18th century novel 'Clarissa Harlowe'.
All three species of squashes and pumpkins are native to the Western Hemisphere. C. maxima, represented now by such varieties as Hubbard, Delicious, Marblehead, Boston Marrow, and Turks Turban, apparently originated in northern Argentina near the Andes, or in certain Andean valleys.
Squash comes from the Narragansett Native American word askutasquash, which means eaten raw or uncooked.. Squashes are one of the oldest known crops--10,000 years by some estimates of sites in Mexico. Since squashes are gourds, they most likely served as containers or utensils because of their hard shells.