PART I. — CHAPTER I. HEBREW NOMENCLATURE. — CHAPTER II. PATRIARCHAL NAMES. — Section I. — Adam. — Section II. — Abi. — Section III. — Jacob. — Section IV. — Simeon. — Section V. — Judah. — Section VI. — Joseph. — Section VII. — Benjamin. — Section VIII. — Job. — CHAPTER III. ISRAELITE NAMES. — Section I. — Moses and Aaron. — Section II. — Elisheba, &c. — Section IV. — Joshua, &c. — Section V. — Names from Chaanach. — Section VI. — David. — Section VII. — Salem. — Section VIII. — Later Israelite Names. — Section IX. — Angelic Names.
7
Hebrew, the sacred language, and the medium of all our earliest
knowledge of the world and of man, furnishes almost all of the first
names known to us, which are in general, verbs, substantives, or
adjectives from that tongue, suggested either by inspiration or by
some of the natural motives observed in the former chapter.
The minute history of the naming of the twelve patriarchs, furnish
the best illustrations of the presaging spirit of early nomenclature.
Reuben, “behold a son,” cries the mother in her first pride;
Simeon, “He that heareth,” because He had heard her prayer; Levi,
a joining, in the trust that her husband would be joined with her;
Judah, praise, in praise of Him who had given these four sons, and
Judah, “thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise,” is repeated by
Jacob; Dan, a judge, is so called by his adoptive mother because her
cause is judged, “and Dan shall judge his people” is his father’s
blessing; Naphtali commemorates Leah’s wrestling with her sister;
Gad is one of the troop round Leah, “and a troop shall overcome
him,” saith Jacob; Asher, is blessed, and Moses cries, “let Asher be
blessed;” Issachar, is hire; and Zebulon, a dwelling, because Leah
hoped her husband would dwell with her, and his promise from his
father is that he shall dwell. Rachel cannot name her long-desired
first-born without a craving that God would add to her another son,
and thus Joseph means an addition, and when that second child was
given, and she felt that it was at the cost of her own life, she mourned
over him as Benoni, son of my sorrow; but his father with more
hopeful augury called him (probably at his circumcision) Benjamin,
son of my right hand.
The earlier names were very simple, such as Leah, weary; Adah,
ornament. But about the time of the going into Egypt compound
words were employed, family names began to grow traditional, and
several of Egyptian etymology were acquired.
The Aramaic became the Jewish vernacular, and so continued
after the return from Babylon, nor has it ceased to prevail, under
the name of Syriac, among a considerable portion of the natives of
the East.
8Moreover, the Greek invasion of the East, and the establishment
of the Macedonian dynasties of Egypt and Syria, rendered the Grecian
the language of foreign relations and of literature, and caused it to
be understood by all who pretended to polite education, or meddled
with politics and commerce. The Septuagint, or Alexandrian version
of the Scriptures, was used in private by the Græcised Jews, and was
the form in which their sacred books became known to those of foreign
nations who took interest in them.
The Roman conquest in like manner brought in a certain amount
of influence from the Latin language, though not to the same extent,
since all cultivated Romans were by this time instructed in Greek as
part of their education, and even those of inferior rank used it as the
medium of communication with the people of the East.
Thus, in the time of the Gospel history, the learned alone entered
into the full import of the old Hebrew names, nor were new ones
invented to suit the occasion, with a very few exceptions, and these
few were formed from the vernacular Aramean. The custom was to
recur to the old family names belonging to ancestors or kindred, and
in the account of the circumcision of St. John the Baptist we see that
a deviation from this practice excited wonder. Tradition and change
of language had, however, greatly marred these old Hebraisms;
Jehoiadah, (j pronounced y,) (known of God,) had after the captivity
lost its significance in the form of Jaddua, then was Græcized, as
Ἱωδαέ, (Hiodae,) and was Latinized as Jaddeus! These corrupted
ancient appellations were the favourites, but imitation and compliment
caused some Greek ones and even some Latin ones to be
adopted, some persons using their national name at home, and bearing
another for their external relations, such as John or Mark, Saul or
Paul.
The persons most revered by Christians, and who have had the
most influence on nomenclature, thus bore either corrupt Hebrew,
or else Aramean, Greek, or Latin names, which all have been handed
down to us through the medium of Greek authorship, afterwards
translated into Latin, and thence carried by word of mouth into every
Christian land, and taking shape from the prevalent pronunciation
there.
Eastern Christians have gone directly to the Greek; but the
Western Church used nothing but the Vulgate translated from the
Septuagint and from the original New Testament. Thus the Old
Testament personages, as well as those of the Gospel, were known to
mediæval Europe, and are so still to the greater part of the continent
in their Greco-Latin shape.
But King James I. caused his translators to go back to the fountainhead,
using the original Hebrew and Greek—and only applying to
the Septuagint and Vulgate as means of elucidation, not as authorities.
In consequence, many of the Old Testament names assumed their
original shape, as far as it could be expressed by English letters, but
these were mostly those but slightly known to the world, not those
of the principal characters, since the translators were instructed not
to make needless alterations such as should make the objects of
9ancient veneration appear in a form beyond recognition. Therefore
it is that some English Old Testament names are unlike those of
other nations.
Those who were at work on the New Testament, however, left the
ancient names, there occurring, as they found them in the Greek, and
thus arose the disparity we remark in the title given to the same
individual, Noah or Noe, Korah or Core, Uzziah or Ozias.
For the most part Old Testament names, as such, have had little
prevalence excepting under the influence of Calvinism. The Roman
Catholic Church neglected them because they did not convey patronage,
and Lutherism has not greatly adopted them, but they were almost
a badge of the Huguenot party in France; and in England, about
the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, a passion for the most extraordinary
and unusual Scripture names prevailed, for which the genealogist
must have carefully searched. William L'Isle, in 1623, complains
of some “devising new names with apeish imitation of the Hebrew,”
and in effect there are few of these that do not give an impression of
sectarianism or Puritanism. In England and America, the more
obscure and peculiar ones are chiefly adopted by the lower classes;
in Ireland several prevail for another cause, namely, their supposed
resemblance to the native Erse appellations that were long proscribed
by the conquerors.
Those that were borne by the remnant of faithful Jews, who were
the stock on which the Christian Church was grafted, have gone out
into all lands, infinitely modified by the changes they have undergone
in their transit from one people to another.[4]
10
The oldest of all proper names comes from a word signifying red,
and refers to the red earth (adama) out of which the first man was
taken, reminding us that dust we are, and unto dust shall we return.
Some say that it should he translated ‘likeness,’ and that it comes
from the same root as ‘adama,’ red earth, because red earth is always
alike, wherever found. In this case, the first man would have been
called from his likeness to his Creator, but the other explanation is
preferable, especially as the same adjective, pronounced with a change
in the vowel sound, so as to make it Edom, was the surname of Esau
(hairy), on account both of the ruddiness of his complexion and of
the red lentile pottage for which he sold his birthright.
No Israelites or Jews appear to have been called after our first
father, and the first time Adam comes to light again, is among the
Keltic Christians of Ireland and Scotland. It is not improbable that
it was first adopted according to a frequent Gaelic fashion, as the
ecclesiastical name most resembling the native one of Aedh or fire;
but however this may be, there was in the seventh century a distinguished
abbot of Iona, called in the dog Latin of the time, Adamnanus
or dwarf Adam, and best known as Adamnan. Though not
recognized by the Roman calendar, he was regarded as a saint in his
own country, but his name has been much corrupted. At Skreen in
Ireland, where he founded a church, he is styled St. Awnan, at
Raphoe he is patron, as St. Ennan, in Londonderry he is St. Onan;
but in Scotland, Adam has become a national Christian name. The
family who most affected it were the ‘gay Gordons.’ Edie is the
Scottish contraction. The feminine Adamina has been a recent
Scottish invention.
In Germany and the neighbouring countries there prevails an idea
that Adam is always long-lived, and if the first infant of a family
dies, the life of its successor is secured by calling it either Adam or
Eve. In consequence it has various contractions and alterations.
In Lower Lusatia it is Hadamk in familiar speech; the Swiss abbreviation
is Odli; the Esthonian Ado or Oado, the Lettisu was Adums.
With its contraction, Ade, it seems to have been very common at
Cambrai through the middle ages.
“The mother of all living”—received from the lips of Adam a
11name signifying life, sounding in the original like Chavva, as it began
with a rough aspirate. It was not copied by any of her daughters
for a long time, and when first the Alexandrian Jews came on it in
their translation, they rendered it by Zoe (life), in order to show the
connection of the name with the prophecy; but afterwards in the
course of the narrative they merely made it Eva, or in Latin the
Heva or Eva, which English has changed into Eve.
The Eva of Ireland and Scotland, and the Aveline or Eveline of
the Normans, were probably only imitations of the old Keltic names
Aoibhiun and Aoiffe, and will therefore be considered among the
Keltic class.
Eve has been seldom used in England, though old parish registers
occasionally show a pair of twins christened Adam and Eve.
The same notion of securing a child’s life that has spread the use
of Adam in Germany and its vicinity has had the same effect upon
his wife, so that Eva is common in both Germany and Scandinavia.
Russia has Evva or Jevva, though not often as a name in use; the
Letts as Ewe or Ewusche; the Lithuanians as Jewa or Jewele, the
first letter of course pronounced like Y; and in Lusatia her namesakes
are called Hejba or Hejbka.[5]
The murdered son of Adam is called by a Hebrew word meaning
breath, vapour, or transitoriness, and as some think may have been
so termed in remembrance of his short life. The sound of the
original word was more like Hebel, but through the Greek we receive
it as Abel.
It is not absolutely a modern Puritan name, for an Abel existed in
Essex in the time of Henry III., and Awel is known in Russia; but
it is generally given direct from the Bible, as are also Seth (appointed),
and Enoch (dedicated).
Adah (ornament), the wife of Lamech, is often supposed to be the
origin of our English Ada, but this last is the hereditary Latinized
form of Eed (rich), and is the same as the German Ida. Zillah (or
shadow), the other wife of Lamech, is a Gypsy name.
Common to both the Semitic and Indo-European tongues, and
traceable through all their branches, is the parental title first uttered
by the infant; Abba, Abi, Aba; Atta among the Slavonians, and
again among the Goths; Athair among the Irish, the pater of Greece,
fondly called at home papa, and apphys the pater of Rome, the
German Vater, and our own father—il babbo in Italy, and daddy in
English cottages.
In the East a parent is more usually called the father of his son
than by his own name. This, however, is probably a late affectation,
not applying to the time when the greatest of the patriarchs received
his original name of Abram (father of height or elevation), which was
changed by Divine appointment into Abraham (father of a multitude),
12foretelling the numerous and enduring offspring that have descended
from him, and even to the present hour revere his name.
No one, however, seems to have presumed to copy it as long as the
Israelites dwelt in their own land, and the first resuscitations of it
appear to have been among the Christians of the patriarch’s native
land, Mesopotamia, towards the end of the fourth century, when a
hermit called Abraham, living near Edessa, obtained a place in the
Coptic, Greek, and Roman calendars; and about the same time
another Abraham was among the martyrs who were put to death by
the fire worshipping zeal of the Sassanid dynasty in Persia. Two
other Mesopotamian SS. Abraham lived in the next century, and
died, one at Constantinople, the other in Auvergne, whither in some
unaccountable manner he had been carried between foul winds and
man-stealing barbarians when on a journey to visit the solitaries in
Egypt.
As one of the patrons of Clermont, this Abraham must have been
the means of diffusing namesakes in France, especially on the side
towards the Low Countries. Abraham often occurs in the registers
of Cambray; and in compliance with the fashion of adapting the
name of the father to the daughter, Abra was there formed, though
apparently not earlier than 1644. Indeed the Netherlands and
Holland are the only countries where this patriarchal name is really
national, generally shortened into Abram and Bram; and the Dutch
settlers carried it into America, where it is generally called either
Bram or Aby.
Many other Scripture names bear this prefix, but it would be
contrary to our plan to dwell upon those that have not been in
subsequent use or are devoid of peculiar interest.
Abigail (father of joy), strikes us as inappropriate to a woman, till
we remember that the eastern nations use this expression for an
abstract quality, and that the title would stand for joyfulness. Her
ready courtesy to David seems to have recommended her to the
earliest readers of the English Bible, for Abigail occurs in registers
as early as 1573, and was for many years very frequent. Abigail
Masham’s back-stair influence over Queen Anne has been generally
supposed to have rendered it a soubriquet for a lady’s maid; but Mr.
Bardsley, in his Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature, shows it to
have been the name of the waiting gentlewoman in Beaumont’s
Comedy, The Scornful Ladie, played in 1616. And in a play of
Killigrew’s, some thirty years later, the term ‘Abigail’ is used for a
waiting-maid, when the back-stair influence and supposed arts of
Abigail Masham in the bedchamber of Queen Anne gave it a sudden
fall. Abigail turned into a cant term for a lady’s maid, and thenceforth
has been seldom heard even in a cottage.
Counter to his name was the course of the “Father of Peace.” He
is Abishalom, or Absalom in the narrative of his life, a history that
one would have thought entailed eternal discredit on the name; but it
seems that in the earlier Christian times of Denmark, as well as in some
other countries, a fashion prevailed, especially among the clergy, of
supplementing the native name with one of Scriptural or ecclesiastical
13sound, and thus, about the middle of the twelfth century, Absalom
was adopted by a distinguished Danish bishop as the synonym of
what Professor Munch conjectures to have been his own name of
Aslak (reward of the gods), though Danish tradition has contracted it
into Axel. This last is a national Danish name, and it seems as if
Absalom had been popularly supposed to be the Latin for Axel;
since, in a Latin letter of 1443, Olaf Axelsson is turned into Olaus
Absalonis.
Before quitting this prefix Ab, it seems to be the place to remark
upon a name coming to us through the Tartar stock of languages,
from the same source—Ab. Ata, (father, the source of Atalik,
fatherlikefatherlike or paternal,) is to the present day a title among the
Usbeks of Bokhara. Thence that regent of the Huns, the scourge of
God, who spread terror to the gates of Rome, would have been called
Attalik among his own people, and thus historians have written his
name of terror Attila.
In the tales of the Nibelungen, the great Hun, whom Kriemhild
marries after the death of Siegfried, and at whose court the general
slaughter takes place, is called Etzel in the German poem, Atli in
the Northern saga, and this has generally been regarded as identifying
him with Attila and fixing the date of the poem; but the
monarch of the Huns is hospitable and civilized, with few features
in common with the savage of Roman history; and if Attalik were a
permanent regal title among the Huns, the chieftain may have been
any other of the royal dynasty. His occurrence in that favourite
poem, sung alike by all the Teutonic race, has rendered Atli very
common from early times in the North as well as Etzel in Germany.
The Lombards took it to Italy, where it turned into Eccelino, and
in the person of the fierce mountain-lord, Eccelino di Romagna,
became as fearful as Attila had ever been to the Romans.
The verb to fight or to rule furnished both the names of the wife
of Abraham; Sarai (quarrelsome) was thus converted into Sarah (the
princess). If we may judge from the example of the bride of Tobias,
the daughters of Sarah were occasionally called by her name, and
Zara has been, with what correctness I know not, used as an eastern
name.
Sarah now and then occurs in England, as with Sara Beauchamp,
(temp. Ed. I.,) but I suspect that she as well as Sarrota de Multon,
who lived in the former reign, were alterations of some of the derivatives
of the Teutonic prefix Sig—victory, as the masculine Saher or
Serlo certainly came from Sigeheri. Sarah was never commonly
used till after the Reformation, when it began to grow very popular,
with its contraction Sally; and at the same time it was adopted as
the equivalent for no less than three Irish names—Sadhbh (pronounced
Soyv), Sorcha (bright), and Saraid (excellent). The two
first are still in use; but Highlanders make a still stranger use of
Sarah, which they use to translate their native More (great), perhaps
in consequence of its meaning.
Elsewhere the name is occasionally used without the h that our
biblical translators gave it. It is not, however, very popular, though
14the French have used it enough to make it Sarotte; in Illyria its
diminutive is Sarica; in Lithuania it is Zore.[6]
When the first glad tidings of the Child of Promise were announced,
Sarah laughed for very joy and wonder, and Laughter (Yizchak)
became the name of her son; known in Greek as Ἰσαὰκ, in Latin and
to the European world as Isaac.
It was not revived among the early Jews; but, like Abraham, it
was used by the eastern Christians, and St. Isaac, bishop of Beth
Seleucia, was put to death with other Christian martyrs by Sapor II.
of Persia. Another eastern Isaac was a hermit at Spoleto, in the
sixth century, and Isaak has always been a favourite name in the
Greek Church. Several of the family of Comnenus, both at Constantinople
and Trebizond, rendered Isaak a royal name; and Isaak
or Eisaak, whose feast falls on the 30th of May, is the patron of the
cathedral at Petersburg. The name is frequently used in Russia
and the other Greco-Slavonic countries, though not much varied.
It had not much favour in the West, though it appears once in
Domesday Book, and occurs in the Cambray registers. Mr. Bardsley
thinks that it, with some other Patriarchal names, became familiar
through Mystery plays. But its chief popularity was after the
Reformation, when it is continually to be found among the Huguenots,
and it seems to have passed from them to other French families,
since it is sometimes found in pedigrees, and the noted de Sacy, a
grandson of the Arnauld family, was thus christened long after his
forefathers had conformed to the Roman Catholic Church.
With us Izaak, as our ancestors spelt it, is just so prevalent among
us as to have a recognized contraction, Ike or Ikey.
Isaac’s wife was called from rabak (to bind). The word Ribkâ
meant a cord with a noose, and probably was given as conveying the
firmness of the marriage bond. The Septuagint and Latin gave
Rebecca; the authorized version Rebekah; and both spellings are
adopted by those bearing the name, who are generally called Becky.
Here too should be mentioned the faithful nurse of Rebekah, who
was so lamented that the tree beneath which she was buried was
known as the oak of weeping. Her name of Deborah came from a
verb meaning to hum or buzz, and signified a bee, or, in after times,
eloquent.
Deborah found no favour as a name except among English Puritans,
and has acquired a certain amount of absurdity from various literary
associations, which prevent ‘Deb.’ from being used except by the
peasantry.
Of Rebekah’s two daughters-in-lawdaughters-in-law, Rachel signified a ewe.
Dante made l’antica Rachele, with her beautiful eyes, the type of
heavenly contemplation, ever gazing at the mirror that reflected
heavenly glory; but her name was not popular, although the Manx
princess, otherwise called Affrica, assumed it upon her marriage with
Somerled, Lord of the Isles, somewhere about the eleventh century.
15But Puritan days loved the sound of the word, and “that sweet
saint who sat by Russell’s side” has given it a place in many an
English family. Polish Jews call it Rahel; in which form it was
borne by the metaphysical lady who became the wife of Varnhagen
von Ense.
| English. |
German. |
Bavarian. |
| Matthias |
Matthæus |
Mathies |
| Mathies |
Matthew |
Mahe |
| Mat |
Matthes |
Hies |
| |
Matthis |
Hiesel |
| |
|
Mathe |
| Swiss. |
Swedish. |
Danish. |
| Mathias |
Mathias |
Mathias |
| Thies |
Mats |
Mads |
| Thiesli |
|
|
| Friesland. |
French. |
Italian. |
| Matthies |
Matthieu |
Matteo |
| Hise |
Macé |
Maffeo |
| Hisse |
|
Feo |
| |
|
Mattia |
| Spanish. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
| Mateo |
Matfei |
Mateusz |
| |
Matvej |
Maciei |
| |
|
Maciek |
| |
|
Matyas |
| Hungarian. |
Slovak. |
Esthonian. |
| Matyas |
Matevz |
Maddis |
| Mate |
Tevz |
Mats |
| |
Mattija |
|
Rachel’s less beloved and less favoured sister had a name that came
from lawah (hanging upon, dependence, or, as in her case it is explained,
weariness)—Leah, in French Lea, in Italian Lia, under
which title Dante makes her the emblem of active and fruitful, as is
her sister of meditative, love. It was from the same word that she
named her third son Levi, when she hoped that her husband would
be more closely united or dependent on her. Levi’s name was carried
on into the Gospel times, and belonged to the publican who was
called from the receipt of custom to become an Apostle and an
Evangelist. His Aramean name was, however, that by which he
calls himself in his own narrative, or more correctly speaking, by its
Græcized form. The old Hebrew Mattaniah (gift of the Lord) was
probably the origin of both the names that we have in the Greek
Testament as Ματθαῖος and Ματθίας, Matthæus and Matthias as the
16Latin renders them. Some, however, make the first mean a faithful
man; but it is not possible to distinguish between the various forms
that have risen out of the two among persons who, probably, had no
idea that the Apostle who supplied the place of Judas was a different
person from the Evangelist. The Emperor Charles V. was born on
St. Matthias' day, and the text “The lot fell on Matthias” was
regarded as a good augury, whence Matthias came into favour in
Austria and its dependencies. The name has been more popular in
Germany and its dependencies. Matteo heads the Milanese Visconti,
who were mostly named after the Evangelists.
Apostolic names are particularly common in Bavaria, probably
from the once frequent representations of the Mystery of the Passion.
In Germany, SS. Matthew and Matthias have produced the surnames
Matthies, Matys, Thiess, and Thiessen, Latinized after a queer
scholarly fashion into Thysius.
The twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah were called from the circumstances
of their birth, Esau, the hairy, and Ja’akob, the latter word
being derived from âkêb, the heel, because in the words of the
Prophet “he took his brother by the heel in the womb.” This, the
action of tripping up, confirmed the mother’s faith in the previous
prediction that “the elder should serve the younger,” and thus that
the younger should supplant the elder. “Is he not rightly named
Jacob, for he hath supplanted, me these two times,” was accordingly
the cry of Esau.
By the time of the return from Babylon we find two if not three
persons mentioned as bearing the name of Akkub, and that this was
meant for Jacob, is shown by its etymology; as it likewise means
the supplanter, by its likeness in sound to Yacoub, the form still
current among the Arabs, and by the fact that the Akkub, who in
the book of Nehemiah stands up with Ezra to read the law to the
people, is in the book of Esdras, written originally in Greek, called
Ἰάκοβος (Jakobos).
So frequent was this Jakobos among the returned Jews that it
occurs in the royal genealogy in St. Matthew’s Gospel, and was
borne by two of the twelve apostles, by him called the Great, who
was the first to be martyred, and by him termed the Less, who ruled
the Church at Jerusalem.
It is the Great Apostle, the son of Zebedee, who is the saint, in
whose honour most of those bearing this name in Europe have been
christened. A belief arose that he had preached the Gospel in Spain
before his martyrdom at Jerusalem; and though there was no doubt
that the Holy City was the place of his death, yet it was declared
that his relics were brought to Galicia in a marble ship without oar
or sail, which arrived at the port of Aria Flava, since called Patron.
A little farther inland arose what was at first termed in Latin the
shrine of Sanctus Jacobus Apostolus. Men’s tongues quickly turned
this into Sancto Jacobo Apostolo, and thence, confounding the title
17with the place, arrived at Santo Jaco de Compostella, or Santiago de
Compostella.
A further legend arose that in the battle of Clavijo with the
Moors, the spirits of the Christian Spaniards were revived by the
sight of Santiago mounted on a white steed, waving a white banner,
and leading them on to victory. Thenceforth Santiago became their
war-cry, and the saint was installed as a champion of Christendom.
Subsequently no less than three Spanish orders of knighthood were
instituted in his honour, and his shrine became one of the most
universal places of pilgrimage in Europe, more especially as the most
marvellous fables of miracles were forged thereat. His saintly title
had become so incorporated with his name that his votaries were in
some perplexity where to separate them, and in Castille his votaries
were christened Tiago or Diego. Even as early as the tenth century
the Cid’s father was Don Diego de Bivar, and he himself Don Rodrigo
Diaz de Bivar, Diaz being the patronymic.
In 1207, Maria, Queen of Aragon, considering her infant son and
heir to have been granted at the especial intercession of the twelve
apostles, resolved to baptize him after one of their number, and
impartially to decide between them by naming twelve tapers after
the apostles, and calling the child after him whose candle burnt
longest. Southey has comically described the Queen’s agitations
until the victorious candle proved to be that of the great Saint of
Galicia, whom Aragonese tongues called Jayme. The child thus
christened became the glory of his kingdom, and was known as El
Conquestador, leaving Jayme to be honourably borne by Kings of
Aragon, Majorca, and Sicily as long as his family remained distinct.
Giacopo Apostolo was the Italian version of the name, whence they
made their various Giacopo, Jacopo, Giacomo, Como, Iachimo, and
Iago according to their various dialects. Germany recurred to the
original Jakob; but the French coming home with their own variety
talked of Jiac Apostol, and named their children Jacques, or fondled
them as Jacquot and Jacqueminot. The great church of St. Jacques,
at Liège, spread the love of the name in Flanders as is testified by
Jacob von Arteveldt, the Brewer of Ghent; and so universal throughout
France was it, that Jacques Bonhomme became the nickname of
the peasantry, and was fearfully commemorated in the Jacquerie, the
insurrection of which English chroniclers supposed James Goodman
to have been the leader. It must have been when English and French
were mingled together in the camps of the Black Prince and Henry
V. that Jack and Jock became confounded together. Henry V. called
the wild Jacqueline of Hainault, Dame Jack. She, like his other
Flemish sister-in-law, Jacquette of Luxemburg, must have been
named in honour of the saint of Liège. Edward VI.’s nurse, whom
Holbein drew by the soubriquet of Mother Jack, was perhaps a
Jacquette; Iacolyn and Jacomyn are also found in old registers, but
this feminine never took root anywhere but in France, where Jacobée
also occurs. James had found its way to Scotland ere the birth of
the Black Douglas, and was already a national name before it was
given to the second son of Robert III., in accordance with a vow of
18the queen. This James was brought to the throne by the murder of
his brother David, Duke of Rothsay; and thus was the first of the
royal Stuarts, by whom it was invariably borne till the sixth of the
line hoped to avert the destiny of his race by choosing for his sons
more auspicious names. James and Jamie thus became great favourites
in Scotland, and came to England with the Stuarts. The name had
indeed been previously used, as by the brave Lord James Audley
under Edward III., but not so frequently, and the old English form
was actually Jeames. Norden dedicates his Survey of Cornwall to
James I. as Jeames; and Archbishop Laud so spells the word in his
correspondence. In fact, Jemmy and Jim are the natural offsprings
of Jeames, as the word was pronounced in the best society till the
end of the last century. Then the gentry spoke according to the
spelling; Jeames held his ground among the lower classes, and finally—thanks
to Jeames’s Diary—has become one of the stock terms of
conventional wit; and in modern times Jacobina and Jamesina were
coined for female wear.
The Highlanders call the name Hamish; the Irish, Seumuis. In
fact, its variations are almost beyond enumeration. In Italy the full
name has the three varieties, Giacomo, Jacopo, Giacobbe, so no
wonder the abbreviations are Coppo and Lapo.
Due honour is paid in the Greek and Slavonic Church to both the
veritable apostles, but not to the mythical Santiago de Compostella,
whom we have traced as the root of all the Jameses of the West.
The great Jakobos, who appeared at the Council of Nicea, and
gloriously defended the city of Nisibis, handed on the apostolic name
in the East; and it has almost as many Greek and Slavonian variations
as Latin and Teutonic ones.
| English. |
Scotch. |
Erse. |
Gaelic. |
Dutch. |
| Jacob |
James |
Seumuis |
Hamish |
Jacob |
| James |
Jamie |
|
|
Jaap |
| Jem |
|
|
|
|
| Jemmy |
|
|
|
|
| French. |
German. |
Swiss. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| Jacob |
Jakob |
Jakob |
Jacopo |
Jacobo |
| Jacques |
Jackel |
Bopp |
Iachimo |
Santiago |
| Jacquot |
Jockel
Gaugl}Bav. |
Jock |
Giakobbe |
Diego |
| Jacqueminot |
Jogg |
Coppo |
Yago |
| |
|
Jagli |
Lapo |
Jago |
| |
|
|
Jacobello |
Jayme |
| Portuguese. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
Lett. |
|
| Jayme |
Jakov |
Jakob |
Jekups |
|
| |
Jascha |
Kuba |
Jeka |
|
| |
Jaschenka |
Kub |
Jezis |
|
| |
|
|
Kubischu |
|
19The Russian nameday is the 30th of April, either for the sake of
St. James the Less, whose eve it is, or for that of a namesake who
perished in Numidia in the time of Valerian, and whose feast falls on
that day. Jakov gets called Jascha and Jaschenka, and his feminine
Jacovina and Zakelina. The Illyrians twist the masculine into
Jakovica, and the Lithuanians into Jeka or Kubinsch.[7]
Of the twelve sons of Jacob, four only have names of sufficient
interest to deserve individual notice, and among these, the first
requiring notice is Simeon, from schama, to hear.
Simeon’s name passed on to numerous Jews, and was very common
in the Gospel times, no less than five personages being so called,
namely, the aged man in the Temple, the son of Jonas, the other
apostle called the Zealot or the Canaanite, and the leper, besides the
tanner of Joppa, and the magician whose attempt to purchase spiritual
gifts has given the title of simony to sins of the same nature.
By this time, however, the Hebrew Simeon had been confounded
with the Greek Σῖμων (Simon), snub-nosed. St. James, in his discourse
at Jerusalem, called St. Peter ‘Simeon,’ and it would thus seem likely
that this was used as their true national name, and that Simon was
a Græcism used in intercourse with strangers, or in writing.
The anchorite who took that strangest freak of fanaticism, the
perching himself for life upon a column, is called both Simeon
and Simon Stylites, but the latter form has generally been the
prevalent one, and has belonged to numerous saints in both the
Eastern and Western Church. The Greek Church has both St.
Seeméön on the 3rd of February, and St. Ssimon on the 10th of May,
and the Russian contractions are Ssemen and Ssenka. The West, too,
had sundry Simons of its own, besides those common to all Christendom.
We had a monastic St. Simon Stock, and though the
Christian name is now uncommon, it has left us many varieties of
surnames, as Simmonds, Simkins, Simpson, Simcoe, Sykes, etc., the
spelling but slightly varied. It was more used among the French
peasantry, and acquired the feminine Simonette. The Italian Simone
was not unfrequent, and has made the surname Simoncelli; the
Portuguese had Sima; the Spaniards, Ximon; and the Slavonians
have the odd varieties of the Polish Szymon, the Illyrian Simej, the
Lusatian Schymanz.
It is the same word Schama that named the first of the prophets of
Israel. “Asked of God” is the import of Samuel, a name so endeared
by the beautiful history of the call to the child in the temple, that it
could not be quite forgotten. A Samuel, native of Palestine, who
perished in the persecution of Maximian, obtained a martyr’s place
in the calendar, and his name has been a favourite in the Eastern
Church, as Samuil, Samoilo, in Russia; Schombel in Lusatia; Zomelis
20in Lithuania. The reading of the Holy Scriptures was, however, no
doubt, the cause of its use here and in Switzerland, since we scarcely
find it before the Reformation, though now Samuel is common in
Switzerland, and Sam here.[8]
In her exultation at having borne so many promising sons, Leah
called her fourth Jehudah (he will be praised); meaning brought
forward by her husband Jacob when, in his death-bed blessing
of his sons, he exclaimed, “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren
shall praise.”
Thus, too, it has been with the individual name of Judah. Unused
before the captivity, it was revived again after it, and carried to the
highest fame and popularity by the brave Maccabee, who newly
founded Judea and restored it, for a time, to freedom and honour.
His surname is by some derived from a word meaning the Hammerer,
by others from Makkabi, formed by initial letters of the motto on his
standard, “Who among the gods is like unto Thee, O Lord?” Judas
Maccabeus, early as was his death, and imperfect as was the deliverance
of his country when he was slain, was one of the chief heroes
of the world, and occupied a far larger space in the imagination
of our mediæval ancestors than he does in ours. Not only were
the books of Maccabees considered as of equal authority with the
canonical Scriptures, but, before 1240, a French metrical romance
had recounted his exploits, and by Chaucer’s time Judas Maccabeus
was ranked among the nine worthies—the subject of many a ballad
and chap-book.
But his name has never occurred! Frequent, indeed, it was among
his own countrymen after his time, but of them was that man who
rendered it for ever accursed.
Another apostle bore the same name, but this did not suffice to
redeem it, though altered into Jude to mark the distinction. The
Saint had, however, two Aramean names, Lebbæus, supposed to mean
hearty, or else from the town of Lebba, and Thaddæus, which is
satisfactorily explained as an Aramean form of the same word Praise,
Græcized and Latinized of course before it came to us.
It is not, however, popular. Italy has indeed used it a good deal
as Taddeo, and Spain knows it as Tadeo; but though Ireland swarms
with Thadys, who write themselves Thaddeus, this is only as a
supposed English version of their ancient Erse, Tadhg (a poet). The
Slavonic nations use it more than the West; it is a favourite Polish
name, and the Russians call it Phaddéi; and the Illyrians, Tadia.
No name has been so altered as Judah; it is Hodaiah after the
captivity, and Abiud, or rather Ab-jud, in St. Luke’s genealogy.
The feminine form of the name, Jehudith, or Judith, belonged
primarily to the Hittite wife of Esau, who was a grief of heart to
21Rebekah, but its fame is owing to the heroine of Bethulia, whose
name is, however, said rather to mean a Jewess than to be exactly
the feminine of Judah. Indeed some commentators, bewildered by
the difficulties of chronology, have supposed the history to be a mere
allegory in which she represents the Jewish nation. However, on
the uncritical mind of the eighth or ninth century, her story made
a deep impression, and a poem was in circulation in Europe recording
her adventurous deed, and mentioning among the treasures of Holofernes'
tent a mosquito net, whence the learned argue that the narrative
must have been derived from some eastern source independent
of the Apocryphal book.
At any rate, hers was the first name not belonging to their own
language that was borne by Teutonic ladies, and long preceded that
of any saint. Perhaps it was supposed to be the equivalent of the
German Juthe from Ganthe, war; at any rate Juditha, Jutha, or Jutta
was in high favour at the court of the Karling Kaisers, and came to
England with the step-mother, who gave the first impulse to our
great Alfred’s love of learning. Her subsequent marriage took it to
Flanders, and we had it back again with the niece of William the
Conqueror, the wicked wife of Waltheof, and afterwards of Simon de
St. Lis. Her uncle cites her as a witness to a charter by the familiar
abbreviation of Jugge, which was long used as the regular contraction,
though Judy has since become more usual, and is exceedingly
common in Ireland.
Even French families gave their daughters the name of Judith,
which belonged to the gentle Comtesse de Bonneval. The Breton
form is Juzeth; and the Swiss ruthlessly turn it into Dith, but across
the Alps it comes forth more gracefully as Giuditta; and the Poles
make it Jitka; the Hungarians, Juczi or Jutka.
On the authority of Eusebius we venture to add a third to those
who bore the name of Judah in the apostolic college, namely, him
whom we know by the Aramaic and Greek epithets Thomas and
Didymus, both meaning a twin. Tradition declares that his fellow-twin
was a sister called Lysia. India is believed to have been the
region of his labours and of his death; the Christians there were
called after him; and when, in the sixteenth century, the Portuguese
attained their object of reaching India by sea, they thought they discovered
his tomb at Meliapore, transported the relics to Goa, and
created San Tomàs or Tomè into their patron saint. Long ere this,
however, in every part of Europe had Thomas been revived with
other apostolic names, but its great prominence was derived from the
murdered Archbishop Becket, or St. Thomas of Canterbury. His
shrine at Canterbury was the English Compostella, visited by foreign
as well as native pilgrims, and the greater proportion of churches so
termed were under the invocation of the archbishop instead of the
apostle, although it is only by charter or by wake-day that the dedication
can be traced, since Henry VIII. did his utmost to de-canonize
and destroy all memorials of the bold prelate whom he would
most certainly have beheaded instead of assassinating. In Italy a
martyr for ecclesiastical prerogatives was certain to be in high repute;
22carvings, glass, paintings, and even needlework still bear his history
and figure, always denoted by the clean cutting off of his scalp above
the tonsure, and Tomasso flourishes greatly as a Christian name, the
Italians, as usual, abbreviating by the omission of the first syllable
instead of the last, so that where we say Tom, they say Maso, and
thence Masuccio, as we call one of their earliest great painters. Tomasso
Agnello was the true name which, contracted into Masaniello,
was the wonder of the day at Naples, and made the Spanish power
there totter on its throne.
The feminine Thomassine, Tamzine, and Tammie, are comparatively
recent inventions. They were frequent in the 17th century,
and then went out of fashion.
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
| |
Thomas |
Thomas |
Thomas |
| |
Tom |
Tam |
Thumas |
| Fem.{ |
Thomassine
Tamzine |
Tamlane |
|
|
| |
|
|
| Spanish. |
Italian. |
Russian. |
| |
Tomas |
Tomaso |
|
Foma |
| |
Tome |
Maso |
Fem.— |
Fomaida |
| Fem.— |
Tomasa |
Masuccio |
|
|
| |
|
Masaccio |
|
|
| German. |
Polish. |
Lower Lusatian. |
| |
Thoma |
Tomasz |
Domas |
|
| Fem.— |
Thomasia |
|
Domask |
|
| Lithuanian. |
Hungarian. |
Finland. |
| Tamkus |
Tamas |
Tuomas |
| Tamoszus |
|
|
|
| Dummas |
|
|
|
Thomas is the accepted equivalent for the Irish Tomalhaid,
Tomaltach, and Toirdelvach, tall as a tower.
When, after long waiting and hoping, a son was at length granted
to Rachel, she called him Joseph from a word signifying an addition,
because she hoped that yet another child would be added to her
family.
Joseph, beloved and honoured as he was for his own beautiful
character and eventful history, has perhaps at the present day the
greater number of direct namesakes among the Arabs, who still are
frequently called Yussuf.
Only two Josephs occur again in the Scripture before the captivity
in Babylon, but afterwards they were exceedingly numerous, and
23in the Gospel history two remarkable characters are so named, as
well as three others whom we know by the Græcized form of the name
as Joses, i. e. a fourth brother of the royal family of James, Simon,
and Jude; he who was usually called by his surname of Barnabas,
and he who was also called Barsabas, whose lot was cast with that
of Matthias. The Latinized form we know as the name of the historian
Flavius Josephus. Legend loved to narrate that Joseph of
Arimathea brought the Gospel to England, and that his staff was
the Christmas-flowering thorn of Glastonbury; nay, that he carried
thither the Sanegreal and the holy lance, the mystic objects of the
adventures of the Round Table.
Yet, in spite of the reputation of this holy man, and of the universal
reverence for ‘the just man’ of Nazareth, Joseph was scarcely
used as a name in Europe till in 1621 a festival day was fixed by the
pope in honour of St. Joseph, the husband of the Blessed Virgin.
Therewith an enthusiasm broke forth in Roman Catholic Europe
for the name. All the world in Italy began to call itself Giuseppe
or Gioseffo; or for short, Peppo and Beppo have swarmed ever since
in every village.
Spain delighted in Josef or Jose, and the more devout in Jose
Maria, with Pepe or Pepito for the contraction; Pepita for the Josefa,
who, of course, arose at the same time, these becoming the most
common of all Peninsular names.
Not to be behindhand in devotion, the Emperor Leopold christened
his son Joseph, and thus recommended it to all his subjects; and,
perhaps, the Tyrol is the greatest of all the strongholds of the
Josephs, the name being there called by its last syllable in all
endearing varieties, Sepp, Sepperl, &c.; while the Swiss, on the
other side, have Sipp and Sippli. Maria Josepha was a daughter of
Maria Theresa, and these two are seldom separated in Germany,
Italy, or France; but as Maria forms part of the name of every
Roman Catholic woman, and of most men, the second name is the
one for use. Marie Josephe Rose was the Christian name of her
whom we know and pity as the Empress Josephine, and to whom it
is owing that France was once full of young ladies usually called
Fifine or Finette; while the rougher damsels of Lucerne are content
to be Boppi in familiar life.
The Slavonians use the varieties Josko and Joska; the Letts turn
the name into Jaschis or Jeps. It is in fact broken into as many odd
contractions as it can possibly undergo. It is Joseef or Oseep in Russia.
England having freed herself from Roman Catholic influence
before this mighty crop of Josephs sprang up, merely regarded the
name as one of the Scripture names chiefly used by Puritans,
although Joseph Addison has given it distinction in literature; and
there Joe is of uncertain origin, as it is as often the contraction of
Josiah or Joshua as of Joseph. In some parts of England, Joseph
and Mary are considered appropriate to twins. Josephine is with
us a mere introduction from the French.
Joseph, or Joses, as he was called since, coming from Cyprus—he
was one of the Hellenistic Jews—is best known to us under his
24surname of Barnabas, which St. Luke explains from the Aramaic as
υἱος παρακλησέος (uios parakleseos), the son of comfort, a word which
bears different interpretations, since comfort may be either exhortation
or consolation; and it is in the latter sense that St. Chrysostom
and our translators have understood the word, though there are
many who prefer the other meaning.
Barnabas has not been a very common name, though, with an
apostle for its origin, it could not fail to be everywhere known; but
it was never royal; and the only historical character so called,
Bernabo Visconti, was enough to give any name an evil odour. We
make it Barnaby when we do use it, the Irish call it Barney and
confuse it with Brian, and the Russians call it Varnava. One Barnabas
Hutchinson, proctor of the chapter of Durham, who died in
1633, is thus commemorated in his epitaph:—
“Under this thorne tree
Lies honest Barnabee.”
[9]
Joseph had named his two sons Manasseh (forgetting), because he
said, “God hath made me forget all my toil,” and Ephraim (twofold
increase). The first was early adopted by the Israelites; we find it
belonging to the son of Hezekiah, and to the father of Judith, and, to
our amazement, to a mediæval knight, whose friends may perhaps
have brought it from the Crusades. Two early bishops of Cambrai
bore the name of Manassès, and there is one among the under-tenants
in Domesday Book. In Ireland, the name of Manus, a corruption of
Magnus, derived from the Northmen who invented it, is turned into
Manasses.
Ephraim, like other patriarchal names, lived on in Mesopotamia;
and St. Ephrem of Edessa, who lived in the beginning of the fourth
century, is esteemed as a doctor of the Church, and is the name-saint
of numerous Russians, who keep his day on the 28th of January,
though the Roman Church marks it in July.[10]
When the long-desired ‘addition,’ the second son, was given to
Rachel, and in the words of Jacob she “died by him when there was
but a little way to come to Ephrath,” she called the infant who had
cost her life Ben-oni (son of my sorrow); but this was changed by
his father into Ben-Yamin (son of my right hand, i. e. prosperous).
In spite of Rare Ben Jonson, Benjamin is an essentially Puritan
and Jewish name; such a feminine as Benjamina has even been
perpetrated. Oddly enough the Bretons call Benjamin Benoni.
Benoni, “the child of sorrow,” and Ichabod, “the glory is departed,”
were so frequent among the Puritans of the time of James I. that Mr.
Bardsley thinks that they could not have been so much allusions
to family distress as to the afflictions of the Puritan sect. Benoni
occurs in the rate of six to one compared with Benjamin in the
registers of the period.
25Afterwards the place of Ben was taken by the Syriac Bar, the
earliest instance being that of old Barzillai, the Gileadite, whose name
signified the son of iron. It seems as though under the Herodean
kingdom the custom was coming in that forms the first surnames,
that of calling the son by his patronymic almost in preference to his
own individual appellation, and thus arose some of the double titles
that confuse us as to the identity of the earlier saints. Thus, the
“Israelite without guile,” is first introduced as Nathanael, the same
as the ancient Nethaneel, captain of the tribe of Issachar, and meaning
the gift of God, being compounded of the Divine Word and
nathan (a gift). Nathan was the name of the prophet who rebuked
David, and of the son whose descendants seem to have taken the place
of the royal line. Elnathan occurs as father to the wife of one of
the kings, and Jonathan has exactly the same meaning, the gift of
God. In the list of apostles, Nathanael is called by his patronymic
Bartholomaios, as it stands in the Greek, and Tholomaios is referred
to Talmai (furrows), which occurs in the list of the sons of Anak,
and also as belonging to the King of Geshur, Absalom’s grandfather.
In the uncertainty whether it was really the apostle, Nathanael was
left unused until those English took it up, by whom it was made into Nat.
The other form, though not popular, is of all nations, and from its
unwieldy length has endless contractions, perhaps the larger number
being German, since it is most common in that central Teutonic land.
| English. |
German. |
Dutch. |
Swiss. |
| Bartholomew |
Bartholomaus |
Bartelmês |
Bartleme |
| Bart |
Bertel |
|
Bartli |
| Bartley |
Barthol |
|
|
| Bat |
Mewes |
|
|
| |
Bartold |
|
|
| Bavarian. |
French. |
Danish. |
Spanish. |
| Bartlmê |
Bartholomieu |
Bartholomeuis |
Bartolome |
| Bartl |
Bartolomée |
Bartel |
Bartolo |
| Wawel |
Tolomieu |
Bardo |
|
| Wabel |
|
|
|
| Wabm |
|
|
|
| Portuguese. |
Italian. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
| Bartolomeu |
Bartolomeo |
Varfolomei |
Bartlomiej |
| Bartolomeo |
Bortolo |
|
Bartek |
| Bortolo |
|
|
|
| Meo |
|
|
|
| Illyrian. |
Lusatian |
Esthonian |
Lithuanian |
| Bartuo |
Bartolik |
Partel |
Baltras |
| Barteo |
Barto |
Pert |
Baltramejus |
| Jernij |
Batram |
|
|
| Vratolomije |
|
|
|
26
We must not quit the patriarchal names without mentioning that
of Job. This mysterious person is stated in the margin of the
Alexandrian version to have originally borne the name of Jobab,
which means shouting; and a tradition of the Jews, adopted by
some of the Christian fathers, makes him the same as the Jobab,
prince of Edom, mentioned in the genealogy in the 33rd chapter of
Genesis, a supposition according with his evident position as a great
desert sheik, as well as with the early date of his history.
Job, however, as he is called throughout his book, is explained by
some to mean persecuted; by others a penitent; and it is evident from
a passage in the Koran that this was the way that Mahommed understood
it. The tradition of his sufferings lived on among the Arabs,
who have many stories about Eyub, or Ayoub, as they pronounce the
name still common among them, and their nickname for the patient
camel is Abi Ayub, father of Job.
Jöv, probably from their eastern connections, is a name used by
the Russians, and has belonged to one of their patriarchs. Otherwise
it is a very infrequent name even in England.
Job’s three daughters, Jemima, Kezia, and Kerenhappuch, are
explained to mean a dove, cassia, and a horn of stibium. This latter
is the paint with which eastern ladies were wont to enhance the
beauty of their eyelashes, and it is curious to find this little artifice so
ancient and so highly esteemed as to give the very name to the fair
daughter of the restored patriarch, perhaps because her eyes were too
lovely to need any such adornment. Hers has never been a popular
name, only being given sometimes to follow up those of her sisters;
Kezia is a good deal used in England, and belonged to a sister of Wesley,
who was called Kissy; but Jemima is by far the most general of the
three.
The Hebrew interpretation of Jemima makes it a day, but the
Arabic word for a dove resembles it more closely, and critics, therefore,
prefer to consider it as the Arab feminine version of that which
the Israelites had among them as Jonah (a dove). This belonged
to the prophet of Nineveh. It is not usual in Europe, but strangely
enough the Lithuanians use it as Jonsazus, and the Lapps as Jonka.
What strange fancy can have made Mehetabel, the wife of one of
the princes of Edom, leave her four syllables to be popular in
England? Many village registers all over the country show it. Was
it a remnant of the East in Cornwall, or did Puritans choose it for its
meaning, God is beneficent? It was at Jarrow as early as 1578.
Tamar, a palm tree, it may here be mentioned, has continued
common among eastern Christians, especially since a distinguished
Armenian queen was so called. Now and then very great lovers
of biblical names in England give it, and likewise Dinah (judgment).[11]
27
At the time of the Exodus, the Israelites had become a nation, and
their names, though still formed from a living language, were becoming
more hereditary and conventional than those of the patriarchal times.
That of Moses himself, interpreted by the Scripture as meaning
drawn out of the water, belongs rather to the Egyptian than to the
Hebrew language. It probably came from the Coptic mo, water,
and usha, saved; though the Hebrew, mâshâh, also presents a ready
derivation: the great Law-giver. It has never been forgotten in the
East, where the Arabs in the desert point out Gebel Mousa, the rock
of Moses, whence they say the water flowed, and Wady Mousa, the
vale of Moses. Mousa is a frequent name among the Arabs to this
day, and among the gallant Moors of Granada, none stands so prominently
forward in the noble rivalry of Abencerrages and Zegris as
does the champion Muza.
Moses was unused by the Jews while they continued a nation, but
has been very common in their dispersion, and in Poland has come
to be pronounced Mojzesz. The frequent Jewish surname Moss is
taken from one of these continental corruptions of the name of the
great Law-giver. In Ireland the name Magsheesh has been adopted
by the inhabitants as an imitation of Moses; but no form of Moses is
used elsewhereelsewhere, except as a direct Scripture name.
The name of Thermuthis has been found on a tombstone, given
apparently in honour of Pharaoh’s daughter, whom Josephus thus
denominates.
Aaron’s name is in like manner considered to be Egyptian, and the
meaning is very doubtful, though it is commonly explained as a high
mountain.
Aaron seems to have been assumed as a name by some of our old
British Christians, or else it was accepted as an equivalent for something
Keltic, for Aaron and Julius were among our very few British
martyrs under Diocletian’s persecution, and a later Aaron was an
abbot in Brittany; but it has never been a name in use.[12]
The sister of Moses and Aaron, who led the songs of the Israelites
when they saw their enemies dead upon the sea-shore, was the first
28owner of that name which was to be the most highly honoured
among those of women.
Yet it is a name respecting which there is great contention.
Gesenius derives it from Merî (stubbornness), with the addition of the
third person plural, so as to make it mean their rebellion. Other
commentators refer it to the word Marah (bitterness), and thence the
bitter gum, myrrh, the same term that was applied to the brackish
springs in the desert, and to which the desolate widow of Bethlehem
declared her right, when she cried, “Call me not Naomi (pleasant),
call me Marah (bitter).” This is on the whole the most satisfactory
derivation, but in the middle ages it was explained as Myrrh of the
Sea, Lady of the Sea, or Star of the Sea, the likeness to the Latin,
Keltic, and Teutonic mar being probably the guide. Star of the Sea
is the favourite explanation among Roman Catholics, as the loftiest
and most poetical, and it is referred to in many of their hymns and
other devotional compositions.
Miriam does not seem to have been repeated until after the captivity,
when it took the Greek forms of Mariam and Mariamne, and became
very frequent among Jewish women, probably in the expectation of
the new deliverance from the bondage that galled them like that of
Egypt of old. It was the name of the Asmonean princess in whom
the brave Maccabean line was extinguished by Herod the Great; it
belonged to three if not to four of the women of the Gospel; and
we find it again marking the miserable being who is cited as having
fulfilled the most terrible of all the woes denounced by Moses upon
the daughters of Jerusalem.
The name of Mariam continued in the East, but was very slow in
creeping into the Western Church, though not only the Blessed
Virgin herself had borne it, but two very popular saints, namely, the
Magdalen, and the Penitent of Egypt, whose legends were both
current at a very early period.
The first Maria whom I can find of undoubted western birth was
a Spanish maiden, who was martyred by the Moors at Cordova in
851. Michaelis tells us that the old Spanish name of Urraca is the
same as Maria, but this can hardly be true.
It seems to have been the devotion of the Crusaders that first brought
Maria into Europe, for we find the first instances about the middle of
the twelfth century all at once; Maria of Antioch, a Crusader’s daughter,
who married the Emperor Manuel Comnenus; her daughter, Maria
Comnena, married to the Marquis of Montferrat; Marie, the daughter
of Louis VII. of France, and our Eleanor of Guienne, named probably
during their Crusader’s fervour; then Marie, the translator of the
Breton legends for Henry III.; Marie, the nun daughter of Edward
I., and at the same time Marie all over the western world.
Probably the addition of the German diminutive chen, in French
on, formed the name of
“A bonny fine maid of noble degree,
Maid Marion called by name.”
Very soon had her fame travelled abroad, for in 1332 the play of
Robin et Marion was performed by the students of Angers, one of
29them appearing as a fillette déguisée. The origin of Marionettes,
puppets disguised to play the part of Maid Marion, is thus explained.
They may, however, have received their name from the habit of
calling small images of the Blessed Virgin Mariettes, or Marionettes.
Several streets of old Paris, in which were such images, were called
Rue des Mariettes, or later, Rue des Marionettes. All puppets there
came to be called Mariettes and Marmousets; and two streets of
Paris were down to the last century called Rue des Marmousets.
Henri Etienne says: “Never did the Egyptians take such cruel
vengeance for the murder of their cats, as has been wreaked in our
days on those who had mutilated some Marmouset or Marionette.”
Even the bauble of a licensed fool was a Marotte, from the little
head at its point, and the supernatural dolls of sorcerers, in the form
of toads or apes, were described as Marionettes in an account of a trial
for witchcraft in 1600. The term Marmoset passed to the daintiest
and most elegant of the monkey tribe, by which it is now monopolized.
Marion became a common name in France, and contracted into Manon,
and expanded into Marionette, as in a poem of the 13th century where
Marion is thus addressed; and in Scotland, where “Maid Marion,
fair as ivory bone,” likewise figured in rustic pageantry, she took a
stronger hold than anywhere else, is in common life yclept Menie, and
has escaped her usual fate of confusion with Marianne. With us, the
Blessed Virgin’s name, having come through the French, was spelt in
their fashion till the translation of the Bible made our national Mary
familiar. Mary II. was the first of our queens who dropped the ie.
The chief contractions and endearments are as follows:—
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| Maria |
Marie |
Maria |
Marïa |
| Mary |
Marion |
Marietta |
Marinha |
| Marion |
Manon |
Mariuccia |
Mariquinhas |
| Moll |
Maion |
|
Mariquita |
| Molly |
Mariette |
|
Maritornes |
| Polly |
Maillard |
|
|
| Malkin |
(Cambrai) |
|
|
| Mawkes |
|
|
|
| Mawkin |
|
|
|
| May[13] |
|
|
|
| Keltic. |
Swedish. |
Bavarian. |
Swiss. |
| Mair (W.) |
Maria |
Marie |
Marie |
| Moissey (Manx) |
Maria |
Mariel |
Mareili |
| Mari (Ir.) |
|
Mariedel |
Maga |
| |
|
Marei |
Maieli |
| |
|
Mareiel |
Mija |
| |
|
Marl |
Mieli |
| |
|
Medal |
|
| |
|
Miel |
|
| 30Dutch. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
Illyrian. |
| Maria |
Marija |
Mary |
Maria |
| Marieke |
Maika |
Marysia |
Marica |
| Mike |
Mascha |
Marynia |
Millica |
| |
Mashinka |
|
|
| Lusatian. |
Esthonian. |
Lapland. |
Hungarian. |
| Mara |
Marri |
Marja |
Maria |
| Maruscha |
Mai |
|
Mari |
| |
Maie |
|
Marka |
Our Latin Maria is a late introduction, brought in by that taste
which in the last century made everything feminine end with an a.
It is only during the last three centuries that Maria has reigned
supreme in Roman Catholic countries, marking the exaggerated
devotion paid to the original. Indeed, the Italian proverb, answering
to the needle in a bottle of hay, is “Cercar Maria in Ravenna,” so
numerous are the Marias there. Even in Ireland there were few
Marys till comparatively recent times; but now the Môr that in
some parts of the island was translated by Sarah, is changed into
Mary.
Since Marys have been thus multiplied, the attributes of the first
Mary have been adopted into the Christian name, and used to distinguish
their bearer. The earliest and best of these was the Italian
Maria Annunciata, or Annunziata, contracted into Nunziata; and
followed up in Spain by Maria Anonciada; and in France, by Marie
Annonciade. Soon there followed Maria Assunta, in honour of her
supposed assumption bodily into glory, but this never flourished
beyond Italy, Spain, and her colonies.
France has Marie des Anges, at least as a conventual appellation;
as in Spain the votaress of the merciful interceding patroness is called
Maria de Mercedes; and she whose parents were mindful of the
Seven Sorrows supposed to have pierced the heart of the Holy
Mother, would choose for their child Maria de Dolores. There was
a legend that Santiago had seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin standing
on a pillar of jasper and bidding him found at Zaragoza the
church thence called NuestraNuestra Señora del Pilar, whence, in Spain at
least, Pilar has become a female name, as Guadalupe has likewise in
honour of a miraculous image of St. Mary, preserved in the church
of the mountain once covered with hermitages. Moreover, a district
in Mexico, formerly called Tlaltelolco, contained a temple to a
favourite goddess of the Aztec race. After the Spanish conquest,
the same site became the scene of a vision of NuestraNuestra Señora, who
appeared to a Christian Indian, and intimated that a church was
there to be built in her honour. As a token of the reality of the
vision, roses burst forth on the bare rock of the Tepeyac, and it
further appeared impressed with a miraculous painting, which has
been the great subject of adoration from the Mexicans ever since.
31Guadalupe, a free translation into Spanish of the native name of
Tlaltelolco, has been ever since a favourite name with the damsels of
Mexico, and is even adopted by such of the other sex as regard the
shrine with special veneration. Maria del Incarnaçion is also Spanish.
An English gipsy woman lately said ‘Carnation’ was her daughter’s
name, and had been her grandmother’s. Was it from this source?
As queen of heaven, Maria has votaries, called in Italy Regina or
Reina. The latter was frequent in early times at Florence. In
France we find Reine and Reinette, and Regina is a favourite in
some parts of Germany, where it has been confused with the
derivatives of the old Teutonic Ragin, Council.
Since the promulgation of the new dogma, young ladies in Spain
have been called Maria de la Concepcion; in Italy, Concetta. Surely
the superstition of these races is recorded in their names. The custom
of adding Maria to a man’s name seems to have begun in Italy about
1360, and now most individuals in Italy, and probably likewise in
Spain, as well as in the more devout French families, bear the name
of Maria; and the old Latin Marius and Virginius, though entirely
unconnected except by the sound, have been pressed into the service,
and made to do duty as Mario and Virginio in her honour.
Perhaps the Jews had in some degree adopted the Roman fashion
of similar names in a family, since the sister of the Blessed Virgin
bears the same as her own, and there is a great similarity between
those of the sisters of Bethany, which both probably come from mara
(bitter), although some deduce Martha from the Aramean mar (a
lord), which we often hear as the title of Syrian bishops, as Mar
Elias, &c.
Even the earliest writers on the Gospels were at a loss whether to
identify the meek contemplative Mary of Bethany, by the woman
that was a sinner, who is recorded as performing the same act of
devotion, and with Mary Magdalen, once possessed by seven devils
and afterwards first witness of the Resurrection. While inquiry was
cautious, legend was bold, and threw the three into one without the
slightest doubt, going on undoubtingly to narrate the vain and sinful
career of Mary Magdalen, describing her luxury, her robes, and in
especial her embroidered gloves and flowing hair, and all the efforts
of Martha to convert her, until her final repentance. The story proceeded
to relate how the whole family set out on a mission to Provence,
where Martha, by holding up the cross, demolished a terrific dragon;
and Mary, after having aided in converting the country, retired to a
frightful desert with a skull for her only companion.
It is this legendary Magdalen, whom painters loved to portray in
all her dishevelled grief.
The word itself is believed to be a mere adjective of place, meaning
that she came from Magdala, which, in its turn, means a tower or
castle, and is represented by the little village of Mejdel, on the lake
of Tiberias, so that her proper designation would be Mary of Magdala,
i. e. of the tower, probably to distinguish her from Mary of Bethany
with whom she is confounded.
It is curious to observe how infinitely more popular her name has
32been than her sister’s, i. e. accepting the mediæval belief that they
were sisters. The Marfa of Russia is of course like the English
Martha, Matty, Patty, the true housewifely Martha, independent of
the legend of the dragon, and has there been a royal name occurring
frequently among the daughters of the earlier Tzars; and the Martha
used in Ireland is only as an equivalent for the native Erse Meabhdh,
Meave, or Mab, once a great Irish princess, who has since become the
queen of the fairies. Martha used also to be used for Mor. But the
Marthe and Marthon of the south of France, and the rarer Marta of
Italy and Spain, were all from the Provençal dragon-slayer, and as
to the popularity of Magdalen, the contractions in the following table
will best prove it:
| English. |
German. |
Swiss. |
Danish. |
| Magdalene |
Magdalene |
Magdalene |
Magdelene |
| Maudlin |
Madlen |
|
Malin |
| Maun |
Lene |
Leli |
Magli |
| Madeline |
Lenchen |
|
Mali |
| Italian. |
French. |
Polish. |
Servian. |
| Maddalena |
Magdelaine |
Magdelina |
Mandelina |
| Spanish. |
Mazaline—old |
Magdusia |
Manda |
| Magdalena |
Madeleine |
Magdosia |
|
| Madelena |
Madelon |
Madde |
|
| Lusatian. |
Esthonian. |
Ung. |
Lettish. |
| Madlena |
Madli |
Magdalena |
Madlene |
| Marlena |
Mai |
Magdolna |
Maddalene |
| Marlenka |
Male |
|
Madde |
| Madlenka |
|
|
|
The penitent Mary of Egypt has had her special votaresses. Maria
Egyptiaca was a princess of Oettingen in 1666.[14]
The names of the wife and son of Aaron bring us to a style of
nomenclature that was very frequent among the Israelites at the
period of the Exodus, and had begun even earlier. This was the
habit of making the name contain a dedication to the Deity, by
beginning or ending it with a word of Divine signification.
The Divine title known to man before the special revelation to
33Moses in the burning bush, was the Hebrew word El, in the plural
Elohim, which corresponds to our term Deity or God-head. It was
by a derivative from this word that Jacob called the spot where he
beheld the angels, Beth El (the House of God), and again the place
where he built an altar, El Elohe Israel (the God of Israel), as indeed
his own name of Israel meant prevailing with God.
This termination is to be found in the names of several of his
grandsons; but we will only in the present section review the class
of names where it serves as a prefix.
The first of all of these is Eliezer (God of help), the name of
Abraham’s steward who went to bring home Rebecca, and again of
the second son of Moses. A very slight change, indicated in our
version by the change of the vowels, made it Eleazar, or God will
help, the name of Aaron’s eldest surviving son, the second high
priest. Both continued frequent among the Jews before the captivity,
and after it the distinction between them was not observed,
though Eleazar was in high repute as having belonged to the venerable
martyr in the Antiochian persecution, as well as to the brave
Maccabee, who perished under the weight of the elephant he had
stabbed.
In the Gospels, Eleazar has become Lazarus, and in this form is
bestowed upon the beggar of the parable, as well as on him who was
raised from the dead. It is curious to observe the countries where it
has been in use. The true old form once comes to light in the earlier
middle age as St. Elzéar, the Comte de St. Sabran, who became a
devotee of St. Francis, and has had a scanty supply of local namesakes.
The beggar’s name has been frequently adopted in Spain as
Lazaro or Lazarillo; Italy has many a Lazzaro; Poland, shows
Lazarz; Russia, Lasar; Illyria, Lazo and Laze.
Aaron’s wife was Elischeba, meaning God hath sworn, i. e. an
appeal to his covenant. It recurred again in the priestly family in
the Gospel period, and had become, in its Greek form, Ελισαβετ;
in Latin, Elisabeth.
The mother of the Baptist was not canonized in the West, though,
I believe, she was so in the East, for there arose her first historical
namesake, the Muscovite princess Elisavetta, the daughter of Jaroslav,
and the object of the romantic love of that splendid poet and sea-king,
Harald Hardràda, of Norway, who sung nineteen songs of his
own composition in her praise on his way to her from Constantinople,
and won her hand by feats of prowess. Although she soon died, her
name remained in the northern peninsula, and figures in many a
popular tale and Danish ballad, as Elsebin, Lisbet, or Helsa. It
was the Slavonic nations, however, who first brought it into use,
and from them it crept into Germany, and thence to the Low
Countries.
Elisabeth of Hainault, on her marriage with Philippe Auguste,
seems to have been the first to suffer the transmutation into Isabelle,
the French being the nation of all others who delighted to bring
everything into conformity with their own pronunciation. The
royal name thus introduced became popular among the crown vassals,
34and Isabelle of Angoulême, betrothed to Hugues de Lusignan, but
married to King John, brought Isabel to England, whence her
daughter, the wife of Friedrich II., conveyed Isabella to Germany and
Sicily. Meantime the lovely character of Elisabeth of Hungary—or
Erzsebet as she is called in her native country—earned saintly honours,
and caused the genuine form to be extremely popular in all parts of
Germany. Her namesake great-niece was, however, in Aragon turned
into Isabel, and when married into Portugal, received the surname of
De la Paz, because of her gentle, peace-making nature. She was
canonized; and Isabel, or Ysabel, as it is now the fashion to spell it
in Spain, has ever since been the chief feminine royal name in the
Peninsula, and was rendered especially glorious and beloved by Isabel
the Catholic.
In the French royal family it was much used during the middle
ages, and sent us no fewer than two specimens, namely, the ‘She-Wolf
of France,’ and the child-queen of Richard II.; but though used
by the Plantagenets and their nobility, it took no hold of the English
taste; and it was only across the Scottish border that Isobel or Isbel,
probably learned from French allies, became popular, insomuch that
its contraction, Tibbie, has been from time immemorial one of the
commonest of all peasant names in the Lowlands. The wicked and
selfish wife of Charles VI. of France was always called Isabeau, probably
from some forgotten Bavarian contraction; but she brought her
appellation into disrepute, and it has since her time become much
more infrequent in France.
The fine old English ballad that makes ‘pretty Bessee’ the granddaughter
of Simon de Montfort is premature in its nomenclature;
for the first Bess on record is Elizabeth Woodville, whose mother,
Jacquetta of Luxemburg, no doubt imported it from Flanders.
Shakespeare always makes Edward IV. call her Bess; and her
daughter Elizabeth of York is the lady Bessee of the curious verses
recording the political courtship of Henry of Richmond. Thence
came the name of Good Queen Bess, the most popular and homely of
all borne by English women, so that, while in the last century a third
at least of the court damsels were addressed as ‘Lady Betty,’ it so
abounded in villages that the old riddle arose out of the contractions.
During the anti-Spanish alliance between England and France,
Edward VI. was sponsor to a child of Henri II., who received the
Tudor name of Elisabeth, but could not become the wife of Philip
II., without turning into Isabel; indeed, the Italian Elisabetta
Farnese—a determined personage—was the only lady who seems to
have avoided this transformation.
Poetry did not improve our Queen Elizabeth by making her into
Eliza, a form which, however, became so prevalent in England during
the early part of the present century, that Eliza and Elizabeth are
sometimes to be found in the same family. No name has so many
varieties of contraction, as will be seen by the ensuing list, where,
in deference to modern usage, Elizabeth is placed separately from
Isabella.
| 35 |
| English. |
Scotch. |
German. |
Bavarian. |
Swiss. |
| Elizabeth |
Elizabeth |
Elisabeth |
Lisi |
Elsbeth |
| Eliza |
Elspeth |
Elise |
Liserl |
Betha |
| Bessy |
Elspie |
Lise |
|
Bebba |
| Betsey |
Bessie |
Lischen |
|
Bebbeli |
| Betty |
Lizzie |
Elsabet |
|
|
| Lizzy |
|
Elsbet |
|
|
| Libby |
|
Bettine |
|
|
| Lisa |
|
Bette |
|
|
| |
|
Ilse |
|
|
| Danish. |
French. |
Italian. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
| Elisabeth |
Elisabeth |
Elisabetta |
Jelissaveta |
Elzbieta |
| Elsebin |
Elise |
Elisa |
Lisa |
Elzbietka |
| Helsa |
Babet |
Betta |
Lisenka |
|
| |
Babette |
Bettina |
|
|
| |
Babichon |
Lisettina |
|
|
| Servian. |
Slovak. |
Esthonian. |
Hungarian. |
Lusatian. |
| Jelisavcta |
Lizbeta |
Ello |
Erzebet |
Hilzbeta |
| Jelisavka |
Liza |
Elts |
Erzsi |
Hilza |
| Liza |
Lizika |
Liso |
Erszok |
Hilzizka |
| |
|
|
Orse |
Lisa |
| |
|
|
Orsike |
Liska |
| |
|
|
|
Beta |
Lise and Lisette are sometimes taken as contractions of Elisabeth,
but they properly belong to Louise.
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
| Isabella |
Isabel |
Isabeau |
Ysabel |
Isabel |
| Isabel |
Isbel |
Isabelle |
Bela |
Isabelhina |
| Belle |
Tibbie |
|
|
|
| Nib |
|
|
|
|
| Ibbot |
|
|
|
|
| Ib |
|
|
|
|
Scotland and Spain are the countries of Isabel; England and
Germany of Elizabeth.
The noblest prophet of the kingdom of Israel was called by two
Hebrew words, meaning God the Lord, a sound most like what is
represented by the letters Eliyahu, the same in effect as that of the
young man who reproved Job and his friends, though, in his case, the
Hebrew points have led to his being called in our Bible Elihu, while
we know the prophet as Elijah, the translators probably intending us
36to pronounce the j like an i. The Greek translators had long before
formed Ἠλιας, the Elias of the New Testament.
When the Empress Helena visited Palestine, she built a church on
Mount Carmel, around which arose a cluster of hermitages, and thus
the great prophet and his miracles became known both to East and
West.
When the Crusaders visited the Mount of Carmel frowning above
Acre, and beheld the church and the hermits around it, marked the
spot where the great prophet had prayed, and the brook where he
slew the idolaters, no wonder they became devoted to his name, and
Helie became very frequent, especially among the Normans. Helie
de la Flèche was the protector of Duke Robert’s young son, William
Clito; and Helie and Elie were long in use in France, as Ellis must
once have been in England, to judge by the surnames it has left.
Elias is still very common in the Netherlands.
The order of Carmelites claimed to have been founded by the
prophet himself; but when the Latins inundated Palestine, it first
came into notice, and became known all over the West. It was
placed under the invocation of St. Mary, who was thus called in Italy
the Madonna di Carmela or di Carmine, and, in consequence, the two
names of Carmela and Carmine took root among the Italian ladies, by
whom they are still used. The meaning of Carmel, as applied to the
mountain, is vineyard or fruitful field.
Elisha’s name meant God of Salvation. It becomes Eliseus in the
New Testament, but has been very seldom repeated; though it is
possible that the frequent Ellis of the middle ages may spring from it.
Here, too, it may be best to mention the prophetic name by which
the Humanity of the Messiah was revealed to Isaiah—Immanuel
(God with us), Imm meaning with; an being the pronoun.
The Greeks appear to have been the first to take up this as a
Christian name, and Manuel Komnenos made it known in Europe.
The Italians probably caught it from them as Manovello; and the
Spaniards and Portuguese were much addicted to giving it, especially
after the reign of Dom Manoel, one of the best kings of the noble
house of Avis. Manuelita is a feminine in use in the Peninsula.
When used as a masculine, as it is occasionally in England and France,
the first letter is generally changed to E.[15]
A still more sacred personal Divine Name was revealed to Moses
upon Mount Horeb—the name that proclaimed the eternal self-existence
of Him who gave the mission to the oppressed Israelites.
The meaning of that Name we know, in its simple and ineffable
majesty; the pronunciation we do not know, for the most learned
doubt whether that the usual substitute for it may not be a mistake.
The Jews themselves feared to pronounce it commonly in reading
their scriptures, and substituted for it Adonai, that which is indicated
by the ‘LORD,’ in capital letters in our Bibles, while the French try
37to give something of the original import by using the word l'Éternel,
and thus the tradition of the true sound has been hidden from man,
and all that is known is that the three consonants employed in it were
J, or rather Y V H.
Yet, though this holy name was only indicated in reading, it was
very frequent in combination in the names of the Israelites, being
the commencement of almost all those that with us begin with je or
jo, the termination of all those with iah. Nay, the use of the name
in this manner has received the highest sanction, since it was by inspiration
that Moses added to Hoshea, salvation—the syllable that
made it Jehoshea or Joshua, “the Lord my salvation,” fitly marking
out the warrior, who, by Divine assistance, should save Israel, and
place them safely in the promised land.
That name of the captain of the salvation of Israel seems to have
been untouched again till the return from the captivity, when probably
some unconscious inspiration directed it to be given to the
restorer of the Jews, that typical personage, the high priest, in whom
we find it altered into Jeshua; and the Greek soon made it into the
form in which it appears as belonging to the author of the book of
Ecclesiasticus, and which, when owned by the apostate high priest,
under Antiochus Epiphanes, was made by him from Jesus into Jason,
to suit the taste of the Greek rulers. It had become common among
the Jews; it was the current name for the ancient Joshua, when it
was assumed by Him Who alone had a right to it.
A feast in honour of that Name “to which every knee shall bow,”
has been marked by the Western Church, and it is probably in consequence
of this that the Spanish Americans actually have adopted
this as one of their Christian names—a profanation whence all the rest
of Christendom has shrunk. There too a and ita are added to it to
make it feminine.
In the unfortunate son and grandson of the good Josiah (yielded
to the Lord), we see some curious changes of name. The son was
called both Eliakim and Jehoiakim, in which the verb meant “will
establish or judge;” the only difference was in the Divine Name that
preceded it. This miserable prince died during the first siege of
Jerusalem, and his son Jehoiachin (appointed of the Lord), reigned for
three months till the city was taken, and he was carried away to
Babylon. The above-mentioned seems to have been his proper name,
but he was commonly called Jeconiah, and Jeremiah denounces his
punishment without the prefix, as “this man Coniah.”
After the death of Nebuchadnezzar, Jehoiachin was brought out of
prison, and lived in some degree of ease and favour at Babylon; and
by Greek authors a sort of compromise was made between his name
and his father’s, and he becomes sometimes Jeconias, and sometimes
Joacim.
There was an early tradition that Joachim had been the name of
the father of the Blessed Virgin, but her private history did not
assume any great prominence till about 1500, and in consequence the
names of her parents are far less often used before than after that era.
Her mother’s name, as we shall see, had a history of its own; and
38was earlier in general use than that of her father, which scarcely
came into England at all, and was better known to us when Murat
ascended the throne of Naples than at any other time. Being however
found in the apocryphal Gospels, it was in use in the Greek
Church, and is therefore to be found in Russia. Its forms are,
| German. |
Bavarian. |
Frisjan. |
Swiss. |
| Joachim |
Jochum |
Hime |
Jocheli |
| Jochim |
Jochem |
|
|
| Achim |
|
|
|
| Chim |
|
|
|
| Spanish. |
French. |
Italian. |
Danish. |
| Joaquim |
Joachim |
Gioachimo |
Joachim |
| Joquim |
|
Gioachino |
Johum |
| Joa |
|
Giovachino |
|
| Russian. |
Polish. |
Lett. |
Illyrian. |
| Joachim |
Jachym |
Juzziz |
Accim |
| Akim |
|
Jukkums |
Jacim |
The Germans, French, and Portuguese have the feminine Joachime,
Joaquima; or, in Illyrian, Acima.[16]
The Book of Judges has not furnished many names to collective
Europe. Caleb, the faithful spy, who alone finally accompanied
Joshua into the Land of Promise out of all the 600,000 who had come
out of Egypt, had a name meaning a dog, seldom copied except by
the Puritan taste, and only meeting in one language a personal name
of similar signification, namely, the Irish cu (gen.) con.
Caleb’s daughter, Achsah, probably from the shortness and pretty
sound of her name, which means a tinkling ornament for the ancle,
has a good many namesakes in remote village schools, where it is apt
to be spelt Axah. Tirzah (pleasantness) was one of those five daughters
of Zelophehad, whose heiresship occupies two chapters of the Book of
Numbers. She probably was the origin of Thirza, the name of Abel’s
wife in Gessner’s idyll of the Death of Abel, a great favourite among
the lower classes in England, whence Thyrza has become rather a
favourite in English cottages.
Gideon (a feller or destroyer) seems by his martial exploits to have
obtained some admirers among the Huguenots of the civil wars of
France, for Gédéon was in some small use among them.
The name of the mighty Nazarene, whose strength was in his hair,
is not clearly explained. Schimschon seems best to represent the
Hebrew sound, but the Greek had made it Σαμψσων; and our translation,
39Samson. Some translate it splendid son, others as the
diminutive of sun.
The Greek Church and her British daughter did not forget the
mighty man of valour, and Samson was an early Welsh Bishop and
saint, from whom this became a monastic appellation, as in the
instance of Mr. Carlyle’s favourite Abbot Samson. The French still
call it Simson, which is perhaps more like the original; and our
Simpson and Simkins may thus be derived from it, when they do not
come from Simon, which was much more frequent.
The name of the gentle and faithful Ruth has never been satisfactorily
explained. Some make it mean trembling; others derive
it from a word meaning to join together; and others from Reûth
(beauty), which is perhaps the best account of it. In spite of the
touching sweetness of her history, Ruth’s name has never been in
vogue, except under the influence of our English version of the
Bible.
Perhaps this may be the fittest place to mention the prevalence of
names taken from the river Jordan during the period of pilgrimages.
The Jordan itself is named from Jared (to descend), and perhaps no
river does descend more rapidly throughout its entire course than
does this most noted stream, from its rise in the range of Libanus to
its fall in the Dead Sea, the lowest water in the world. To bathe in
the Jordan was one of the objects of pilgrims, and flasks of its water
were brought home to be used at baptisms—as was done for the
present family of Royal children. It was probably this custom that
led to the adoption of Jordan as a baptismal name, and it is to be
supposed that it was a fashion of the Normans, since it certainly
prevailed in countries that they had occupied. In Calabria, Count
Giordano Lancia was the friend of the unfortunate Manfred of Sicily,
and recognized his corpse. Jourdain was used in France, though in
what districts I do not know, and Jordan was at one time recognized
in England. Jordan de Thornhill died in 1200; Jordan de Dalden
was at the battle of Lewes in 1264, and two namesakes of his are
mentionedmentioned in the pedigree of his family. Jordan de Exeter was the
founder of a family in Connaught, who became so thoroughly Hibernicized,
that, after a few generations, they adopted the surname of,
Mac Jordan. Galileo dei Gailïlei probably took both his names from
Galilee, which comes from Galil, a circle.
Bethlem Gabor will seem to the mind as an instance of Bethlehem
(the place of bread), having furnished Christian names for the sake
of its associations, and Nazarene has also been used in Germany.
Perhaps no word has given rise to a more curious class of derivatives
than this from the Hebrew Chaanach, with the aspirate at each
end, signifying favour, or mercy, or grace.
To us it first becomes known in the form of Hannah, the mother
of Samuel, and it was also used with the Divine syllable in the
40masculine, as Hananeel, Hanani, Hananiah, or Jehohanan, shortened
into Johanan.
Exactly the same names were current among the Phœœœœœœnicians, only
we have received them through a Greek or Latin medium. Anna,
the companion sister of Dido, was no doubt Hannah, and becoming
known to the Romans through the worship paid to her and Elisa by
the Carthaginians, was, from similarity of sound, confused by them
with their Italian goddess, Anna Perenna, the presiding deity of the
circling year (Annus). Virgil, by-and-by, wove the traditions of the
foundation of Carthage, and the death of Dido, into the adventures of
Æneas; and a further fancy arose among the Romans that after the
self-destruction of Dido, Anna had actually pursued the faithless
Trojan to Italy, and there drowned herself in the river Numicius,
where she became a presiding nymph as Anna Perenna! A fine
instance of the Romans' habit of spoiling their own mythology and
that of every one else! Oddly enough, an Anna has arisen in Ireland
by somewhat the same process. The river Liffey is there said to owe its
name to Lifé, the daughter of the chief of the Firbolg race being there
drowned. In Erse, the word for river was Amhain, the same as our
Avon; but on English tongues Amhain Lifé became Anna Liffey, and
was supposed to be the lady’s name; another version declared that it
was Lifé, the horse of Heremon the Milesian, who there perished.
Hanno, so often occurring in the Punic wars, was another version
of the Hebrew Hanan, and the far-famed Hannibal himself answered
exactly to the Hananiah or Johanan of the Holy Land, saying that it
was the grace of Baal that unhappily he besought by his very appellation.
The Greeks called him Annibas, and the Romans wavered
between Annibal and Hannibal as the designation of their great
enemy. In the latter times of Rome, when the hereditary prænomina
were discarded, Annibal and Annibalianus were given among the
grand sounds that mocked their feeble wearers, and Annibale lingered
on in Italy, so as to be known to us in the person of Annibale
Caracci.
It is a more curious fact, however, that Hannibal has always been
a favourite with the peasantry of Cornwall. From the first dawn of
parish registers Hannyball is of constant occurrence, much too early,
even in that intelligent county, to be a mere gleaning from books;
and the west country surname of Honeyball must surely be from the
same source. A few other eastern names, though none of them as
frequent or as clearly traced as the present, have remained in use in
this remote county, and ought to be allowed due weight in favour of
the supposed influence of the Phœnician traders over the races that
supplied them with tin and lead.
The usual changes were at work upon the Jewish names Hannah
and Hananiah. Greek had made the first 'Anna, the second Ananias,
or Annas. Indeed Hannah is only known, as such, to the readers of
the English version of the Bible, from whom the Irish have taken
it to represent their native Ainè (joy). All the rest of Europe calls
her, as well as the aged prophetess in the temple, Anne.
The apocryphal Gospels which gave an account of the childhood of
41the Blessed Virgin, called her mother Anna, though from what
tradition is not known. St. Anna was a favourite with the Byzantines
from very early times; the Emperor Justinian built a church
to her in 550, and in 710 her relics were there enshrined. From
that time forward Greek damsels, and all those of the adjoining
nations who looked to Constantinople as their head, were apt to be
christened Anna. In 988, a daughter of the Emperor Basil married
and converted Vladimir, Grand Prince of Muscovy, whence date all
the numerous Russian Annas, with their pretty changes of endearment.
The grand-daughter of this lady, Anne of Muscovy, sister of
Harald Hardrada’s Elisif, carried her name to France, where it grew
and flourished.
St. Anne became the patron saint of Prague, where a prodigious
festival is yearly holden in her honour, and great are the rejoicings
of all the females who hear her name, and who are not a few. It
was from Prague that the Bohemian princess, Anne of Luxemburg,
brought it to England, and gave it to her name-child, Anne Mortimer,
by whom it was carried to the house of York, then to the Howards,
from them to Anne Boleyn, and thereby became an almost party
word in England.
Abroad it had a fresh access of popularity from a supposed appearance
of the saint to two children at Auray, in Brittany, and not only
was the Bretonne heiress, twice Queen of France, so named, but she
transferred the name to her god-sons, among whom the most notable
was the fierce Constable, Anne de Montmorency. Her Italian god-daughter,
Anna d'Este, brought it back to the House of Guise, and
shortly after a decree from Rome, in 1584, made the name more
popular still by rendering the feast obligatory, and thenceforth arose
the fashion of giving the names of the Blessed Virgin and her mother
in combination, as Anne Marie, or Marianne. This is usually the
source of the Marianne, Mariana, or Manna, so often found on the
continent; in England, Marianne is generally only a corruption of
Marion, and Anna Maria is in imitation of the Italian.
Hardly susceptible of abbreviation, no name has undergone more
varieties of endearment, some forms almost being treated like independent
names, such as the Annot of Scotland, an imitation of the
French Annette, showing the old connection between France and
Scotland; and in the present day, there has arisen a fashion of
christening Annie, probably from some confusion as to the spelling
of Ann or Anne.
All these Annes can distinctly be traced from the Byzantine
devotion to the mother of the Blessed Virgin spreading westwards,
and at Rome magnified by Mariolatry. There are however what
seem like forms of Anne in the West before the adoption of the
name from Russia and Bohemia. Welsh Angharawd (far from
shame), which is treated as Anne’s equivalent. The Scottish Annaple
and Annabella are likewise too early to come from St. Anne, and are
probably either from Ainè (joy), a favourite name in early Gaelic
times, or from the Teutonic Arnhilda—Eagle heroine.
Annabella by no means is to be explained to mean fair Anna, as is
42generally supposed. Bellus did, indeed, signify handsome in Latin,
and became the beau and belle of French, but the habit of putting it
at the end of a name, by way of ornament, was not invented till the
late period of seven-leagued names of literature. Annys, or Anisia,
is a separate name with a saint in the Greek calendar, and was used
in England from the Norman Conquest down at least to 1690. Mr.
Bardsley thinks, however, that this was really Agnes; and certainly
the unfortunate Scotchwoman, who was supposed to have raised the
tempest before the wedding of James VI., is called indifferently
Agnes or Annis Simpson.
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
| Hannah |
Hannah |
Anne |
Ana |
Anna |
| Anna |
Anne |
Annette |
Anita |
Annica |
| Anne |
Nannie |
Nanette |
|
Nanna |
| Nan |
Annot |
Nanon |
|
Ninetta |
| Nancy |
|
Ninon |
|
|
| Nanny |
|
Ninette |
|
|
| |
|
Nichon |
|
|
| |
|
Nillon |
|
|
| German. |
Dutch. |
Danish. |
Swiss. |
Bavarian. |
| Anne |
Anna |
Anna |
Anne |
Anne |
| Annchen |
Antje |
Annika |
Annali |
Annerl |
| |
Naatje |
|
Nann |
Nannerl |
| |
Annechet |
|
Nanneli |
|
| Bohemian. |
Russian. |
Servian. |
Lusatian. |
Lett. |
| Ana |
Anna |
Anna |
Anna |
Anne |
| Ancika |
Anninka |
Anuschka |
Hanna |
Annusche |
| Anca |
Anjuska |
Aneta |
Hanzyzka |
|
| |
Anjutka |
Anica |
Hancicka |
|
| |
Annuschka |
Anicsika |
|
|
| |
|
Anka |
|
|
| Lithuanian. |
Hungarian. |
Polish. |
| Ane |
Annze |
Anna |
Panni |
Anna |
| Anikke |
|
Nani |
Panna |
Anusia |
Ἰώαννα, or Ἰαννης, for the masculine, Ἰώαννα for the feminine, were
already frequent among the natives of Judea, though they appear
not to have been used in the family of Zacharias when he was
commanded so to call his son.
The Evangelist who was surnamed Mark, and Joanna the wife of
Herod’s steward, both had received their names independently, and
thus Joannes became a most universal baptismal name, given from
the first in the East and at Rome. There were many noted bishops
so called in the fourth century, the earliest time when men began to
43be baptized in memory of departed saints, rather than by the old
Roman names. The first whose name is preserved is Joannes of
Egypt, one of the hermits of the Thebaïd; the next is the great
deacon of Antioch, and patron of Constantinople, Joannes Chrysostomos
(John of the golden mouth), whose Greek surname, given him
for his eloquence, has caused him to be best known as St. Chrysostom,
and has perpetuated in Italy, Grisostomo; in Spain, Crisostomo;
whilst the Slavonian nations translate the name and make it Zlatoust.
At Constantinople, the patriarchpatriarch St. Joannes the Silent, at Rome, the
martyr Pope St. Johannes I., at Alexandria, the beneficent patriarch
St. Joannes the Almoner, all renewed the popularity of their name.
The last mentioned was originally the patron of the order of Hospitallers,
though when these Franks were living at enmity to the
Greek Church, they discarded him in favour of the Baptist. Each
of the two Scriptural saints had two holidays,—the Baptist on the
day of his nativity, and of his decollation; the Evangelist, on the
27th of December, as well as on the 6th of May, in remembrance of
his confession in the cauldron of boiling oil.
Thus the festivals were so numerous that children had an extra
chance of the name, which the Italians called Giovanni, or for short,
Vanni; and the French, Jehan.
It was still so infrequent at the time of the Norman Conquest,
that among the under-tenants in Domesday Book, to 68 Williams,
48 Roberts, and 28 Walters, there are only 10 Johns, but it was
flourishing in the Eastern Church, where one of the Komneni was
called, some say from his beauty, others from the reverse, Kaloioannes,
or handsome John, a form which was adopted bodily by his
descendants, the Komneni of Trebizond.
It had come into Ireland at first as Maol-Eoin (shaveling, or disciple
of John), the Baptist sharing with St. Patrick the patronage of
the island; but Shawn or Seoin soon prevailed in Ireland, as did Ian
in Scotland; but not till the Crusades did French or English adopt
it to any great extent, or the English begin to Anglicize it in general
by contracting the word and writing it John.
The misfortunes of the English Lackland and of the French captive
of Poictiers caused a superstition that theirs was an ill-omened royal
name, and when John Stuart came to the Scottish throne, he termed
himself Robert III., without, however, averting the doom of his still
more unhappy surname. It did not fare amiss with any Castilian
Juan or Portuguese Joâo; and in Bohemia a new saint arose called
Johanko von Nepomuk, the Empress’s confessor, who was thrown
from the bridge of Prague by the insane Emperor Wenzel for refusing
to betray her secrets.
As St. Nepomucene, he had a few local namesakes, who get called
Mukki or Mukkel. The original word is said to mean helpless.
Double names, perhaps, originated in the desire to indicate the
individual patron, where there were many saints of similar name,
and thus the votaries of the Baptist were christened Gian Battista,
or Jean Baptiste, but only called by the second Greek title—most
common in Italy—least so in England.
| 44 |
| English. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
Swiss. |
Polish. |
| Baptist |
Baptiste |
Bautista |
Battista |
Bisch |
Baptysta |
| |
Batiste |
|
|
Bischli |
|
The Illyrians, using the word for christianizing instead of that for
baptizing, make the namesakes of the Baptist Kerstiteli.
It was probably in honour of St. John the Evangelist’s guardianship
of the Blessed Virgin that her name became commonly joined
with his. Giovanni Maria Visconti of Milan, appears in the fifth
century, and Juan Maria and Jean Marie soon followed in Spain and
France.
Johann was the correct German form, usually contracted into
Hans; and it was the same in Sweden, where Johann I., in 1483, was
known as King Hans; and in Norway, Hans and Jens, though both
abbreviations of Johan, are used as distinct names, and have formed
the patronymics, Hanson and Jensen, the first of which has become
an English surname. Ivan the Terrible, Tzar of Muscovy, was the
first prince there so called, though the name is frequent among
all ranks, and the sons and daughters are called Ivanovitch and
Ivanovna.
Rare as patronymic surnames are in France, this universal name
has there produced Johannot, while the contraction is Jeannot,
answering to the Spanish Juanito and the patronymic Juanez. Jan
is very frequent in Brittany, where the diminutive is Jannik.
Jock is the recognized Scottish abbreviation, and it would seem to
have been the older English one according to the warning to Jockey
of Norfolk, at Bosworth. Jack sounds much as if the French Jacques
had been his true parent; but “sweet Jack Falstaff, old Jack Falstaff”
has made it alienable from John.
Though Joanna was a holy woman of the Gospel, her name did not
come into favour so early as the male form, and it is likely that it
was adopted rather in honour of one of the St. Johns than of herself,
since she is not canonized; and to the thirty feasts of the St. Johns,
in the Roman calendar, there are only two in honour of Joannas, and
these very late ones, when the name was rather slipping out of fashion.
Its use seems to have begun all at once, in the twelfth century, in the
south of France and Navarre, whence ladies called Juana in Spanish,
Jehanne or Jeanne in France, came forth, and married into all the
royal families of the time. Our first princess so called was daughter
to Henry II., and married into Sicily; and almost every king had a
daughter Joan, or Jhone, as they preferred spelling it. Joan Makepeace
was the name given to the daughter of Edward II., when
the long war with the Bruces was partly pacified by her marriage;
and Joan Beaufort was the maiden romantically beloved by the
captive James I. The Scots, however, usually called the name
Jean, and adopted Janet from the French Jeanette, like Annot from
Annette.
The various forms and contractions are infinite:—
| 45 |
| English. |
Scotch. |
Welsh. |
Breton. |
Gaelic. |
| John |
John |
Jan |
Jan |
Ian |
| Johnny |
Johnnie |
Jenkin |
Jannik |
|
| Jack |
Jock |
|
|
|
| Jenkin |
|
|
|
|
| Erse. |
German. |
Danish. |
Dutch. |
Belgian. |
| Shawn |
Johannes |
Johan |
Jan |
Jehan |
| Eoin |
Hans |
Janne |
Jantje |
Jan |
| |
Hanschen |
Jens |
|
Hannes |
| |
|
Hans |
|
Hanneken |
| |
|
Jantje |
|
Hanka |
| Bavarian. |
Swiss. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
| Johan |
Johan |
Jean |
Juan |
Joao |
| Hansl |
Han |
Jeanno |
Juanito |
Joaninho |
| |
Hansli |
Jehan—old |
|
Joanico |
| |
Hasli |
|
|
Joaozinho |
| Italian. |
Modern Greek |
Russian. |
Polish. |
Bohemian. |
| Giovanni |
Ιωαννης |
Ivan |
Jan |
Jan |
| Gianni |
Jannes |
Vanja |
Janek |
|
| Gian |
Giannes |
Vanka |
|
|
| Giovanoli |
Giankos |
Ivanjuschka |
|
|
| Giannino |
Giannakes |
Vanjuschka |
|
|
| Vanni |
Joannoulos |
Vanjucha |
|
|
| Nanni |
Nannos |
|
|
|
| Gianozzo |
|
|
|
|
| Slavonic. |
Illyrian. |
Lett. |
Lithuanian. |
Esthonian. |
| Jovan |
Jovan |
Janis |
Jonas |
Johan |
| Ivan |
Jovica |
Janke |
Ancas |
Hannus |
| Janez |
Jvo |
Ans |
Jonkus |
Ants |
| |
Jveica |
Ansis |
Jonkutti |
|
| |
Jvic |
|
Enseliss |
|
| |
|
|
Enskis |
|
| Hungarian. |
Lapp. |
|
| Janos |
Jofan |
|
| Jani |
Jofa |
|
46Jessie, though now a separate name, is said to be short for Janet. Queen
Joans have been more uniformly unfortunate than their male counterparts.
Twice did a Giovanna reign in Naples in disgrace and misery;
and the royalty of poor Juana la Loca in Castille was but one long
melancholy madness. There have, however, been two heroines, so
called, Jeanne of Flanders, or Jannedik la Flamm, as the Bretons
call her, the heroine of Henbonne, and the much more noble Jeanne
la Pucelle of Orleans. The two saints were Jeanne de Valois, daughter
of Louis XI., and discarded wife of Louis XII., and foundress of the
Annonciades, and Jeanne Françoise de Chantel, the disciple of St.
François de Sales.
Johanna is a favourite with the German peasantry, and is contracted
into Hanne. It was not till the Tudor period, as Camden states, that
Jane came into use; when Jane Seymour at once rendered it so
fashionable that it became the courtly title; and Joan had already in
Shakespeare’s time descended to the cottage and kitchen.
| English. |
Scotch. |
German. |
Dutch. |
French. |
| Johanna |
Joanna |
Johanna |
Jantina |
Jeanne |
| Joanna |
Jean |
Hanne |
Janotje |
Jehanne |
| Joan |
Jeanie |
|
Jantje |
Jeannette |
| Jane |
Jenny |
|
|
Jeannetton |
| Jone |
Janet |
|
|
|
| Jenny |
Jessie (Gael.) |
|
|
|
| Janet |
|
|
|
| Janetta |
Seonaid |
|
|
|
| Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
Italian. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
| Juana |
Jovanna |
Giovanna |
Ivanna |
Joanna |
| Juanita |
Johannina |
Giovannina |
Zaneta |
Hanusia |
| |
|
|
Anniuscka |
Anusia |
| Slovak. |
Illyrian. |
Bulgarian. |
Lusatian. |
|
| Jovana |
Ivana |
Ivanku |
Hanka |
|
| Janesika |
Jovana |
|
|
|
| Ivancica |
Jovka |
|
|
|
| |
Ivka |
|
|
|
“The man after God’s own heart” was well named from the verb to
love, David, still called Daood in the East. It was Δαυὶδ in the
Septuagint; Δαβὶδ and Δαυεὶδ in the New Testament; and the Vulgate
made it the name well known to us.
The Eastern Church, in which the ancient Scriptural names were
in greater honour than in the West, seems to have adopted David
among her names long before it was revived among the Jews, who
never seem to have used it since the days of their dispersion. It has
47always been common among the Armenians and Georgians. Daveed
is frequent in Russia, in honour of a saint, who has his feast on the
29th of July; and in Slavonic it is shortened into Dako; in Esthonia
it is Taved; in Lusatia, Dabko.
The influence of eastern Christianity is traceable in the adoption of
David in the Keltic Church. Early in the 6th century, a Welshman
of princely birth (like almost all Welsh saints), by name David, or
Dawfydd, lived in such sanctity at his bishopric of Menevia, that it
has ever since been known as St. David’s, the principal Welsh see
having been there transplanted from Caerleon in his time. Dewi
was the vernacular alteration of his name, and the Church of Llan
Dewi Brevi commemorates a synod held by him against the
Pelagians. Dafod, or Devi, thus grew popular in Wales, and when
ap Devi ceased to be the distinction of the sons of David—Davy,
Davis, and Davies became the surname, Taffy the contraction, and
Tafline or Vida the feminine. The Keltic bishop was revered likewise
in Scotland, and his name was conferred upon the third son of
Malcolm Ceanmohr, the best sovereign whom Scotland ever possessed,
and whom she deservedly canonized, although his Protestant descendant
James VI. called him “a sore saint to the crown,” because of his
large donations of land to the clergy—at that time the only orderly
subjects in the country. Affection and honour for the royal saint
filled the Lowlands with Davids, and this has continued a distinctively
Scottish name.
The Anglicizing Irish took David as the synonym of Dathi (far
darting); and Diarmaid (a freeman); and the Danes made it serve
for Dagfinn (day white).[17]
It is remarkable to observe how the longing for peace is expressed
in the names of almost every nation. The warlike Roman may be
an exception, but the Greek had his Eireneos; the German, his
Friedrich; the Kelt, his Simaith; the Slave, his Lubomirski; testifying
that even in the midst of war, there was a longing after peace and
rest! And, above all, would this be the case with the Hebrew, to
whom sitting safely and at peace, beneath his own vine and his own
fig-tree, was the summit of earthly content.
Schalem (peace)! By the Prophet-King it was bestowed upon the
two sons to whom he looked for the continuance of his throne, and
the continuance of the promises of ‘peace,’—Absalom (father of peace),
and afterwards with a truer presage, Salomo, or Solomon, (the peaceful)!
Long before his time, however, Welsh and Breton saints had been
called Solomon, as well as one early Armorican prince; and likewise
an idiot boy, who lived under a tree at Auray, only quitting it when
in want of food, to wander through the villages muttering “Salaum
hungry”—the only words, except Ave Maria, that he could pronounce.
48When he died, the neighbours, thinking him as soulless as a dog,
buried him under his tree; but, according to the legend, their
contempt was rebuked by a beauteous lily springing from his grave,
and bearing on every leaf the words Ave Maria. Certain it is that
an exquisite church was there erected, containing the shrine of Salaun
the Simple, who thus became a popular saint of Brittany, ensuring
tender reverence for those who, if mindless, were likewise sinless, and
obtaining a few namesakes.
Salomon and Salomone are the French and Italian forms; and
Solomon is so frequent among the Jews as to have become a surname.
Russia and Poland both use it, and have given it the feminines,
Ssolominija and Salomea; but Schalem had already formed a true
feminine name of its own, well known in Arabic literature as Suleima,
Selma, or Selima.
But returning to the high associations whence the names of
Christians should take their source, we find Salome honoured indeed
as one of the women first at the sepulchre; and it is surprising that
thus recommended, her name should not have been more frequent.
It sometimes does occur in England, and Salomée is known in France;
but it is nowhere really popular except in Switzerland, where, oddly
enough, Salomeli is the form for the unmarried, and Salome is
restricted to the wife.
In Denmark, similarity of sound led Solomon to be chosen as the
ecclesiastical name, so to speak, of persons whose genuine appellation
was Solmund, or sun’s protection. Perhaps it was in consequence
that the Lord Mayor of London, of 1216, obtained the name of
Solomon de Basing. The county of Cornwall much later shows a
Soloma.[18] It is a question whether Lemuel be another name for
Solomon. It means “to God,” or “dedicated to God,” and was a
favourite at one time with Puritan mothers. Swift made it famous;
but Lemuel Gulliver was by no means an improbable north country
name, and Lemuel is not wholly disused even now.
By the time the kingdom was established most of the Israelite
names were becoming repetitions of former ones, and comparatively
few fresh ones come to light, though there are a few sufficiently used
to be worth cursorily noting down.
Hezekiah meant strength of the Lord, and in the Greek became
Ezekias. Ezekiel is like it, meaning God will strengthen. The great
prophet who was the chief glory of Hezekiah’s reign was Isaiah (the
salvation of the Lord), made by Greek translators into Esaias, and
thence called by old French and English, Esaie, or Esay. The
Russians, who have all the old prophetic names, have Eesaia; but it
is not easy to account for the choice of Ysaie le Triste as the name of
the child of Tristram and Yseulte in the romance that carried on
49their history to another generation, unless we suppose that Ysaie was
supposed to be the masculine of Yseulte! the one being Hebrew, and
meaning as above, the other Keltic, and meaning a sight.
Contemporary with Hezekiah, and persecuted by the Assyrian
monarch when he returned to Nineveh after the miraculous destruction
of his host, was the blind Israelite of the captivity whose name
is explained to have been probably Tobijah (the goodness of the
Lord), a name occurring again in the prophet Zechariah, and belonging
afterwards to one of the Samaritan persecutors. Probably, in
Greek, came the variation of the names of the father and son; perhaps
the latter was once meant for Tobides, the son of Tobias.
The marvellous element in the book of Tobit gained for it much
popularity; scenes from it appeared in art. Thus Tobias had a diffusion
in the later middle ages much greater than the names of his
contemporaries of far more certain history, and in Ireland Toby has
enjoyed the honour, together with Thaddeus and Timothy, of figuring
as an equivalent for Tadgh, a poet.
| English. |
French. |
Swiss. |
Hamburg. |
Italian. |
Russian. |
| Tobias |
Tobie |
Tobies |
Tewes |
Tobia |
Tobija |
| Tobit |
|
Tebes |
|
|
Tobej |
| Toby |
|
Tebos |
|
|
|
| |
|
Beiali |
|
|
|
Hephzibah (my delight is in her), was the wife of Hezekiah, and it
may have been in allusion to her that Isaiah spoke of the land being
called Hephsibah. It has been rather a favourite name in America,
where it gets turned into Hepsy.
As Judah sinned more and more and her fate drew on, Jeremiah
stood forth as her leading prophet. His name meant exalted of the
Lord, and became Jeremias in the Greek, Jeremy in vernacular
English. As the name of some of the early eastern saints it has had
a partial irregular sort of use in the West, and is adopted direct from
the prophet in the Greco-Slavonic Churches. The French, struck
by the mournful strain of the prophet, use Jeremiade to express a
lamentation; and the English are rather too ready to follow their
example. Jeremy is considered as another variety of equivalent for
the Gaelic Diarmaid, and this has led to the frequency of Jerry
among families of Irish connection. In Switzerland, Jeremias is contracted
into Meies or Mies; in Russia it is Jeremija; but nowhere
has it been so illustrious in modern times as in the person of our own
Jeremy Taylor. The king whom Jeremiah saw led into captivity
was Zedekiah (justice of the Lord).
The prophet of the captivity, Daniel, bore in his name an amplification
of that of Dan (a judge). The termination signified God the
judge, and the alias Belteshazzar, imposed upon him by the Chaldean
monarch, is considered to translate and heathenize the name, making
Bel the judge. It is observable that Daniel never calls himself thus,
though he gives these heathen titles to his three companions.
50Daniel has always flourished as a name in the East. Daniel and
Verda (a rose), were martyred by Shapoor in 344; another Daniel
was crazy enough to succeed Simeon Stylites on his pillar; and thus
the Armenian, Montenegrin, and Slavonian races are all much
attached to Daniela, or Daniil, as they call it in Russia; or in
Esthonia, Taniel or Tanni. The Welsh adopted it as Deiniol, the
name of the saint who founded the monastery of Bangor, the High
Choir, in the sixth century, and it was thus known to the Bretons;
and in Ireland it was adopted as the equivalent to Domnall, Donacha,
and other names from Don (or brown-haired), thus causing Dan to
be one of the most frequent of Irish contractions.
St. Jerome “transfixed with a dagger”—with his pen—the additional
chapters of the Book of Daniel relating to the story of Susanna,
to show that he did not regard it as genuine, but, like the story of
Judith, it was greatly more popular than the narratives in the
canonical books, and was commemorated in ballad, mystery, tapestry,
and painting. The name was properly Schuschannah (a lily), though
we know it as Susannah. It belonged to one of the holy women
at the sepulchre, and it was likewise in the calendar, for two virgin
martyrs, named Susanna, had suffered in the times of persecution,
and though not commemorated in the Western Church, Queen
Susanna, the “Lily of Tiflis,” had died for the truth in the hands
of Mahometans. The name has been chiefly popular in France and
Switzerland, as in England. The Swiss contraction, Züsí-Ketti, for
Susanne-Catherine, is quaint.[19]
| English. |
German. |
Bavarian |
| Susannah |
Susanne |
Susanne |
| Susan |
Suschen |
Sanrl |
| Susie |
Suse |
Sandrl |
| Sukey |
|
|
| Sue |
|
|
| Swiss. |
French. |
Lithuanian. |
| Susanne |
Susanne |
Zuzane |
| Zosa |
Suzette |
|
| Zosel |
Suzon |
|
| Zösel |
|
|
This may be the best place to mention the Aramean Tabitha,
explained by St. Luke as the same as Dorcas (a roe or gazelle), the
Greek word being from its full dark eye. Tabitha and Dorcas both
have associations unsuited to the “dear gazelle.” As the charitable
disciple raised by St. Peter, her names were endeared to the Puritans.
Of the minor prophets, the names have been little employed. Joel
meant strong-willed; Amos, a burthen; Obadiah, servant of the
51Lord, has been slightly more popular, perhaps, in honour of him who
hid the prophets in a cave, with whom the mediæval imagination
confounded the prophet, so that loaves of bread are the emblem of
Obadiah in ancient pictures of the twelve prophets. Even the
Abbacuc, as the Apocrypha calls him, who, in the story of Bel and
the Dragon is carried off by the hair to feed Daniel in the den of
lions, seems to have been likewise supposed to be the same person in
the strange notions of Scripture history that once floated among our
forefathers. The name of Abacuck, or Habbakkuk, was conferred
upon a child by one of the last persons one would have suspected of
such a choice, namely, Mary, Queen of Scots. On her way to mass,
she was waylaid by one of her caterers, who acquainted her that he
had a child to be baptized, and desired her to give the name. “She
said she would open the Bible in the chapel, and whatever name she
cast up, that should be given to the child;” and for the child’s misfortune
it proved to be ‘Abacuck!’ The name comes from the verb
to clasp, and means embracing.
Micah is a contraction of Micaiah, and means “Who is like unto
the Lord.” Nahum—to us connected with “Tate and Brady”—was
consolation; Nehemiah expanded it, adding the Divine termination;
Zephaniah is, protected of the Lord; Haggai (festival of the Lord),
called Aggae, when brought through a Greek medium, is rather a
favourite in Russia.
Zachariah (remembrance of the Lord), has been more in favour.
After belonging to a king of Israel and to the priest murdered by
King Jehoash, it came forth after the captivity as Zechariah with the
prophet; and in the New Testament, as Zacharias, names the father
of the Baptist; and the mysterious martyr who was to fill up the
measure of the iniquity of the Jews; and again appears as Zaccheus,
the publican of Jericho. It was rather frequent among Eastern
Christians, and belonged to the pope who first invited the Franks
into Italy to protect him from the Lombards; nor has it ever quite
died away in the West, although nowhere popular.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Danish. |
| Zacharias |
Zacharie |
Zaccaria |
Sakerl |
| Zachary |
|
|
|
| Zach |
|
|
|
| Bavarian. |
Russian. |
Slavonic. |
Illyrian. |
| Zachereis |
Sacharija |
|
Sakarie |
| Zacherl |
Sachar |
Charija |
Zaro |
| Zacher |
|
|
Zako |
| Zaches |
|
|
|
| Zach |
|
|
|
Of those to whom these later prophets were sent, Ezra’s name is
thought to be the same as that of Zerah, son of Judah, the rising of
light, from whom likewise Heman, the writer of the 88th Psalm, is
52termed the Ezrahite. The name of Ezra is hardly to be recognized
in that of Esdras, as the Greek translators rendered it.[20] The house
of Aphrah, mentioned in the Prophet Micah, means the house of dust,
or ashes, and the Puritans, with their love of piteous names, adopted
Aphra as a name. As well it appears as ‘Dust’ and ‘Ashes’ in actual
English.[21]
We have thrown these together, because, though our common term
for those spiritual messengers is Greek, yet all the other words for
them, as well as the three individual angelic designations that have
come into use as baptismal names, are derived from the Hebrew.
Moreover, the first of these belonged to the last of the prophets,
Malach-jah, the angel or messenger of God. It has even been thought
by some commentators that this title of the prophet was the quotation
of his own words, “Behold, I send my messenger (or Malachi)
before my face.”
Malachi would never have been a modern name, but for the Irish
fancy that made it the equivalent of Maelseachlain, the disciple of
St. Sechnall, or Secundus, a companion of St. Patrick; and as the
era of him who is now called King Malachi with the collar of gold,
was particularly prosperous, the name has come into some amount of
popularity.
The Septuagint always translated Malach by Ἀγγελος, even in that
first sentence of the prophet, which in our version bears his name.
Angelos had simply meant a messenger in Greek, as it still does; but
it acquired the especial signification of a heavenly messenger, both in
its own tongue, and in the Latin, whither Angelus was transplanted
with this and no other sense.
Angelos first became a name in the Byzantine Empire. It probably
began as an epithet, since it comes to light in the person of
Konstantinos Angelos, a young man of a noble family of Philadelphia,
whose personal beauty caused him, about the year 1100, to become
the choice of the Princess Theodora Komnena. It is thus highly
probable that Angelos was first bestowed as a surname, on account
of the beauty of the family. They were on the throne in 1185, and
Angelos continued imperial till the miserable end of the unhappy
Isaac, and his son, Alexios, during the misdirected crusade of the
Venetians. Angelos thus became known among the Greeks; and
somewhere about 1217, there came a monastic saint, so called, to
Sicily, who preached at Palermo, and was murdered by a wicked
count, whose evil doings he had rebuked. The Carmelites claimed
St. Angelo as a saint of their order, and his name, both masculine
and feminine, took hold of the fancy of Italy, varied by the Neapolitan
dialect into Agnolo or Aniello—e. g., the wonderful fisherman,
Masaniello, was, in fact, Tomasso Angelo; by the Venetian into
Anziolo, Anzioleto, Anzioleta; and by the Florentine, into Angiolo,
53Angioletto, and thence into the ever-renowned contraction Giotto,
unless indeed this be from Gotofredo. It passed to other nations, but
was of more rare occurrence there, except in the feminine. The
fashion of complimenting women as angels, left the masculine Ange
to be scantily used in France, and Angel now and then in England;
but in Italy alone did Angiolo, and its derivative Angelico, thrive.
All the other countries adopted the feminine, either in the simple
form or the diminutive, or most commonly, the derivative, Angelica
(angelical), noted in romance as the faithless lady, for whose sake
Orlando lost his heart, and his senses. She was a gratuitous invention
of Boiardo and Ariosto; whose character for surpassing beauty
made her name popular, and thus Angelica and Angelique have always
been favourites.
| English. |
German. |
French. |
| Angela |
Engel |
Angele |
| Angelot |
Engelchen |
Angeline |
| Angelina |
Angelina |
Angelique |
| Angelica |
Angelica |
|
| Italian. |
Polish. |
Bohemian. |
| Angiola |
Ancela |
Anjela |
| Angioletta |
|
Anjelina |
| Angelica |
|
Anjelika |
| Agnola |
|
|
| Anzioleta |
|
|
Angel was most often a man’s name in England. We find it at
Hadleigh, Suffolk, in 1591, and sometimes likewise in Cornwall.
Archangel has even been used as an English name.
The mysterious creatures that are first mentioned as “keeping the
way of the tree of life,” then were represented in the tabernacle overshadowing
the ark, and afterwards were revealed in vision to the
Prophet Ezekiel and to the Apostle St. John, combined in their
forms the symbols of all that was wisest, bravest, strongest, and
loftiest in creation—the man, the lion, the ox, and eagle.
In the lands where Art made the Cherub a mere head with wings,
Cherubino arose as a Christian name, for it is hardly ever to be met
with out of Spain and Italy.
Equally misused is Seraph—now a lady’s name, as Seraphine in
France; Serafina, in Spain and Italy. The word seraph, or saraph,
signifies burning, or fiery, and would apply to that intensity of glory
that Ezekiel struggles to express in the cherubim by comparisons to
amber and to glowing embers, or to their intense fervour of love.
Three individual angels have been revealed to us by name as of
the seven that stand in the presence of God, and foremost of these is
Michael (who is like unto God), he who was made known to Daniel
as the protector of the Jewish people; to Zechariah, as defending
54them from Satan; to St. Jude, as disputing with Satan for the body
of Moses; and to St. John, as leading the hosts of Heaven to battle
with the adversary and prevailing over him.
His name would have seemed in itself fit only for an archangel,
yet before apparently he had been made known, it had been borne
by the father of one of David’s captains, and by a son of Jehoshaphat,
and it was almost the same as Micaiah, the name of him who foretold
the destruction of Ahab.
Constantine the Great dedicated a church in his new city in
honour of St. Michael, the archangel, and thenceforth Mickaelion, or
Mikael, have been favourites with all branches of the Eastern Church.
An appearance of the archangel in Colosse led the way to another
legend of his descent upon Monte Galgano in Apulia, somewhere
about 493. Then came a more notable vision, seen by Gregory the
Great himself, of the angel standing with outstretched sword on the
tomb of Adrian, which has ever since been called the castle of St.
Angelo. In 706, St. Michael was again seen to take his stand upon
the isolated rock on the Norman coast, so noted as the fortress and
convent of Mont St. Michel. Moreover tradition placed him upon
the Cornish rock,—
“When the great vision of the guarded mount
Looked towards Namancos and Bayona’s hold.”
He was above all others the patron of the Christian warrior; his
armour-clad effigy was seen in almost every church; the young
knight was dubbed in his name, as well as that of the national saint;
and since the prevalence of saintly names, his name has been frequently
bestowed. It is, perhaps, most common in the Greek and
Slavonic countries; but Ireland makes great use of it; and Italy has
united it with the epithet angel, in the one distinguished instance of
Michelangelo Buonarotti.
| English. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
| Michael |
Michel |
Miguel |
Michele |
| Mick |
Michon |
|
|
| Mike |
Michau |
|
|
| German. |
Dutch. |
Swedish. |
Russian. |
| Michael |
Michiel |
Mikael |
Michail |
| Micha |
Micheltje |
Mikel |
Michaila |
| Micha |
|
Mikas |
Misha |
| |
|
|
Mischenka |
| |
|
|
|
| Slavonic. |
Servian. |
Lett. |
Hungarian. |
| Miha |
Miljo |
Mikkelis |
Mihaly |
| Mihal |
Miho |
|
Mihal |
| Mihaljo |
Misa |
|
Miska |
| |
Mijailo |
|
|
55There is some confusion in the German mind between it and the
old michel (mickle, large), which, as a name, it has quite absorbed.
It has the rare feminines,
| French. |
Russian. |
Portuguese. |
| Michelle |
Micheline |
Miguella |
| Michée |
Mikelina |
|
Legend has been far less busy with Gabriel, “the hero of God;”
the angel who strengthened Daniel, and who brought the promise to
Zacharias and to the Blessed Virgin. His name is chiefly used by
the Slavonians; and in Hungary we find it in combination with
Bethlehem, belonging to that noted chieftain, Bethlem Gabor.
It was known and used everywhere, however; and the Swedish
house of Oxenstjerna considered it to have been the saving of their
line from extinction, all their sons having died in the cradle, owing,
it was thought, to Satan’s strangling them; till at length one was
named Gabriel; and having thus obtained the protection of the
guardian angel, survived to be the ancestor of the minister of the
great Gustavus. The feminine, Gabrielle, has been a favourite in
France ever since la belle Gabrielle gave it a reputation for beauty.
| English. |
German. |
Bavarian. |
Swiss. |
Italian. |
| Gabriel |
Gabriel |
Gabe |
Gabëler |
Gabriello |
| Gab |
|
Gaberl |
|
|
| Russian. |
Polish. |
Illyrian |
Lett. |
Hungarian. |
| Gavrül |
Gabryel |
Gabriel |
Gaberjels |
Gabriel |
| Gavrila |
|
Gavrilo |
Gabris |
Gabor |
| |
|
Gavril |
|
|
| |
|
Gavro |
|
|
| FEMININE. |
| French. |
German. |
Slavonic. |
|
|
| Gabrielle |
Gabriele |
Gavrila |
|
|
| |
|
Gavra |
|
|
Raphael (the medicine of God), is the angel who guided Tobias
and healed his father. Italy and Spain are the countries where his
name is most used, and well it may, in the first named, after the
fame of him who has made it the highest proverb in art. It hardly
varies, except by the double ff Italian, and the single one of Spain,
to supply its Greek φ. I have heard of a girl at Mentone called
Ravelina, probably Raffaellina.[22]
PART III. — CHAPTER I. NAMES PROM THE GREEK. — CHAPTER II. NAMES FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY. — Section I. — Section II. — Names from Zeus. — Section III. —Ἡρα—Hera. — Section IV. — Athene. — Section V. — Apollo and Artemis. — Section VI. — Hele. — Section VII. — Demeter. — Section VIII. — Dionysos. — Section IX. — Hermes. — Section X. — Heroic Names. — CHAPTER III. NAMES FROM ANIMALS, ETC. — Section I. — The Lion. — Section II. — The Horse. — Section III. — The Goat. — Section IV. — The Bee. — Section V. — Names from Flowers. — CHAPTER IV. HISTORICAL GREEK NAMES CONSISTING OF EPITHETS. — Section I. — Agathos. — Section II. — Alexander, &c. — Section III. — Anēr, Andros. — Section IV. — Eu. — Section V. — Hieros. — Section VI. — Pan. — Section VII. — Polys. — Section VIII. — Phile, &c. — Section IX. — Names connected with the Constitution.—Laos, &c. — CHAPTER V. CHRISTIAN GREEK NAMES. — Section I. — Section II. — Names from Theos. — Section III. — Names from Christos. — Section IV. — Sophia. — Section V. — Petros. — Section VI. — Names of Immortality. — Section VII. — Royal Names. — Section VIII. — Irene. — Section IX. — Gregorios. — Section X. — Georgos. — Section XI. — Barbara. — Section XII. — Agnes. — Section XIII. — Margaret. — Section XIV. — Katharine. — Section XV. — Harvest Names. — Section XVI. — Names from Jewels. — Section XVII. — Kosmos and Damianos. — Section XVIII. — Alethea, &c.
59
Passing from Persian to Greek names, we feel at once that we are
nearer home, and that we claim a nearer kindred in thoughts and
habits, if not in blood, with the sons of Javan, than with the fire-worshippers.
The national names are thus almost always explicable
by the language itself, with a few exceptions, either when the name
was an importation from Egypt or Phœnicia, whence many of the
earlier arts had been brought.
Each Greek had but one name, which was given to him by his
father either on or before the tenth day of his life, when a sacrifice
and banquet was held. Genealogies were exceedingly interesting to
the Greeks, as the mutual connection of city with city, race with race,
was thus kept up, and community of ancestry was regarded as a bond
of alliance, attaching the Athenians, for instance, to the Asiatic
Ionians as both sons of Ion, or the Spartans to the Syracusans, as
likewise descended from Doros. Each individual state had its deified
ancestor, and each family of note a hero parent, to whom worship
was offered at every feast, and who was supposed still to exert active
protection over his votaries. The political rights of the citizens, and
the place they occupied in the army, depended on their power of
tracing their line from the forefather of a recognized tribe, after whose
name the whole were termed with the patronymic termination ides
(the son of). This was only, however, a distinction, for surnames were
unknown, and each man possessed merely the individual personal
appellation by which he was always called, without any title, be his
station what it might. Families used, however, to mark themselves
by recurring constantly to the same name. It was the correct thing
to give the eldest son that of his paternal grandfather, as Kimon,
Miltiades, then Kimon again, if the old man were dead, for if he were
living it would have been putting another in his place, a bad omen,
and therefore a father’s name was hardly ever given to a son. Sometimes,
however, the prefix was preserved, and the termination varied,
so as to mark the family without destroying the individual identity.
Thus, Leonidas, the third son of Anaxandridas, repeated with an
60augmentative his grandfather’s name of Leo (a lion), as his father,
Anaxandridas, did that of his own great grandfather, Anaxandras
(king of man), whose son Eurycratidas was named from his grandfather
Eurycrates. A like custom prevailed among the old English.
After the Romans had subdued Greece and extended the powers of
becoming citizens, the name of the adopting patron would be taken
by his client, and thus Latin and Greek titles became mixed together.
Later, Greek second names became coined, either from patronymics,
places, or events, and finally ran into the ordinary European system
of surnames.
Among the names here ensuing will only be found those that concern
the history of Christian names. Many a great heart-thrilling sound
connected with the brightest lights of the ancient world must be
passed by, because it has not pleased the capricious will of after-generations
to perpetuate it, or so exceptionally as not to be worth
mentioning.
Some of the female Greek names were appropriate words and epithets;
but others, perhaps the greater number, were merely men’s names
with the feminine termination in a or e, often irrespective of their
meaning. Some of these have entirely perished from the lips of men,
others have been revived by some enterprising writer in search of a
fresh title for a heroine. Such is Corinna (probably from Persephone’s
title Κόρη (Koré), a maiden)maiden), the Bœotian poetess, who won a wreath
of victory at Thebes, and was therefore the example from whom
Mdme. de Staël named her brilliant Corinne, followed in her turn by
numerous French damsels; and in an Italian chronicle of the early
middle ages, the lady whom we have been used to call Rowena,
daughter of Henghist, has turned into Corinna; whilst Cora, probably
through Lord Byron’s poem, is a favourite in America. Such too is
Aspasia (welcome), from the literary fame of its first owner chosen
by the taste of the seventeenth century as the title under which to
praise the virtues of Lady Elizabeth Hastings. In the Rambler and
Spectator days, real or fictitious characters were usually introduced
under some classical or pastoral appellation, and ladies corresponded
with each other under the soubriquets of nymph, goddess, or heroine,
and in virtue of its sound Aspasia was adopted among these. It has
even been heard as a Christian name in a cottage. “Her name’s
Aspasia, but us calls her Spash.”[24]
61
Greek appellations may be divided into various classes; the first,
those of the gods and early heroes are derived from languages inexplicable
even by the classical Greeks. These were seldom or never
given to human beings, though derivatives from them often were.
The second class is of those formed from epithets in the spoken
language. These belonged to the Greeks of the historical age, and
such as were borne by the Macedonian conquerors became spread
throughout the East, thus sometimes falling to the lot of early saints
of the Church, and becoming universally popular in Christendom.
Of others of merely classic association a few survived among the native
Greeks, while others were resuscitated at intervals; first, by the vanity
of decaying Rome; next, by the revival of ancient literature in the
Cinque-cento; then, by the magniloquent taste of the Scudery
romances in France; again, in France, by the republican mania;
and, in the present time, by the same taste in America, and by the
reminiscences of the modern Greeks.
After the preaching of the Gospel, Greece had vigour enough to
compose appropriate baptismal names for the converts; and it is
curious to observe that no other country could have ever been so free
from the trammels of hereditary nomenclature, for no other has so
complete a set of names directly bearing upon Christianity. So
graceful are they in sound as well as meaning, and so honoured for
those who bore them, that many have spread throughout Europe.
Lastly, even modern Greek has thrown out many names of graceful
sound, which are, however, chiefly confined to the Romaic.
At the head of the whole Greek system stands the mighty Zeus
(Ζεύς), a word that has been erected into a proper name for the
thundering father of gods and men, whilst the cognate θεὸς (theos)
passed into a generic term; just as at Rome the Deus Pater (God-Father),
or Jupiter, from the same source, became the single god, and
deus the general designation.
All come from the same source as the Sanscrit Deva, and are connected
with the open sky, and the idea of light that has produced our
word day. We shall come upon them again and again; but for the
present we will confine ourselves to the personal names produced by
62Zeus, in his individual character, leaving those from Theos to the
Christian era, to which most of them belong.
Their regular declension of Zeus made Dios the genitive case; and
thus Diodorus, Diogenes, &c., ought, perhaps, to be referred to him;
but the more poetical, and, therefore, most probably the older, form,
was Zenos in the genitive; and as Dios also meant heaven, the above
names seem to be better explained as heaven-gift and heaven-born,
leaving to Zeus only those that retain the same commencement.
Ζηνὼν, or, as it is commonly called, Zeno, was a good deal used in
Greece throughout the classical times, and descending to Christian
times, named a saint martyred under Gallienus, also a bishop of
Verona, who left ninety-three sermons, at the beginning of the fourth
century, and thus made it a canonical name, although the rules of the
Church had forbidden christening children after heathen gods. Except
for the Isaurian Emperor Zeno, and an occasional Russian Sinon,
there has not, however, been much disposition to use the name.
Zenobios, life from Zeus, is by far the easiest way of explaining the
name of the brilliant Queen of Palmyra; but, on the other hand, she
was of Arabian birth, the daughter of Amrou, King of Arabia, and
it is highly probable that she originally bore the true Arabic name
of Zeenab (ornament of the father); and that when she and her
husband entered on intercourse with the Romans, the name Zenobia
was bestowed upon her as an equivalent, together with the genuine
Latin Septima as a mark of citizenship. When her glory waned, and
she was brought as a prisoner to Rome, she and her family were
allowed to settle in Italy; and her daughters left descendants there.
Zenobius, the Bishop of Milan, who succeeded St. Ambrose, bore her
name, and claimed her blood; and thus Zenobio and Zenobia still
linger among the inhabitants of the city.
The romance of her story caught the French fancy, and Zénobie
has been rather in fashion among modern French damsels.
A Cilician brother and sister, called Zenobius and Zenobia, the
former a physician and afterwards Bishop of Ægæ, were put to death
together during the persecution of Diocletian, and thus became saints
of the Eastern Church, making Sinovij, Sinovija, or for short, Zizi,
very fashionable among the Russians.
It is much more difficult to account for the prevalence of Zenobia
in Cornwall. Yet many parish registers show it as of an early date:
and dear to the West is the story of a sturdy dame called Zenobia
Brengwenna, (Mrs. Piozzi makes the surname Stevens,) who, on her
ninety-ninth birthday, rode seventeen miles on a young colt to
restore to the landlord a 99 years' lease that had been granted to her
father, in her name, at her birth.
Probably Zenaïda means daughter of Zeus. Although not belonging
to any patron saint, it is extensively popular among Russian
ladies; and either from them, or from the modern Greek, the French
have recently become fond of Zenaïde.[25]
63
The name of the white-armed, ox-eyed queen of heaven, Ἡρα or
Ἡρη (Hera or Heré), is derived by philologists from the same root as
the familiar German herr and herrinn, and thus signifies the lady or
mistress. Indeed the masculine form ἥρως, whence we take our
hero, originally meant a free or noble man, just as herr does in
ancient German, and came gradually to mean a person distinguished
on any account, principally in arms; and thence it became technically
applied to the noble ancestors who occupied an intermediate place
between the gods and existing men. The Latin herus and hera are
cognate, and never rose out of their plain original sense of master and
mistress, though the heros was imported in his grander sense from the
Greek, and has passed on to us.
It is curious that whereas the wife of Zeus was simply the lady, it
was exactly the same with Frigga, who, as we shall by-and-by see,
was merely the Frau—the free woman or lady.
Hera herself does not seem to have had many persons directly
named after her, though there was plenty from the root of her name.
The feminine Hero was probably thus derived,—belonging first to
one of the Danaïdes, then to a daughter of Priam, then to the maiden
whose light led Leander to his perilous breasting of the Hellespont,
and from whom Shakespeare probably took it for the lady apparently
“done to death by slanderous tongues.”
It is usual to explain as Ἡρα-κλῆς (fame of Hera) the name of the
son of Zeus and Alcmena, whose bitterest foe Hera was, according to
the current legends of Greece; but noble fame is a far more probable
origin for Herakles, compound as he is of the oft-repeated Sun-myth
mixed with the veritable Samson, and the horrible Phœnician Melkarth
or Moloch, with whom the Tyrians themselves identified
Herakles.
A few compounds, such as Heraclius, Heraclidas, Heracleonas, have
been formed from Herakles, the hero ancestor of the Spartan kings,
and therefore specially venerated in Lacedæmon. The Latins called
the name Hercules; and it was revived in the Cinque-cento, in Italy,
as Ercole. Thus Hercule was originally the baptismal name of
Catherine de Medici’s youngest son; but he changed it to François at
his confirmation, when hoping to mount a throne. Exceptionally,
Hercules occurs in England; and we have known of more than one
old villager called Arkles, respecting whom there was always a doubt
whether he were Hercules or Archelaus.
Hence, too, the name of the father of history, Herodotus (noble
gift); hence, likewise, that of Herodes. Some derive this last from
the Arab hareth (a farmer); but it certainly was a Greek name long
before the Idumean family raised themselves to the throne of Judea,
since a poet was so called who lived about the time of Cyrus. If
the Herods were real Edomites, they may have Græcized Hareth into
Herodes; but it is further alleged that the first Herod, grandfather
of the first king, was a slave, attached to the temple of Apollo at
64Ascalon, taken captive by Idumean robbers. Hateful as is the name
in its associations, its feminine, Herodias, became doubly hateful as
the murderess of John the Baptist.
The noble goddess of wisdom, pure and thoughtful, armed against
evil, and ever the protector of all that was thoughtfully brave and
resolute, was called Αθήνη (Athene), too anciently for the etymology
to be discernible, or even whether her city of Athens was called from
her, or she from the city.
Many an ancient Greek was called in honour of her, but the only
one of these names that has to any degree survived is Athenaïs.
There were some Cappadocian queens, so called; and so likewise
was the daughter of a heathen philosopher in the fourth century,
whom the able Princess Pulcheria selected as the wife of her brother
Theodosius, altering her name, however, to Eudocia at her baptism.
It must have been the Scudery cycle of romance that occasioned
Athenaïs to have been given to that Demoiselle de Mortémar, who
was afterwards better known as Madame de Montespan.
Athenaios (Athenian), Athenagoras (assembly of Athene), Athenadgoros
(gift of Athene), were all common among the Greeks.
Athene’s surname of Pallas is derived by Plato from πάλλειν, to
brandish, because of her brandished spear; but it is more likely to
be from πάλλαξ (a virgin), which would answer to her other surname
of παρθένος, likewise a virgin, familiar to us for the sake of the most
beautiful of all heathen remains, the Parthenon, as well as the ancient
name of Naples, Parthenope. This, however, was a female name in
Greece, and numerous instances of persons called Parthenios and
Palladios attest the general devotion to this goddess, perhaps the
grandest of all the imaginings of the Indo-European.
There is something absolutely satisfactory in seeing how much
more the loftier and purer deities, Athene, Apollo, Artemis, reigned
over Greek nomenclature than the embodiments of brute force and
sensual pleasure, Ares and Aphrodite, both probably introductions
from the passionate Asiatics, and as we see in Homer, entirely on the
Trojan side. An occasional Aretas and Arete are the chief recorded
namesakes of Ares, presiding god of the Areopagus as he was; and
thence may have come the Italian Aretino, and an Areta, who appears
in Cornwall. Aphrodite seems to have hardly one derived from her
name, which is explained as the Foam Sprung.[26]
The brother and sister deities, twin children of Zeus and Leto, are,
with the exception of Athene, the purest and brightest creations of
Greek mythology.
65The sister’s name, Artemis, certainly meant the sound, whole, or
vigorous; that of the brother, Apollōn, is not so certainly explained;
though Æschylus considered it to come from ἀπόλλυμι, to destroy.
They both of them had many votaries in Greece; such names as
Apollodorus (gift of Apollo), Apollonius, and the like, arising in
plenty, but none of them have continued into Christian times,
though Apollos was a companion of St. Paul. The sole exception is
Apollonia, an Alexandrian maiden, whose martyrdom began by the
extraction of all her teeth, thus establishing St. Apolline, as the
French call her, as the favourite subject of invocation in the toothache.
Abellona, the Danish form of this name, is a great favourite
in Jutland and the isles, probably from some relic of the toothless
maiden. The Slovaks use it as Polonija or Polona.
The votaries of Artemis did not leave a saint to perpetuate them;
but Artemisia, the brave queen of Halicarnassus, had a name of
sufficient stateliness to delight the précieuses. Thus Artémise was
almost as useful in French romances as the still more magnificentmagnificent
Artémidore, the French version of Artemidorus (gift of Artemis).
It was a late fancy of mythology, when all was becoming confused,
that made Apollo and Artemis into the sun and moon deities, partly
in consequence of their epithets Phœbus, Phœbe, from φάω (to shine).
The original Phœbe seems to have belonged to some elder myth, for
she is said to have been daughter of Heaven and Earth, and to have
been the original owner of the Delphic oracle. Afterwards she was
said to have been the mother of Leto (the obscure), and thus grandmother
of Apollo and Artemis, who thence took their epithet. This
was probably a myth of the alternation of light and darkness; but as
we have received our notions of Greek mythology through the dull
Roman medium, it is almost impossible to disentangle our idea of
Phœbus from the sun, or of Phœbe from the crescent moon. In like
manner the exclusively modern Greek φωτεινή (bright), Photinee,
comes from φώς phos (light), as does Photius, used in Russia as Fotie.
Strangely enough, we find Phœbus among the mediæval Counts of
Foix, who, on the French side of their little Pyrenean county were
Gaston Phœbus; on the Spanish, Gastone Febo. Some say that Phœbus
was originally a soubriquet applied to one of the family on account
of his personal beauty, though it certainly was afterwards given at
baptism; others, that it was an imitation of an old Basque name.
Phœbe was a good deal in use among the women of Greek birth in
the early Roman empire; and “Phœbe, our sister,” the deaconessdeaconess of
Cenchrea, is commended by St. Paul to the Romans; but she has
had few namesakes, except in England; the Italian Febe only being
used as a synonym for the moon.
Cynthia was a title belonging to Artemis, from Mount Cynthus,
and has thence become a title of the moon, and a name of girls in
America.
Delia, another title coming from Delos, the place of her nativity, has
been preferred by the Arcadian taste, and flourished in shepherdess
poems, so as to be occasionally used as a name in England, but more
often as a contraction for Cordelia.
66Delphinios and Delphinia were both of them epithets of Apollo
and Artemis, of course from the shrine at Delphi. Some say that
shrine and god were so called because the serpent Python was named
Delphinè; others, that the epithet was derived from his having
metamorphosed himself into a dolphin, or else ridden upon one, when
showing the Cretan colonists the way to Delphi.
The meaning of Delphys adelphus is the womb; and thus the Greeks
believed Delphi to be the centre of the earth, just as the mediæval
Christians thought Jerusalem was. It is from this word that delphis
(a brother) is derived, and from one no doubt of the same root, that
was first a mass, and afterwards a dolphin, the similarity of sound
accounting for the confusion of derivatives from the temple and the
fish. Again, the dolphin is said to be so called as being the fish of the
Dolphièm god.
It was probably as an attribute of the god that Delphinos was used
as a name by the Greeks; and it makes its first appearance in
Christian times in two regions under Greek influence, namely,
Venice and Southern France, which latter place was much beholden
for civilization to the Greek colony of Massilia. Dolfino has always
prevailed in the Republic of St. Mark; and Delphinus was a sainted
bishop of Bourdeaux, in the fourth century, from whom many, both
male and female, took the name, which to them was connected with
the fish of Jonah, the emblem of the Resurrection.
In 1125, Delfine, heiress of Albon, married Guiges, Count of
Viennois. She was his third wife; and to distinguish her son from
the rest of the family, he was either called or christened, Guiges
Delphin, and assumed the dolphin as his badge, whence badge and
title passed to his descendants, the Counts Dauphins de Viennois. The
last of these left his country and title to Charles, son of King Jean of
France; and thence the heir-apparent was called the Dauphin.
Dalphin appears at Cambrai before 1200; and Delphine de Glandèves,
sharing the saintly honours of her husband, Count Elzéar de St.
Sabran, became the patroness of the many young ladies in compliment
to la dauphine.
It is startling to meet with ‘Dolphin’ as a daughter of the unfortunate
Waltheof, Earl of Mercia; but unless her mother, Judith,
imported the French Delphine, it is probable that it is a mistake for
one of the many forms of the Frank, Adel, which was displacing its
congener the native Æthel. Indeed, Dolfine, which is very common
among German girls now, is avowedly the contraction of Adolfine,
their feminine for Adolf (noble wolf).
The sun-god who drove his flaming chariot around the heavenly
vault day by day, and whose eye beheld everything throughout the
earth, was in Homer’s time an entirely different personage from the “far
darting Apollo,” with whom, thanks to the Romans, we confound him.
Helios was his name, a word from the root elé (light), the same
67that has furnished the Teutonic adjective hell (bright or clear), and
that is met again in the Keltic heol (the sun).
This root ele (heat or light) is found again in the Greek name of
the moon, Sēēlēnē once a separate goddess from Artemis. One of the
Cleopatras was called Selene; but it does not appear that this was
used again as a name till in the last century, when Selina was adopted
in England, probably by mistake, for the French Céline, and belonged
to the Wesleyan Countess of Huntingdon.
From ēlē again sprang the name most of all noted among Greeks,
the fatal name of Ἑλένε, Helene, the feminine of Helenos (the light
or bright), though Æschylus, playing on the word, made it ἑλένας
(the ship-destroying).
“Wherefore else this fatal name,
That Helen and destruction are the same.”
A woman may be a proverb for any amount of evil or misfortune,
but as long as she is also a proverb for beauty, her name will be copied,
and Helena never died away in Greece, and latterly was copied by
Roman ladies when they first became capable of a little variety.
At last it was borne by the lady who was the wife of Constantius
Chlorus, the mother of Constantine, and the restorer of the shrines
at Jerusalem. St. Helena, holding the true cross, was thenceforth
revered by East and West. Bithynia on the one hand, Britain on
the other, laid claim to have been her birth-place, and though it is
unfortunately most likely that the former country is right, and that
she can hardly be the daughter of “Old King Cole,” yet it is certain
that the ancient Britons held her in high honour. Eglwys Ilan, the
Church of Helen, still exists in Wales, and the insular Kelts have
always made great use of her name. Ellin recurs in old Welsh
pedigrees from the Empress’s time. Elayne is really the old Cambrian
form occurring in registers from early times, and thus explaining
the gentle lady Elayne, the mother of Sir Galahad, whom Tennyson
has lately identified with his own spinning Lady of Shalott. Helen,
unfortunately generally pronounced Ellen, was used from the first
in Scotland; Eileen or Aileen in Ireland.
Nor are these Keltic Ellens the only offspring of the name. Elena
in Italy, it assumed the form of Aliénor among the Romanesque
populations of Provence, who, though speaking a Latin tongue, greatly
altered and disguised the words. Indeed there are some who derive
this name from έλεος (pity), but there is much greater reason to
suppose it another variety of Helena, not more changed than many
other Provençal names. Aliénor in the land of troubadours received
all the homage that the Languedoc could pay, and one Aliénor at
least was entirely spoilt by it, namely, she who was called Eléonore
by the French king who had the misfortune to marry her, and who
became in time on English lips our grim Eleanor of the dagger and
the bowl, the hateful AquitainianAquitainian grandmother, who bandies words
with Constance of Brittany in King John. Her daughter, a person
of far different nature, carried her name to Castille, where, the language
being always disposed to cut off a commencing e, she was
68known as Leonor, and left hosts of namesakes. Her descendant, the
daughter of San Fernando, brought the name back to England, and, as
our “good Queen Eleanor,” did much to redeem its honour, which
the levity of her mother-in-law, the Provençal Aliénor of Henry III.,
had greatly prejudiced. Eleanor continued to be a royal name as
long as the Plantagenets were on the throne, and thus was widely
used among the nobility, and afterwards by all ranks, when of course
it lost its proper spelling and was turned into Ellinor and Elinor, still,
however, owning its place in song and story. Annora, frequent in
Northern England, was the contraction of Eleanora, and was further
contracted into Annot. Also Ellen was Lina, or Linot.
| Greek. |
Latin. |
English. |
Scotch. |
| Ἑλένη |
Helena |
Helena |
Helen |
| |
|
Helen |
Ellen |
| |
|
Elaine |
|
| |
|
Ellen |
|
| Ἑλένἰσκη |
|
Eleanor |
|
| |
|
Elinor |
|
| |
|
Nelly |
|
| Ἑλεναιαι |
|
Leonora |
|
| |
|
Annora |
|
| |
|
Annot |
|
| |
|
Lina |
|
| |
|
Linot |
|
| Irish. |
German. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| Helena |
Helène |
Elena |
Helena |
| |
|
|
|
| Eileen |
Eleonore |
Eleonora |
|
| |
|
|
|
| Nelly |
Lenore |
Leonora |
Leon |
| Russian. |
Polish. |
Slavonic. |
Servian. |
| Jelena |
Helena |
Jelena |
Jelena |
| |
Helenka |
Jela |
Jela |
| |
|
Jelena |
Jelika |
| |
|
Jela |
|
| |
|
Jelika |
|
| |
|
Lenka |
|
| |
|
Lencica |
|
| Lett. |
Esthonian. |
Ung. |
Albanian. |
| Lena |
Leno |
Ilona |
|
| |
|
Ljena |
|
| |
|
Lenia |
|
Meantime the Arragonese conquests in Italy had brought Leonora
thither as a new name independent of Elena, and it took strong root
there, still preserving its poetic fame in the person of the lovely
69Leonora d'Este, the object of Tasso’s hopeless affection. To France
again it came with the Galigai, the Maréchale d'Ancre, the author of
the famous saying about the power of a strong mind over a weak one;
and unpopular as she was, Léonore has ever since been recognized in
French nomenclature, and it went to Germany as Lenore.
The Greek Church was constant to the memory of the Empress,
mother of the founder of Constantinople, and Helena has always been
frequent there. And when the royal widow Olga came from Muscovy
to seek instruction and baptism, she was called Helena, which has
thus become one of the popular Russian names. It is sometimes
supposed to be a translation of Olga, but this is a mistake founded
on the fact that this lady, and another royal saint, were called by
both names. Olga is, in fact, the feminine of Oleg (the Russian
form of Helgi), which the race of Rurik had derived from their Norse
ancestor, and it thus means holy.
Sweden also has a Saint Helene, who made a pilgrimage to Rome,
and was put to death on her return by her cruel relations in 1160.
Her relics were preserved in Zealand, near Copenhagen, making
Ellin a favourite name among Danish damsels.
Helena has a perplexing double pronunciation in English, the
central syllable being made long or short according to the tradition
of the families where it is used. The Greek letter was certainly the
short e, but it is believed that though the quantity of the syllable
was short, the accent was upon it, and that the traditional sound
of it survives in the name of the island which we learnt from the
Portuguese.
Among the elder deities in whom the primitive notion of homage
to the Giver of all Good was lost and dispersed, was the beneficent
mother Demeter (Δημητήρ). Some derive the first syllable of this
name from γῆ (the earth), others from the Cretan δήαι (barley), making
it either earth mother, or barley mother; but the idea of motherhood
is always an essential part of this bounteous goddess, the materializing
of the productive power of the earth, “filling our hearts with food
and gladness.”
Formerly Demeter had numerous votaries, especially among the
Macedonians, who were the greatest name-spreaders among the
Greeks, and used it in all the “four horns” of their divided empire.
It occurs in the Acts, as the silversmith of Ephesus, who stirred up
the tumult against St. Paul, and another Demetrius is commended by
St. John. The Latin Church has no saint so called; but the Greek
had a Cretan monk of the fourteenth century, who was a great
ecclesiastical author; and a Demetrios, who is reckoned as the second
great saint of Thessalonika. Hence Demetrios is one of the most popular
of names in all the Eastern Church, and the countries that have ever
been influenced by it; among whom must be reckoned the Venetian
dominions which considered themselves to belong to the old Byzantine
empire till they were able to stand alone. Dimitri has always
70been a great name in Russia. The Slavonian nations give it the contraction
Mitar, and the feminine Dimitra or Mitra. The modern
Greek contraction is Demos.
In some parts of Greece, Demeter was worshipped primarily as the
gloomy winterly earth, latterly as the humanized goddess clad in
black, in mourning for her daughter, whence she was adored as
Melaina. Whether from this title of the goddess or simply a dark
complexion, there arose the female name of Melania, which belonged
to two Roman ladies, grandmother and granddaughter, who were
among the many who were devoted to the monastic Saint Jerome,
and derived an odour of sanctity from his record of their piety.
Though not placed in the Roman calendar, they are considered as
saints, and the French Mélanie and the old Cornish Melony are
derived from them.
On the contrary, her summer epithet was Chloe, the verdant, as
protectress of green fields, and Chloe seems to have been used by the
Greeks, as a Corinthian woman so called is mentioned by St. Paul,
and has furnished a few scriptural Chloes in England. In general,
however, Chloe has been a property of pastoral poetry, and has thence
descended to negroes and spaniels.[27]
The god of wine and revelry appears to have been adopted into
Greek worship at a later period than the higher divinities embodying
loftier ideas. So wild and discordant are the legends respecting
him, that it is probable that in the Bacchus, or Dionysos, whom the
historical Greeks adored, several myths are united; the leading ones
being, on the one hand, the naturalistic deity of the vine; on the
other, some dimly remembered conqueror.
Dionysos has never been satisfactorily explained, though the most
obvious conclusion is that it means the god of Nysa—a mountain
where he was nursed by nymphs in a cave. Others make his mother
Dione one of the original mythic ideas of a divine creature, the
daughter of Heaven and Earth, and afterwards supposed to be the
mother of Aphrodite.
Names given in honour of Dionysos were very common in Greece,
and especially in the colony of Sicily, where Dion was also in use.
Dionysios, the tyrant, seemed only to make the name more universally
known, and most of the tales of tyranny clustered round him—such
as the story of his ear, of the sword of Damocles, and the devotion of
Damon and Pythias.
In the time of the Apostles, Dionysius was very frequent, and gave
the name of the Areopagite mentioned by St. Paul, of several more
early saints, and of a bishop who, in 272, was sent to convert the Gauls,
and was martyred near Paris. The Abbey erected on the spot where
he died was placed under the special protection of the Counts of
71Paris; and when they dethroned the sons of Charlemagne and
became kings of France, St. Denys, as they called their saint, became
the patron of the country; the banner of the convent, the Oriflamme,
was unfurled in their national wars, and Mont joie St. Denys was
their war-cry. St. Denys of France was invoked, together with St.
Michael, in knighting their young men; and St. Denys of France
was received as one of the Seven Champions of Christendom.
The Sicilians, having a certain confusion in their minds between
the champion and the tyrant of Syracuse, have taken San Dionigi
for their patron; he is also in high favour in Portugal as Diniz, and
in Spain as Dionis. Denis is a very frequent Irish name, as a substitute
for Donogh; and, to judge by the number of the surnames,
Dennis, Denison, and Tennyson or Tenison, it would seem to have
been more common in England than at present. The Russians have
Dionissij; the Bohemians, Diwis; the Slavonians, Tennis; the
Hungarians, Dienes. The feminine is the French Denise; English,
Dionisia, Donnet, Dennet or Diot, which seem to have been at one
time very common in England.[28]
The origin is lost of the name of Hermes, the swift, eloquent, and
cunning messenger of Zeus; but it is supposed to come from hĕra
(the earth), and was called Hermas, Hermes, or Hermeias.
A long catalogue of Greeks might be given bearing names derived
from him; and it was correctly that Shakespeare called his Athenian
maiden Hermia.
Hermas is mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, and is thought
to be the same with the very early Christian author of the allegory of
The Shepherd, but his name has not been followed.
Hermione was, in ancient legend, the wife of Cadmus, the founder
of Thebes, and shared his metamorphosis into a serpent. Afterwards,
another Hermione was the daughter of Helen and Menelaus,
and, at first, wife of Neoptolemus, though afterwards of Orestes, the
heroine of a tragedy of Euripides, where she appears in the unpleasant
light of the jealous persecutor of the enslaved Andromache.
Hermione is generally supposed to be the same as the Italian
Erminia and the French Hermine; but these are both remains of the
Herminian gens, and are therefore Latin.
Hermocrates, Hermagoras, Hermogenes, every compound of this
god’s name prevailed in Greece; but the only one that has passed on
to Christianity is Hermolaos (people of Hermes), a name that gave
a saint to the Greek Church, and is perpetuated in Russia as
Ermolaï.[29]
Descending from the greater deities of Olympus, we must touch
upon the Muses, though not many instances occur of the use of their
names. Μοῦσαι (Mousai), their collective title, is supposed to come
72from μάω (mao), to invent; it furnished the term mousikos, for songs
and poetry, whence the Latin musa, musicus, and all the forms in
modern language in which we speak of music and its professors.
Musidora (gift of the Muses) was one of the fashionable poetical
soubriquets of the last century, and as such figures in Thomson’s
Seasons.
As to the individual names, they have scarcely any owners except
Polymnia, she of many hymns, whose modern representative, Polyhymnia,
lies buried in a churchyard on Dartmoor, and startles us by
her headstone. The West Indian negresses, sporting the titles of the
ships of war, however, come out occasionally as Miss Calliope, Miss
Euterpe, &c.
The only Muse who has left namesakes is hardly a fair specimen;
for Urania (the heavenly), her epithet, as the presiding genius of
astronomers, is itself formed from one of the pristine divinities of
Greece, himself probably named from heaven itself, of which he was
the personification. Οὐρανός (Ouranos), Uranus, is in Greek both the
sky and the first father of all. The word is probably derived from
the root or, which we find in ὄρος (a mountain), and ὄρνυμιὄρνυμι (to raise),
just as our heaven comes from to heave.
Uranius was not uncommon among the later Greeks, especially in
Christian names; a Gaulish author was so called, and it was left by
the Romans as a legacy to the British. It makes its appearance among
the Welsh as Urien, a somewhat common name at one time. “Brave
Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed;” but Camden, or some one else
before him, thought proper to identify it with George, which has led
to its decay and oblivion.
Urania was revived in the days of euphuistic taste, when Sir Philip
Sidney called himself Sidrophel, and the object of his admiration,
Urania; it became a favourite poetic title both in England and
France, and in process of time, a family name.
Θάλεια (Thaleia), though both Muse of Comedy, and one of the
Three Graces, and signifying bloom, has not obtained any namesakes,
though both her sister Graces have.
These nymphs were the multiplied personifications of Χάρις (Charis)
grace, beauty, or charity. The Greeks were not unanimous as to the
names or numbers of the Charites; the Athenians and Spartans
adored only two, and the three usually recognized were defined by
Hesiod. Thalia (bloom), Aglaia (brightness), Euphrosyne (mirth,
cheerfulness, or festivity).
It has been almost exclusively by Greeks that the name has been
borne; it was a great favourite among the Romaic Greeks, figuring
again and again amongst the Porphyrogenitai, and to this present
day it is common among the damsels of the Ionian Isles. I have
seen it marked on a school-child’s sampler in its own Greek letters.
In common life it is called Phroso. In Russia it is Jefronissa.
The other Grace, Aglaia, comes to light in Christian legend, as the
name of a rich and abandoned lady at Rome, who, hearing of the
value that was set on the relics of saints, fancied them as a kind of
roc’s egg to complete the curiosities of her establishment, and sent
73Boniface, both her steward and her lover, to the East to procure some
for her. He asked in jest whether, if his bones came home to her,
she would accept them as relics; and she replied in the same spirit,
little dreaming that at Tarsus he would indeed become a Christian
and a martyr, and his bones be truly sent back to Rome, where
Aglaia received them, became a penitent, took the veil, and earned
the saintly honours that have ever since been paid to her. It is unfortunate
for the credibility of this story that the date assigned to it
is between 209 and 305, a wide space indeed, but one in which relic
worship had not begun, and even if it had, the bones of martyrs must
have been only too plentiful much nearer home. However, the
French have taken up the name of Aglaë, and make great use
of it.
A few ancient Greeks had names compounded of Charis, such as
Charinus, and Charilaus, the nephew of Lycurgus; but it was reserved
for Christianity to give the word its higher sense. Charis,
through the Latin caritas, grew to be the Christian’s Charity, the
highest of the three Graces: Faith, Hope, Love, that had taken the
place of Bloom, Mirth, and Brightness. And thus it was that, after the
Reformation, Charity, contracted into Cherry, became an English
Christian name, perhaps in remembrance of the fair and goodly
Charity of the House Beautiful, herself a reflex of the lovely and
motherly Charissa, to whom Una conducted the Red Cross Knight.
Chariton, Kharitoon, in Russian, is a name in the Greek Church,
from a confessor of Sirmium, who under Aurelius was flogged with
ox-hides and imprisoned, but was liberated on the Emperor’s death,
and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Perhaps this is the place, among these minor mythological personages,
to mention that Zephyr (the West wind) has absolutely a whole
family of name-children in France, where Zephirine has been greatly
the fashion of late years.[30]
Not very many of the heroic names—glorious in poetry—have
passed on; but we will select a few of those connected with the
siege of Troy, and handed on upon that account. Mostly they were
not easy of comprehension even to the Greeks themselves, and were
not much copied among them, perhaps from a sense of reverence.
It was only in the times of decay, and when the recollection of the
fitness of things was lost, that men tried to cover their own littleness
with the high-sounding names of their ancestors. Moreover, by that
time, Greek associations were at a discount. Rome professed to
descend from Troy, not from Greece; and, after her example,
modern nations have tried to trace themselves back to the Trojan
fugitives—the Britons to Brut, the French to Francus, &c.—and thus
Trojan names have been more in vogue than Greek. However, be it
observed that the Trojan names are Greek in origin. The Trojans
74were of Pelasgic blood, as well as most of their opponents; but they
were enervated by residence in Asia, while the superior race of
Hellenes had renovated their Greek relatives; making just the difference
that the Norman Conquest did to the English Saxon in opposition
to his Frisian brother.
One of these inexplicable names was borne by Ἀχιλλεύς (Achilleus),
the prime glory of Homer and of the Trojan war. The late Greek
traditions said that his first name had been Ligyron, or the whining,
but that he was afterwards called Achilles, from Α privative and
χέιλη (cheile), lip; because he was fed in his infancy on nothing but
lions' hearts and bears' marrow. This legend, however, looks much
as if the true meaning of the word had been forgotten, and this was
a forgery to account for it. However this may be, modern Greece
and France alone repeat the name, and it is much disguised by the
French pronunciation of Achille. A martyr in Dauphiné was called
Achilles; and an Achilla appears, as a lady, early in the Visconti
pedigree.
Gallant Hector, who, perhaps, is the most endearing of all the
Trojan heroes, from the perfection of his character in tenderness,
devotion, and courage, and the beautiful poetry of his parting with
his wife and son, bore a name that is an attribute of Zeus, Ἕκτωρ
(holding fast), i. e., defending, from Ἕχω (hecho), to have or to hold—a
word well-befitting the resolute mainstay of a falling cause.
Italy, where the descent from the Trojans was early credited and
not, perhaps, impossible, is the only country where his name has been
genuinely imitated, under the form of Ettore. The Hector of Norway
is but an imitation of the old Norse Hagtar (hawk of Thor), and the
very frequent Hector of Scotland is the travestie of the Gaelic Eachan
(a horseman). In like manner the Gaelic Aonghas (excellent valour)
and the Welsh Einiawn (the just), are both translated into Æneas;
indeed it is possible that the early Welsh Saint, Einiawn, may indeed
have been an Æneas; for, in compliment to the supposed descent of
the Julii from Æneas, this name is very common in the latter times
of the empire: it appears in the book of Acts, and belonged to several
writers. Latterly, in the beginning of the classical taste of Italy, the
name of Enea Silvio was given to that Piccolomini who afterwards
became a pope. This form is in honour of that son of Æneas and
Lavinia who was said to have been born in a wood after his father’s
death. A son of the Earl of Hereford was called Æneas (temp. Ed.
III).
The pious Æneas owes his modern fame to Virgil. In the time of
Homer, even his goddess-mother had not raised him into anything
like the first rank of the heroes who fought before Troy. His name
in the original is Αἰνείας (Aineias), and probably comes from αἰυέο
(aineo), to praise.
The poem that no doubt suggested the Æneid, the Homeric story of
the Greek wanderer, contains some of those elements that so wonderfully
show the kindred of far distant nations. We are content to
call this wonderful poem by something approaching to its Greek
title, though we are pleased to term the hero by the Latin travestie
75of his name—Ulysses, the consequence, it is supposed, of some transcriber
having mistaken between the letters Δ and Λ. The Romans,
likewise, sometimes called him Ulixes; the Greek σσ and ξ being, by
some, considered as the same letter. Οδυσσεύς (Odysseus), his true
name, is traced to the root δυς (dys), hate, the Sanscrit dvish, and
from the same source as the Latin odio. Italians talked of Uliseo,
and Fenelon taught the French to honour his favourite hero as le fils
du grand Ulisse; but the only place where the name is now used is
Ireland, probably as a classicalism for the Danish legacy of Ulick—Hugleik,
or mind reward. The Irish Finnghuala (white shoulders)
was not content with the gentle native softenings of her name into
Fenella and Nuala, but must needs translate herself into Penelope;
and it is to this that we owe the numerous Penelopes of England,
down from the Irish Penelope Devereux, with whom is connected
the one shade on Sidney’s character, to the Pen and Penny so
frequent in many families.
The faithful queen of Ithaca was probably named Πηνελόπη, or
Πηνελόπεια, from her diligence over the loom, since πήνη (pēnē) is
thread on the bobbin, πηνίζομαι is to wind it off; but a later legend
declared that she had been exposed as an infant, and owed her life to
being fed by a kind of duck called πηνέλοψ (penelops), after which
she was therefore called. This has since been made the scientific
name of the turkey, and translators of Christian names have generally
set Penelope down as a turkey-hen, in oblivion that this bird,
the D'Inde of France, the Wälsche Hahn of Germany, always in its
name attesting its foreign origin, came from America 3000 years
after the queen of Ithaca wove and unwove beneath her midnight
lamp.
Her son Telemachus (distant battle) had one notable namesake in
the devoted hermit who for ever ended the savage fights of the
amphitheatre; but, though Télémaque was a triumph of genius and
tender religious feeling in spite of bad pseudo-classical taste, has not
been again repeated.
Cassandra appears in Essex in 1560, and named the sister of Jane
Austen.
76
Much of the spirit of the nation is to be traced in the animals
whence their names are derived. The Jew, whose temper, except
when thoroughly roused, was peaceful and gentle, had hardly any
save the names of the milder and more useful creatures: the ewe,
the lamb, the bee, the fawn, &c. The Indo-European races, on the
other hand, have the more brave and spirited animals, many of them
running through the entire family of nations thus derived, and very
possibly connected with that ‘beast epic,’ as Mr. Dasent calls it, which
crops out everywhere; in the East, in apologues and fables; and towards
the West, in ‘mahrchen,’ according to the expressive German term.
It is just as if in the infancy of the world, there was the same living
sympathy with the animal creation that we see in a young child, and
that the creatures had at one time appeared to man to have an individual
character, rank, and history of their own, explained by myths,
in which these beings are the actors and speakers, and assumed a
meaning divine, symbolic, didactic, or simply grotesque, according to
the subsequent development of the peoples by whom they were
handed down.
The lion is one of these universal animals, testifying how long
dim memories of the home in Asia must have clung to the distant
wanderers.
Leon, or Leo, was early a favourite name among the Greeks; and
Herodotus thinks, on account of its meaning, that the captive Leo
was the first victim of the Persians. It passed on in unceasing
succession through Greeks of all ranks till it came to Byzantine
emperors and Roman bishops. Two popes, to whom Rome owed the
deepest debt of gratitude—to the one, for interceding with Attila;
to the other, for turning away the wrath of the Saracens—were both
called Leo, and it thus became a favourite on the papal throne, and
was considered to allude to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, which
was therefore sculptured on St. Peter’s, in the time of the Medicean
Leo X.
Leone, and Léon, and Léonie have continued in use in France and
Italy. The word has been much compounded from the earlier Greek
times, Leontius, Leontia, whence the modern French Léonce. The
77name Leonidas, the glorious self-devoted Spartan, after entire desuetude,
has been revived in Greece and America.
The Romanized Britons adopted the Lion name, which amongst
them became Llew, the Lot of the romances of the Round Table.
Here likewise figured the gallant Sir Lionel, from whom Edward III.,
in chivalrous mood, named his third son, the ancestor of the House
of York. An unfortunate young Dane, to whom the Dutch republic
stood sponsor, received the name of Leo Belgicus. The Slavonic
forms are Lev, Lav, and Lew, which, among the swarms of Jews in
Poland, have become a good deal confounded with their hereditary
Levi.
Leandros, Leander, as we call it, means lion-man. Besides the
unfortunate swimming lover whose exploit Byron imitated and
Turner painted, it belonged to a sainted bishop of Seville, who, in
590, effected the transition of the Spanish Visigoths from Arianism to
orthodoxy. Very likely his name was only a classicalizing of one of
the many Gothic names from leut (the people), which are often confused
with those from the lion; but Leandro passed on as a Christian
name in Spain and Italy.
The name Leocadia, a Spanish maiden martyred by the Moors,
had probably some connection with a lion; but it cannot be traced
in the corrupted state of the language. Léocadie has travelled into
France.
The Slavonians have Lavoslav (lion-glory), which they make the
equivalent of the Teutonic Liutpold or Leopold, really meaning the
people’s prince.
Löwenhard (the stern lion, or lion strong), was a Frank noble, who
was converted at the same time as his sovereign, Clovis, and became
a hermit near Limoges. Many miracles were imputed to him, and
St. Leonard became a peculiarly popular saint both in France and
England. Leonard is a favourite name in France; and has some
popularity in England, chiefly, it is said, in the north, and in the
Isle of Wight. Lionardo is Italian, witness Lionardo da Vinci; and,
according to Gil Blas, Leonarda is a Spanish feminine; Germany has
in surnames Lenhardt, Lehnart, Leinhardt, Lowen; Italy invented
the formidable Christian name, Brancalleone (Brachium leonis), or
arm of a lion; and Bavaria has Lowenclo (lion-claw).
| English. |
French. |
German. |
Swiss. |
Italian. |
| Leonard |
Léonard |
Leonhard |
Liert |
Lionardo |
| |
Leunairs |
Lienhard |
Liertli |
|
| |
Launart |
Lienl |
Lienzel |
|
The horse is as great a favourite as the lion, and is prominent in
many a myth from the Caspian to the Frozen Ocean. His name
in Sanscrit açva, in Zendish esp or asp, comes forth in the Greek
78ἵππος or ἵkkoς, showing its identity with the Latin equus, the Gaelic
each, and it may be with the Teutonic hengst.
Among these various races it is the Persian, the Greek, and the
Gael who have chiefly used the term for this noble animal in their
nomenclature.
The Persian feminine Damaspia is said exactly to answer to the
Greek Hippodameia, the female of Hippodamus (horse-tamer), and
Hippos forms part of far too many Greek names to be here enumerated,
except where they have become popular elsewhere.
One would have imagined that Hippos and λύω (to destroy) must
have suggested the name of Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, who
was destroyed by his own horse, terrified by a sea monster; but, on
the other hand, he appears to have been named after his mother
Hippolita, the beautiful queen of the Amazons, whom Shakespeare
has shown us hunting in his wondrous Attic forest. However this
may be, Hippolytus has many namesakes; among them an early
Christian writer, and also a priest at Rome, who in the year 252 was
condemned by the persecuting judge to die the death his name suggested.
The Christians buried him in a catacomb, which bears his
name. Sant’Ippolito became a parish church at Rome, and of course
gave a title to one of the cardinals, and Ippolito and Ippolita have
always been fashionable Italian names. He was also the patron of
horsemen and horses, and the latter were solemnly blessed in his
name. Xanthippe’s name is feminine of Xanthippus (a yellow
horse!) What a pity it was not a grey one!
The Persian Aspamitras (horse-lover) exactly corresponds to the
Greek Φίλιππoς (loving horses). Thus were named many obscure
kings of Macedon, before that sagacious prince who prepared the
future glories of his son by disciplining his army, and crushing Greece
in spite of those indignant orations of Demosthenes, which have
made Philippics the generic term for vehement individual censure.
Macedon, by colonizing the East, spread Philippos over it, and
thus was named the apostle of Bethsaida, and likewise one of the
deacons, chosen for his ‘Grecian’ connections.
The apostle was martyred at Hierapolis; nevertheless an arm of
his, according to the Bollandists, was brought to Florence from Constantinople,
in 1205, and made Filippo, Filippa, Lippo, Pippo, Pippa,
great favourites in Northern Italy.
Greece and her dependent churches always used the name of
Philip, or Feeleep, as they call it in Russia; and it was the eldest
son of the Muscovite Anne, Queen of Henri I., who was the first
Philippe to wear the crown of France. He transmitted his name to
five more kings, and to princes innumerable, of whom one became
Duke of Burgundy. His descendant, the half Flemish, half Austrian
Philippe the handsome, married Juana la Loca of Castille and
Aragon, and their grandson was known as Felipe II. in Spain.
During his brief and ill-omened stay in England, he was godfather
to Philip Sidney, whose name commemorated the gratitude of his
mother to the King Consort for having interceded for the life of his
father the Duke of Northumberland.
79Philip, in both genders, was, however, already common in England.
Queen Philippe, as she called herself, our admirable Hainaulter, was
the god-daughter of Philippe de Valois, her husband’s rival; and
many a young noble and maiden bore her honoured name, which
one female descendant carried to Portugal, and another to Sweden,
where both alike worthily sustained the honour of Plantagenet.
The name of Philippe is particularly common in the Isle of Jersey,
so that it has become a joke with sailors to torment the inhabitants
by calling them Philip as they would term an Irishman Paddy.
Filippo is additionally popular in Italy at present from the favourite
modern Saint Filippo Neri.[31]
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
German. |
Italian. |
| Philip |
Phillipp |
Philippe |
Philipp |
Filippo |
| Phil |
|
Philipot |
Lipp |
Pippo |
| Phip |
|
|
Lipperl |
Lippo |
| Philipp |
|
|
|
|
| Lipp |
|
|
|
|
| Lipperl |
|
|
|
|
| Portuguese. |
Spanish. |
Russian. |
Lett. |
Hungarian |
| Felippe |
Felipe |
Feeleep |
Wilips |
Fülip |
| Felipinho |
|
|
Lipsts |
|
| Felipe |
|
|
|
|
| FEMININE |
| English. |
French. |
Portuguese. |
Dutch. |
Italian |
| Philippa |
Philippine |
Felipa |
Pine |
Filippa |
| |
Flipote |
|
|
Pippa |
The goat (αἴξ) stands out prominently in northern mythology,
though there scarcely, if at all, used in nomenclature. In Greek
mythology he appears, though not distinctly, and the names derived
from him are manifold.
The goat was the standard of Macedon (the rough goat was the
King of Grecia), as Daniel had announced while Greece was yet in
her infancy, and Macedon in barbarism, not even owned as of the
Hellenic confederacy. The unfortunate posthumous son of Alexander
was therefore called Aigos, or Ægos, in addition to his father’s name.
The aigis, ægis, or shield of Pallas Athene, though said to bear the
gorgon’s head, was probably at first a goat skin. From it is formed
Aigidios, Ægidius. In 475, there was an Ægidius, a Roman commander
in Gaul, who was for a time an independent sovereign,
ruling over both Romans and Franks. About two centuries later,
an Athenian, as it is said, by name Ægidius, having worked a
miraculous cure by laying his cloak over the sick man, fled to
France to avoid the veneration of the people, and dwelt on the
80banks of the Rhone, living on the milk of a hind. The creature
was chased by the king of France, and, flying wounded to her
master, discovered him to the hunters. Thenceforth he has been
revered as St. Giles, and considered as the patron of numbers thus
called. Now, is Giles a contraction of Ægidius, or is it the corruption
of the Latin Julius; or, again, is it the Keltic Giolla, a servant,
or the Teutonic Gils, a pledge? Every one of these sounds more
like it than the Greek word, and it does seem probable that the
Athenian, if Athenian he were, was seized upon as patron by aliens
to his name, and then cut down to suit them. However, Ægidius
continued to be treated as the Latin for Giles; Egidio became an
Italian name; and as St. Giles was patron of Edinburgh, Egidia was
used by Scottish ladies; one of the sisters of King Robert II. was so
called, and even now it is not quite extinct.[32]
The word μείλα (soothing things) gave the verb μειλίσσω, or μελίσσω
(melisso), to soothe or sweeten, whence the name of honey, and of
the honey-bee. Melissa was sometimes said to have been the name
of the nymph who first taught the use of honey, and bees, perhaps
from their clustering round their queen, became the symbol of
nymphs. Thence Melissa grew to be the title of a priestess as well
as a lady’s name in classic times.
Melissa was invented by the Italian poets as the beneficent fairy
who protected Bradamante, and directed Ruggero to escape from
Atlante, and afterwards from Alcina, upon the hippogriff. Thus
she entered the domain of romance, and became confounded with
the Melusine and Melisende, who had risen out of the Teutonic
Amalaswinth; and Melisse and Melite were adopted into French
nomenclature.
Akin to Melissa is Γλυκηρά (Glykera), the sweet. This was not a
feminine in good repute in ancient Athens, but it has since belonged
to a saint of the Greek Churches, namely, the daughter of Macarius,
thrice consul, who in the time of Antoninus suffered torments for a
long time at Trajanopolis; and Gloukera is prevalent in Russia; and
Glykera, or Glycère, in France.[33]
It was not common in Greece to name persons from flowers, but
two names in occasional use are connected with legends of transformation,
though in each case it is evident that the name belonged
originally to the flower, and then was transferred to the man.
Thus the Narcissus, named undoubtedly from ναρκάω (narkao), to
81put to sleep, has become the object of a graceful legend of the cold-hearted
youth, for whose sake the nymph Echo pined away into a
mere voice, and in retribution was made to see his own beauty in
the water and waste from hopeless love for his own image, until his
corpse became the drooping golden blossom, that loves to hang above
still pools of water, like the “dancing daffodils” of Wordsworth.
Narcissus seems to have been a name among the Greek slaves of
the Romans, for we twice find it belonging to freedmen of the
Emperor. St. Narcissus was Bishop of Jerusalem in 195, and presided
at the council that fixed the great festival of the Resurrection
on a Sunday instead of on the day fixed by the full moon like the
Jews. The Russians call it Narkiss; the Romans, Narcisso; and it
has even been found belonging to an English peasant.
Hyacinthus (Ὑάκινθος) was a beautiful Spartan youth, who, being
accidentally killed by Apollo in a game with the discus, was caused
by the sorrowing divinity to propagate from his blood a flower
bearing on its petals either his initial Υ or the αί (alas), the cry
of lamentation. A yearly feast was held at Sparta in honour of
Hyacinthus, and his name was perpetuated till Christian times, when
a martyr bore it at Rome, and thus brought it into favour in Italy
as Giacinto; also a Polish Dominican Jacinthus in the thirteenth
century, is commemorated as the Apostle of the North, because he
preached Christianity in great part of Russia and Tartary; but
curiously enough it is in Ireland alone that Hyacinth has ever
flourished as a man’s name, probably as a supposed equivalent to
some native Erse name. There it is very common among the
peasantry, and is in common use as Sinty, while in France, Italy,
and Spain, though apparently without a saintly example of their
own sex, Jacinthe, Giacinta, and Jacinta are always feminine, and
rather popular peasant names.
Ῥόδος (Rhodos), the rose, is a word connected in its source with
the origin of the Teuton roth, Keltic ruadh, and Latin rufus. Roses
are the same in almost every tongue, and they almost always suggest
female names; of which the most interesting to us is Rhoda, “the
household maid, of her own joy afraid,” who “opened not the gate for
gladness” when she knew the voice of St. Peter as he stood without
the door after his release from prison and death. Her name, as a
Scripture one, has had some use in England, though, in general, the
Roses of each country have grown upon their own national grafts
from the one great stock, or, more strangely, are changed from horses.
Φύλλις (Phyllis), a green leaf or bough, has another story of transformation.
She was a Thalian damsel who hung herself because her
lover did not keep his promise of returning to marry her, and was
accordingly changed into an almond tree. Phyllis was the name of
Domitian’s nurse, and in process of time found her way among the
dramatis personæ of Arcadian poetry; and arrived at being somewhat
popular as a name in England.
82
After passing from the fascinating but confused tales and songs
that group around the ship Argo, the doomed family of Œdipus, and
the siege of Troy, the Greeks are well-nigh lost for a time, but
emerge again in the full and distinct brilliancy of the narratives of
Herodotus and his followers, who have rendered their small aggregate
of fragmentary states and their gallant resistance to Asiatic
invasion the great nucleus of interest in the ancient world.
In the days of these wise and brave men, the nomenclature was,
for the most part, expressive and appropriate, consisting of compounds
of words of good augury from the spoken language, and, usually, as
has been before shown, with a sort of recurring resemblance, from
generation to generation, so as to make the enumeration of a pedigree
significant and harmonious.
Of these was ἀγαθός (the good), precisely the same word as our own
good and the German guth, only with the commencing α and a Greek
termination.
Classical times showed many an Agathon, and Agathias, and
numerous compounds, such as Agathocles (good fame), to be repeated
in the Teutonic Gudred, and other varieties; but the abiding use of
the word as an European name was owing to a Sicilian girl, called
Agatha, who in the Decian persecution was tortured to death at Rome.
Sicily considered her as one of its guardian saints. Thus, the festival
day of this martyred virgin is observed by both the Eastern and
Western Churches, and her name is found among all the nations that
ever possessed her native island. Greece has transmitted it to Russia,
where the th not being pronounceable, it is called Agafia; and the
masculine, which is there used, Agafon; and the Slavonian nations
derive it from the same quarter. The Normans adopted it and sent
it home to their sisters in Neustria, where it was borne by that
daughter of William the Conqueror who was betrothed to the unfortunate
Earl Edwin, and afterwards died on her way to a state
marriage in Castille. In her probably met the Teutonic Gytha and
the Greek Agatha, identical in meaning and root, and almost in
sound, though they had travelled to her birth-place in Rouen by two
such different routes from their Eastern starting-place. Agatha was
once much more common as a name than at present in England, and
83seems still to prevail more in the northern than the southern counties.
Haggy, or Agatha, is the maid-servant’s name in Southey’s Doctor,
attesting its prevalence in that class before hereditary or peculiar
names were discarded as at present.
France did not fail to take up Agatha. Spain had her Agatha like
that of the Italians, both alike omitting the h of θ. Portugal makes
it Agneda; and the only other change worth noting is that the Letts
cut it short into Apka.
Aristos (best) was a favourite commencement with the Greeks.
Aristides, most just of men, was thus called the son of the best. He
has reappeared in his proper form in modern Greece; as Aristide in
republican France; as Aristides in America.
Aristobulus (best counsel) came originally from an epithet of
Artemis, to whom Themistocles built a temple at Athens, as Aristoboulè,
the best adviser. It was very common in the various branches
of the Macedonian empire, and was thus adopted in the Asmonean
family, from whom it came to the Herodian race, and thence spread
among the Jews. In the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul sends his
greetings to the household of Aristobulus; and Welsh ecclesiastical
antiquaries endeavour to prove that Arwystli, whom the Triads say
was brought by Bran the blessed to preach the Gospel in Britain, was
the same with this person.
Aristarchus (best judge) is also a Scriptural name; and besides
these we have Aristocles (best fame), Aristippos (best horse), Aristagoras
(best assembly), and all the other usual Greek compounds
among the Greeks.
Perhaps this is the fittest place to mention that Arethusa is in use
among the modern Greeks, and interpreted by them to mean the
virtuous, as coming from this source. Aretino has been used in
Italy.[34]
Conquering Macedon was the portion of Greece, if Greece it could
be called, that spread its names most widely and permanently; and as
was but right, no name was more universally diffused than that of
the great victor, he who in history is as prominent as Achilles in
poetry. Ἀλέξανδρος (Alexandros), from ἀλέξω (alexo), to help, and
ἄνδρες (andres), men, was said to have been the title given to Paris
by the shepherds among whom he grew up, from his courage in
repelling robbers from the flocks. It was afterwards a regular family
name among the kings of Macedon, he who gave it fame being the
third who bore it. So much revered as well as feared was this
mighty conqueror, that his name still lives in proverb and song
throughout the East. The Persians absolutely adopted him into
their own line, and invented a romance by which ‘Secunder’ was
made the son of a native monarch. Among the eastern nations,
Iskander became such a by-word for prowess, that even in the sixteenth
century the Turks would find no greater title of fear for their
84foe, the gallant Albanian, Georgios Kastriotes, than Skander Beg, or
Lord Alexander.
Not only did the great conqueror possess many namesakes,—as
indeed, there is a story that all the children born the year of his
conquest of India were called after him,—but Alexandros was already
frequent in Greece; and among the kingdoms formed out of the
fragments of his empire, it recurred so as to become usual all over
the Græcized East. Even the Maccabean Jews used it, and it was
common in Judea, as well as elsewhere, in the time of the Gospels, so
that a large proportion of saints and martyrs bore it and handed it
on, especially in Greece and Italy. A pope, martyred in the second
century, rendered it a papal assumed name; and the Italians used it
frequently as Alessandro, shortened into Sandro. Nowhere, however,
is it so thoroughly national as in Scotland, imported thither, apparently,
with other Greek names, by Margaret Ætheling, who learnt
them in the Hungarian court where she was born and brought up.
Her third son was the first of the three Scottish Alexanders, under
whom the country spent her most prosperous days.
No wonder his namesakes were numerous. In the Highlands
they came to be Alaster, and formed the surname MacAlister; in the
south, the contractions were Alick, Saunders, or Sandy, and the
feminine Alexa, Alexandrina, and Alexandra, are chiefly German
and Russian, though now and then occurring in France.
The first half of this name, Alexios, a defender, was in use in
ancient Greece, where it belonged to a noted sculptor. Its saintly
honours did not begin till the fifth century, when a young Roman
noble, called Allexius or Alexis, is said to have been so much bent
on a monastic life, that being compelled by his parents to marry, he
fled away on his wedding day, and lived seventeen years in a convent
in Syria; but, finding his reputation for sanctity too much for his
humility, he came home in guise of a poor pilgrim, and spent another
seventeen years as a beggar maintained on the scraps of his father’s
kitchen, and constantly mocked and misused by the servants, until
in his dying moments, he made himself known to his parents. His
church at Rome, called St. Alessio, gives a title to a cardinal; and his
day, July 17th, is observed by the Greeks as well as the Romans;
and yet so strange is his history that it almost seems as if it might
have been one of those instances in which an allegory acquired the
name of a real saint, and attached itself to him as a legend. Alessio
has in consequence always been an Italian name, and with the family
of the Komnenoi, Alexios came into use among the Byzantine Greeks,
with whom it was very frequent. Alexia is often found as a lady’s
name in old records and accounts of the middle ages; but it is apparently
intended merely as the Latin equivalent for Alice, which we
shall show by-and-by to have had an entirely different origin.
| 85 |
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| Alexander |
Alexander |
Alexandre |
Alessandro |
Alejandro |
| Alex |
Alick |
|
|
|
| |
Sanders |
|
|
|
| |
Sandy |
|
|
|
| |
Sawny |
|
|
|
| |
Elshender |
|
|
|
| |
Elshie |
|
|
|
| |
Alaster |
|
|
|
| Russian. |
Polish. |
Slavonic. |
Ung. |
|
| Aleksander |
Aleksander |
Aleksander |
Sandor |
|
| Ssachka |
Leszek |
Skender |
|
|
| Ssaschinka |
|
|
|
|
| FEMININEFEMININE |
| English. |
Italian. |
Portuguese. |
Spanish. |
|
| Alexis |
Alessio |
Aleixo |
Alejo |
|
| Alexis |
|
|
|
|
| Alexe |
|
|
|
|
| Russian. |
Slavonic. |
Servian. |
Lusatian. |
Hungarian. |
| Alexei |
Ales |
Aleksa |
Alex |
Elek |
| Alescha |
Leks |
|
Halex |
|
| |
|
|
Holex |
|
We come to the names derived from ἀνήρ, gen. ἀνδρός (anēr,
andros), a man. The word itself has connections in the Sanscrit
nara, and Zend ner; but its compounds are all from its oblique
cases.
The most interesting of these is formed by the corrupt Greek
dialect used in Syria, namely, that which fell to Ανδρέας (Andreas),
the Galilean fisherman, whom the Church Universal reveres as one
of the foremost in the Glorious Company of the Apostles. The saint
was martyred at Patras in Achaia, whence some of his relics were
carried in the fourth century to Scotland, and were thus the occasion
of St. Andrew’s becoming the Metropolitan see. Shortly after, the
vision of Hungus, King of the Picts, of St. Andrew’s Cross, promising
him victory, rendered the white saltire the national ensign, and
St. Andrew became not only the patron saint, but in due time the
knightly champion of Scotland, and made Andrew one of the most
universal of names, and the patronymic Anderson very common.
The other relics went first to Constantinople, and after the taking of
that city, were dispersed through Europe. Philip the Good, of
Burgundy, obtained some of them, and made St. Andrew the patron
86of the order of the Golden Fleece, and Andreas became a frequent
Flemish and Dutch name. It has a feminine in the countries where
it is most popular, and its variations are as follows:—
| English. |
Scotch. |
Dutch. |
Danish. |
| Andrew |
Andrew |
Andreas |
Anders |
| Andy |
Dandie |
Andries |
|
| |
|
Andries |
|
| French. |
German. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| André |
Andreas |
Andrea |
Andres |
| Andrien |
|
|
|
| Russian. |
Slavonic. |
Polish. |
Bohemian. |
| Andrej |
Andrej |
Andrezej |
Ondrej |
| |
Andias |
Jedrzej |
|
| |
Necek |
|
|
| |
AndrejeekAndrejeek |
|
|
| Lusatian. |
Esthonian. |
Hungarian. |
Lapland. |
| Handrej |
Andras |
Andras |
Anta |
| Rajka |
Andrus |
Bandi |
Attok |
| Hendrijshka |
|
|
Ats |
The feminines are the French Andrée and Italian Andreana. The
Russians use Andrean as an equivalent for Henry!
Andronicus, man’s victory, was a great favourite, and occurs in
St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, probably having belonged to
a Corinthian who had gone from the busy city of traffic on the
Isthmus to the great Capital of the world. The name continued
among the Greeks, and belonged to numerous emperors, but has not
been subsequently in much favour.
The word εὖ (well or happily) was the commencement of many a
name of good augury from the earliest times, and mingles as much
among Christian as among classical associations.
Thus in company with ἄγγελος, angelos (a messenger), it formed
evangelus, happy messenger, or bearer of good tidings, the first time
applied to a shepherd, who brought to Ephesus the tidings of a quarry
of beautiful marble for the building of the temple that was the glory
of the city and of all Asia. Adored with heroic honours as he was,
the title must have seemed to the Ephesian Christians, above all, to
befit those spiritual shepherds who brought the best of tidings, and
Evangelista became the term for a preacher, as Evangelium of his
doctrine, both becoming in time restricted to the four-writers of the
87personal history of our Lord, and their narrative, as being the very
core and centre of the Good Tidings. Evangelista was an old Italian
name; and Longfellow appears to have invented Evangeline for the
heroine of his poem, whence many of the name have sprung up in
America.
Εὔχειρ (Eucheir), dexterous hand, was no doubt at first a mere
epithet of a sculptor, but afterwards considered as a name, and belonging
to no less than four distinguished sculptors of ancient Greece.
Thence the Latinized Eucherius, which belonged to a Bishop of
Lyons, a great author of ecclesiastical works, who died about A.D. 450;
from him comes the Portuguese Euchario, the Italian Eucario, the
French Euchaire, the Russian Jevcharij, the Polish Euckary.
Εὐδώρη (Eudora), happy gift, was one of the Nereids, and afterwards
did duty as Eudore in French romance.
Eudocia and Eudoxia are so much alike as to be often confused,
but have different significations. The first is Εὐδοκία (approval), the
second Εὐδοξία (good fame of glory). Both were great favourites with
the Greek empresses, and were assumed by imperial brides possessed
of some appellation not supposed to befit the purple. Saints of the
Greek Church handed Eudokhia on into Russia, where it has been
worn upon the throne, and becomes in common parlance Jevdoksija.
Εὐγενή (Eugenes), well born, was a very old Greek author; but
Eugenios was the more usual form in classical times, and was
carried on as Eugenius by the Romans. St. Eugenius was an African
Confessor, and another Eugenius was Bishop of Toledo in 646. Both
these gave much popularity to their name; the first in the East, the
second in Italy, where Eugênio came to that high-spirited Savoyard
who, growing weary of lingering at the court of Louis XIV., and
hearing himself called le petit Abbé du Roi, rendered the sound of
Prince Eugène dear to Austria and England; terrible to France and
Turkey. Foe as he was, it is to his fame that the great popularity
of Eugène in France is owing, whilst even in the country for which
he fought Eugen is far less common. The Russians have it as
Jevgenij; and the Servians as Djoulija; indeed, well may these last
remember the gallant prince who turned back the wave of Turkish
invasion.
Eugenius stands forth again and again in the early roll of Scottish
kings, but whether these sovereigns ever lived or not, their appellation
was certainly not Eugenius, nor any corruption from it; but
the Keltic Eoghan, Ewan, or Evan, still extremely common in the
Highlands, and meaning a young warrior, though, after the favourite
custom of the Gael, Anglicized and Latinized by names of similar
sound. The Welsh Owain or Ywain appears to have had the same
fate, as the first means a lamb; but this is not equally certain, as the
British had many Latin and Greek names current among them, and
this may be a corruption of Eugenius.
Eugenia was a virgin Roman martyr, of whom very little is known;
but this convenient feminine for Eugène has been in favour in the
countries where the masculine was popular, and the Empress Eugénie
rendered it the reigning name in France.
88The names beginning with this favourite adverb are almost beyond
enumeration, and it is only possible to select those of any modern
interest. Εὐνίκη (Eunike), Eunice, happy victory, was one of the
fifty Nereids, from whom the name passed to Greek women, and thus
to Eunice, the Jewish mother of Timothy, whence this has become a
favourite with English lovers of Bible names.
John Bunyan would have been reminded of his town of Fair
Speech by the number of Greeks called by words of this signification:
Eulalius, Eulogius, Euphemius, all with their feminines,
besides Euphrasia.
The feminines were more enduring than the masculines. Eulalia
was a child of ten or twelve years old, who, with that peculiar exaggeration
of feeling that distinguishes Spanish piety, made her escape
from the place of safety where her parents had taken refuge, entered
Merida, and proclaiming herself a Christian, was martyred with the
utmost extremity of torture in the persecution of Diocletian, and was
sung by the great Christian poet Prudentius, himself a Spaniard.
His verses spread her fame into the East, where the Russians carry
on her name as Jevlalija; the Servians, as Evlalija or Lelica. Another
virgin martyr of the same name, under the same persecution, died at
Barcelona, whence her relics spread into Guienne and Languedoc, and
thus named the villages of Ste. Olaille, Ste. Aulazie, and Ste. Aulaire,
the last a familiar seignoral title! Eulalia and Eulalie have been often
used in Spain and France, and the former is found in the register of
Ottery St. Mary, Devon—also frequently in Cornwall.
Euphemia originally meant at once fair speech and abstinence
from the reverse, so that almost in irony it signified silence, and was
applied to the stillness that prevailed during religious rites, or to
the proclamation of silence. The Euphemia who was the parent
of the wide-spread name, was a virgin-martyr of Bithynia, whose
legend of constancy, unshaken and invulnerable, alike by lion and
flame, strongly impressed both the East and the West. Jevfimija, in
Russia; Jeva, in Servia; Bema, in Lusatia; and Pimmie, in Lithuania.
Then she is almost as much changed as by the Effie and Phemie of
Scotland, which together with Euphame have prevailed since very
early times. It is a question whether this Scottish Euphame were
really one of the Greek names brought from Hungary by Queen
Margaret, or if it be only another attempt to translate the Keltic
Aoiffe. In the Highlands, however, the name is called Oighrigh;
which, to English eyes and ears, seems equally distant from either
Aoiffe or Euphemia. The church of Santa Eufemia at Rome gives
title to a cardinal, and has spread the name in Italy and France.
It remains somewhat doubtful whether Eustace should be referred
to ΕὐστᾶθηοςΕὐστᾶθηος (steadfast), or to Εὔσταχος (happy in harvest). The
Eostafie, or Eustathius, of the Greco-Slavonic Church, certainly has
the same festival-day (September 20th) as the Eustachius of the
Latin; but the Latin Church has likewise a St. Eustachius, a different
personage with a different day. He of September 20th was a Roman
soldier, who lived and suffered under the Emperor Adrian, but his
wild poetical legend is altogether a work of the Western mind. It
89begins like that of St. Hubert, with his conversion by the apparition
of a crucifix planted between the horns of a stag, and a voice telling
him that he should suffer great things. A soldier saint was sure to
be a great favourite in the middle ages, and the supposed transport
of St. Eustace’s relics to St. Denis, in very early times, filled France
with Eustache, and thence Eustace, Wistace, or Huistace, as English
tongues were pleased to call it, came over in plenty at the Norman
Conquest. Eustace ‘Comes,’ who holds land in Domesday Book
before the Conquest, must have been he of Boulogne who had such a
desperate quarrel with the Godwin sons. There were six householders
of this name after the Conquest, and they, or their descendants,
sometimes called their daughters Eustachie, or Eustachia. Eustachia,
a kinswoman of Henry II., married Geoffrey de Mandeville; and
Eustacie was once in favour in France; but all these have a good
deal lost their popularity, though we sometimes hear of Eustace in
these days. The Bavarian contraction is Staches. Eusebius and
Eusebia mean gentle or holy, and have not been frequent.[35]
The word ἵερος (hieros), sacred, gave the term for a priest, or
any other person or thing set apart, and thus formed several names
in the family of the kings of Syracuse, Hieron, Hieracles (holy
fame), Hieronymus, i. e. Ἱερώνυμος (with a holy name). These continued
in use among the Greeks, and came at length to that Dalmatian
scholar and hermit, Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronius, who is
reckoned as one of the greatest of the Latin fathers. As a saint of
high reputation, his name underwent the Italian process of changing
its aspirate into a G, and he became San Geronimo, or even Girolamo,
whence the French took their frequent Jerome, and we followed their
example. The Germans did indeed hold fast to Hieronymus; and
the old English reformers would quote St. Hierom; but Jerome is
the abiding name by which the saint, his namesakes, and the friars
who took his rule are called.
In Ireland, Jerome, like Jeremiah and Edward, has been forced
into representing the good old Keltic Diarmaid.
| English. |
Portuguese. |
Spanish. |
Italian |
| Hierom |
Jeromino |
Jeromo |
Geronimo |
| |
Hieronimo |
Jeromino |
Girolamo |
| French. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
Servian |
| Jerôme |
Jeronim |
Hieronim |
Jerolim |
| |
|
Hirus |
Jerko |
90In Cambrai, Hieronome was the form, with the Hieronomette for
a feminine; and among the Swinburnes of Yorkshire, in the seventeenth
century, Jeronima thrice occurs.[36]
A few words beginning with πᾶς (all) must here be mentioned,
such as Pankratios (all ruling). A boy thus called is said to have
suffered at Rome, in his 14th year, in 304, under Diocletian. Even
in the time of Gregory of Tours, it was supposed that certain vengeance
followed false oaths made at his shrine, and his relics were
therefore very valuable. A present of some from Pope Vitalian to
our King Oswy brought St. Pancras into fashion in England, and
Pancrace and Pancragio have also named many churches in France
and Italy. The lily called pancratium claims by its name to excel
all others.
Πανταλέων, Pantaleon (altogether a lion), was one of the numerous
Christian physicians who suffered martyrdom. He died at Nicodemia,
but his relics were brought to Constantinople, and thence to France,
where he is the chief saint of the largest church at Lyons, and he is
the patron of doctors next after St. Luke. His name was in use in
France and Italy before. As a peasant name, he fell, with Arlechino
and Colombina, into comedy. His dress was on the stage made to
fit tight to his body, as if all in one piece, and he was always a feeble
old man, whence Shakespeare speaks of the lean and slippered pantaloon.
Thence again, when the entire leg was covered by the trousers
instead of by stockings and breeches meeting at the knee, the name
of pantaloon was applied to the new garment.
Νίκη (victory) was an auspicious word, which, being of feminine
gender, as befitted a goddess, was a favourite close for women’s
names; such as Stratonike (army victory), Φερενίκη, Pherenike
(bringing victory). Berenike was the Macedonian pronunciation of
this last, and was in constant use among princesses of the two Greek
kingdoms of Syria and Egypt. From these ladies, those of the Herod
family took the name, and thus it was borne by that Bernice who
heard St. Paul’s defence. Oddly enough, the peasants of Normandy
are fond of calling their daughters Berenice. Veronica is sometimes
said likewise to be a corrupt form.
In men’s names Nike was the prefix, as in Nikon, Niklias, Nikodemos
(conquering people), Nikolaos (Νίκολαος), a word of like meaning.
This last, after belonging to one of the seven first deacons, and
to the founder of a heresy doomed in the Apocalypse, came to the
Bishop of Myra, from whom it acquired a curious legendary fame
that made it universal. St. Nicholas is said to have supplied three
destitute maidens with marriage portions by secretly leaving money
at their window, and as his day occurred just before Christmas, he
thus was made the purveyor of the gifts of the season to all children
in Flanders and Holland, who put out their shoe or stocking in the
91confidence that Santa Klaus or Knecht Clobes, as they call him, will
put in a prize for good conduct before the morning. The Dutch
element in New England has introduced Santa Klaus to many a
young American who knows nothing of St. Nicholas or of any saint’s
day. Another legend described the saint as having brought three
murdered children to life again, and this rendered him the patron
of boys, especially school-boys.
A saint of both the East and West, with a history so endearing,
and legends still more homely and domestic, Nicholas was certain of
many followers throughout Christendom, and his name came into
use in Europe among the first of the sainted ones. To us it came
with the Norman Conquest, though not in great abundance, for only
one Nicolas figures in Domesday Book, but his namesakes multiplied.
The only English pope was Nicolas Breakspear; and Nicole or
Nicola de Camville was the brave lady who defeated the French
invaders at Lincoln, and secured his troublesome crown to Henry III.
She deserves to have had more ladies called after her in her own
country, but the feminines are chiefly confined to France, where, in
the fifteenth century, its contraction was beatified in the person of a
shoemaker’s daughter, Collette Boilet, who reformed the nuns of
St. Clara, and died in the odour of sanctity. The southern nations
almost always contract their names by the omission of the first
syllables, as the northern ones do by leaving out the latter ones;
and thus, while the English have Nick, the Italians speak of Cola, a
contraction that became historical when the strange fortunes of “Cola
di Rienzi, the tribune of the people,” raised him to his giddy height
of honour, and then dashed him down so suddenly and violently,
that “You unfortunate Rienzi” has ever since been a proverbial
expression of pity in Italy.
The French language generally has both varieties of contractions,
perhaps according as it was influenced by the Provençal or the Frank
pronunciation, and thus its Nicolas becomes Nicole or Colas, sometimes
Colin. Thence it has been suggested that Colin Maillard, or
blind-man’s-buff, may be Colin seeking Maillard, the diminutive of
Marie, which would drolly correspond to the conjecture that the “N
or M” of our catechism and marriage service, instead of being merely
the consonants of nomen, stand for Nicholas and Mary as the most
probable names. The French Colin is probably Nicolas, and is the
parent of all the Arcadian Colins who piped to their shepherdesses
either in the rural theatricals of the ancient regime, in Chelsea
china, or in pastoral poetry. The Scottish Colin may, perhaps,
have been slightly influenced by French taste, but he bears no
relation to Nicolas, being, in fact, formed from the Irish missionary,
Saint Columba. The true Scottish descendant of the patron of
scholars is to be found in that quaint portrait, Baillie Nicol Jarvie.
The h with which Nicolas is usually spelt in English was probably
introduced in the seventeenth century, which seemed to think good
spelling consisted in the insertion of superfluous letters.
Niel, a pure Keltic word, which was adopted by the Northmen,
and became naturalized in Scandinavia and Normandy, has also been
92translated by Nicolas, but quite incorrectly. Nils is the only real
Nicolaus except Klaus used in the North, though Niel, and even
Nigel, are sometimes confounded with it. Denmark has had a King
Klaus; otherwise this popular name has only been on the throne in
the instance of that great Tzar whom we had respected till the last
year of his life, when his aggression forced us into war.
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
Danish. |
| Nicholas |
Nicol |
Nicolas |
Nikolaus |
| Nick |
|
Nicole |
Niklaas |
| Nicol |
Colas |
Colin |
Klaus |
| |
|
|
Nils |
| Dutch. |
German. |
Bavarian. |
|
| Niklaas |
Nikolaus |
Niklau |
Swiss. |
| Klasse |
Niklas |
Nickel |
Chlaus |
| |
Klaus |
Likelas |
|
| |
Nikolaus |
Klasl |
|
| |
Niklas |
|
|
| |
Klaus |
|
|
| Italian. |
Portuguese. |
Russian. |
Slavonic. |
| Nicola |
Nicolaio |
Nikolaj |
Nikola |
| Nicolo |
|
Nikolascha |
Miklaoz |
| Cola |
|
Kolinka |
|
| |
|
Kolja |
|
| Polish. |
Lett. |
Finland. |
Ung. |
| Mikolej |
Klavinsh |
Laus |
Mikos |
| |
Klassis |
Nilo |
Lapland. |
| |
|
Niku |
Nikka |
The German Sieg answers exactly to the Greek Nike.
With the a before it, which in Greek contradicts the ensuing word,
like the Latin in, and Teutonic un, we have Ἀνίκητoς, Aniketos,
Anicetus, unconquered, the name of a pope, a friend of St. Polycarp,
and an opponent of heresy, whence he is a saint both of East and
West, and is called Aniceto at Rome, Anicet in France, and Anikita
in Russia.[37]
Πoλύς (Polys), much, very, or many, was a frequent opening for
Greek names. Polydoros (Πoλύδωρος), many-gifted, was the youngest
and last survivor of the sons of Priam; and as mediæval Europe had
a strong feeling for the fate of Troy, and the woes of ‘Polydore’ had
an especial attraction for them, so Polidoro was revived in Italy, and
has never quite died away.
93His sister Polyxena, the feminine of very hospitable, had an
equally piteous fate, being slain by the Greeks at the tomb of
Achilles. According to the legends of the Eastern Church, a lady
named Eusebia (gentle), who had been born at Rome, fled from an
enforced marriage with a king, and took refuge, first at Alexandria,
and then in the Isle of Cos, where she was called Xena, or the
stranger. She founded a monastery at Mylassa in Caria, and there
died in the 5th century. Kseenia, as she is called in Russia, has
many namesakes, and probably was made ornamental by being
lengthened into Poliksenja, which is likewise in use, with the
contraction Polinka; and Polixene has also been used from an early
period in Germany.
Πολύευκτος (Polyeuctos), much longed for, answering to the Desiderio
of Italy, and Desirée of France, was an old classic name, and an
officer who was martyred in Lesser Armenia about the middle of the
third century, was placed in the martyrology of both East and West;
but only has namesakes in Russia, where he is called Polieukt.
Πολύκαρπος (Polycarpos), that glorious Bishop of Smyrna, “faithful
unto death,” and “receiving a crown of life when he played the man
in the fire,” has had still fewer imitators of his suitable Christian
name, much-fruit.
Φίλος (Philos) was a most obvious and natural opening for names.
It stood alone as that of several Macedonian ladies, and again with
numerous men called Philon.
Philemon (loving thought) was the good old Phrygian who, with
his wife Baucis, entertained Zeus and Hermes, and were rewarded
with safety when their churlish neighbours were destroyed. Philemon
was very common among the Greeks, and the Epistle of St.
Paul to the Colossian master of the runaway Onesimus, has made it
one of the Scriptural names of the English. The Maories call it
Pirimona.
The Ptolemys of Egypt were particularly fond of surnaming themselves
after their love to their relations, though they generally
contrived so to treat them as to make the epithet sound ironical:
Ptolemy Philadelphos (love brother), because he murdered his
brother; Ptolemy Philopater, because he poisoned his father; though
at least Philometer does seem to have had a good mother, and to
have loved her. Such surnames were imitated by the Greek kings of
Pergamus, all of whom were named Attalus, and it was from Attalus
PhiladelphusPhiladelphus, the second of them, that the city of Philadelphia,
mentioned in the Apocalypse, took its title. This perished city of
brotherly love seemed to William Penn to afford a suitable precedent
for the title of the capital of his Quaker colony, which has ever since
been Philadelphia. Less happily, Philadelphia has even been used
among English women, apparently desirous of a large mouthful of a
name.
Whether Philadelphia set the fashion, or whether the length of
94name is the allurement, Americans have a decided turn for all these
commencements with ‘Phile’; and Philetus, Philander, &c., are to
be found continually among the roughest inhabitants of the backwoods
and far-west. With us they are at a discount, probably owing
to the fashion of the last century of naming imaginary characters
from the qualities they possessed.
Philaret, fond of virtue, is however popular in Russia, for the sake
of some Eastern saint, who no doubt derived it from Philaretos, a
Greek physician.
The verb πράσσω (prasso), to do or act, and the substantives πρᾶγμα
(pragma), πρᾶξις (praxis), business, were fertile in derivatives.
The Christian interest of the words from this source is through
Praxedes, who, according to the legend, was the daughter of the
house in which St. Peter lodged at Rome, and devoted herself,
together with her sister, to attending on Christians in prison, and
burying them when they were put to death; a course of life that
resulted in a glorious martyrdom. In honour of these two faithful
women was built one of the first churches of Rome, consecrated, it is
said, as early as 141, and still existing in all the glory of its ancient
mosaics. Santa Prassede, as modern Rome terms it, gives title to a
cardinal; and the admirable Carlo Borromeo was thus distinguished,
deserving, perhaps, more than any other known ‘hinge-priest’ of
Rome to be called after the saint of holy activity. Prassede has
continued in vogue among Italian women, who frequently learn their
names from Roman churches. I have found Plaxy in Cornwall,
possibly from this source. Here, too, we should place Anysia
(Ἀνύσια), from ἀνύω (anuo), to accomplish or complete. She was a
maiden of Thessalonica, put to death there under Maximian. Her
day is the 30th of October, in the Greek calendar, and Annusia is a
Russian name, but she is not in the Roman calendar; and how the
Normans heard of her it is hard to guess, unless it was either from
the Sicilian Greeks, or in the Crusades; nevertheless, we are often
met by Annys, Anisia, Annice, or Annes, in older pedigrees. The
latter form occurs down to 1597 in the registers of the county of
Durham. In later times the form was absorbed by Anne.
Τροφή, Trophe (food or nourishment), formed Τρόφιμος, Trophimos
(the fruitful or nourishing), the name of an old Greek sculptor,
and afterwards of the Ephesian companion of St. Paul who was left
sick at Miletus. The people at Arles consider that he afterwards
preached the Gospel in their city, and have made him the patron
of their cathedral; but it is Russia that continues the use of his name
as Trofeem.[38]
Even among the heathen Greeks, Τρυφή, Tryphe (daintiness, softness,
or delicacy), had not a respectable signification. Yet Τρύφον, or
Tryphon, was a favourite with persons of inferior rank—artists,
architects, and physicians; and in the Decian persecution, a martyr
so called was put to the extremity of torture in Bithynia, and has
remained highly honoured in the calendar of the Greek Church;
Trypho continuing in use as a Russian name.
95The feminine form, Τρυφαίνα (Tryphæna), was given to two of the
daughters of the Ptolemys in Egypt, where it was far from inappropriate;
but, probably, the two women whom St. Paul greets so
honourably at Rome as Tryphæna and Tryphosa, were either
Alexandrian Jewesses whom he had met at Corinth on their way to
Rome, or else merely so called as being the daughters of some Tryphon.
They were not canonized, and the dainty Tryphæna has only been
revived in England by the Puritan taste.
The democratic Greeks delighted in names connected with their
public institutions—ἀγορά (agora), the assembly, δῆμος (dêmos), the
public, λαός, also the people, gave them numerous names, with
which were closely connected the formations from δίκη (dike), justice,
and κλέος (kleos), fame.
Λαοδάμας (Laodamas), people-tamer, had a feminine ΛαοδάμειαΛαοδάμεια
(Laodameia), principally noted for the beautiful legend of her bitter
grief for her husband, the first to fall at Troy, having recalled him to
earth for three hours under the charge of Hermes. Probably Florence
must have had a local saint named Laodamia, for it has continued in
vogue there.
The demos better answered to the commons; they expressed less
the general populace than the whole voting class of free citizens, and
were more select. We find them often at the beginning or end of
Greek names, like the Theut of the Teutons: Demodokos, people’s
teacher; Demoleon, people’s lion; Nikodemos, conquering people,
etc.
Κλέος (Kleos), fame, from κλείω (kleio), to call, had as many derivatives
as the Frank hlod, or loud, for renowned, but most of them have
passed out of use, though Κλεάνθης (Kleanthes), famous bloom, the
name of a celebrated sculptor, so struck the fancy of the French that
Cleanthe—their epicene form—was one of the favourite soubriquets
for their portraits of living characters. Even Cleopatra (ΚλεοπάτραΚλεοπάτρα),
fame of her father, with all her beauty and fame, did not hand on the
name which she had received in common with a long course of
daughters of Egypto-Greek kings. Russia alone accepts it as a
frequent Christian name, and it is occasionally to be found in England
and America.
The wreath of the conqueror was an appropriate allusion to those
games where the Greek youth delighted to contend, and very probably
the first Stephanos (Στέφανος) was so called by an exulting family
whose father had returned with the parsley, or pine-leaf, crown upon
his brow, and named the infant in honour of the victory. For
Stephanos was an old Greek name, which had belonged among others
to a son of Thucydides, before it came to that Hellenist deacon who
first of all achieved the greatest of all the victories, and won the
crown.
96Besides St. Stephen’s own day, another on the 3rd of August for “the
invention of St. Stephen’s relics,” which were pointed out in a dream
to a priest of Caphargamala in the year 415, by no less a person than
the Jewish doctor, Gamaliel, in a white robe, covered with plates of
gold. The bones were carried to the church on Mount Sion, and
thence dispersed into all quarters; even St. Augustin rejoiced in
receiving a portion at Hippo, other fragments were taken to the
Balearic Isles, while Ancona laid claim to the possession of a bone,
carried off at the time of the saint’s martyrdom!
No wonder the name is common. Seven saints bore it besides the
proto-martyr, and among them, that admirable King of Hungary, who
endeared it to his people, and left the crown so highly honoured at
Prague. Our name of Stephen is probably due to the acquaintance
of the Normans with Ancona, whence William the Conqueror obtained
such interest in St. Stephen as to dedicate to him the Abbey built at
Caen. There is no instance of the name in Domesday Book, and our
king of turbulent memory derived it from his father, the Count de
Blois. In the roll of Winchester householders in Stephen’s reign we
find, however, already Stephen de Crickeled and “Stephen the Saracen.”
Could this last have been a convert brought home from the East, and
baptized in honour of the pious Count de Blois, father of the king—perhaps
an adherent of the family? It is everywhere in use, varied
according to the manner in which the tongue treated the double consonant.
The feminine began at Cambrai at least as early as the
thirteenth century, and it is frequent in Caen, probably in honour of
St. Stephen’s Abbey at Caen.
| English. |
German. |
French. |
Italian. |
| Stephen |
Stephan |
Etienne |
Stefano |
| |
Steffel |
Tiennon |
Steffano |
| |
|
Tiennot |
|
| |
|
Estevennes |
|
| Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
Dutch. |
Russian. |
| Estevan |
Estevao |
Steven |
Stefan |
| Esteban |
|
|
Stepan |
| |
|
|
Stenka |
| |
|
|
Stepka |
| Polish. |
Illyrian. |
Esthonian. |
Hungarian. |
| Sscezepan |
Stepan |
Tewa |
Istvan |
| Lusatian. |
Stepo |
|
|
| Scezpan |
Stepko |
|
|
| |
Stepika |
|
|
| 97FEMININE. |
| English. |
French. |
Portuguese. |
Russian. |
| Stephan |
Estephanie |
Estephania |
Stefanida |
| |
Stefanie |
|
German. |
| |
Etiennette |
|
Stephanine |
| |
Tiennette |
|
|
I venture here to include the numerous names of which the leading
word is Ὀλυμπ. They are generally derived from Mount Olympos, the
habitation of the gods; but I cannot help thinking them more likely
to be connected with the Olympian games, and to have been first
invented for children born in the year of an Olympiad.
There were numerous varieties, but none have survived except the
feminine Olympias, belonging to the proud but much beloved mother
of Alexander, and, like all other Macedonian names, spreading through
the East. A Byzantine widow, of great piety and charity, who stood
faithful to St. Chrysostom during his persecution by the empress, was
canonized, and sent Olympias on to be a favourite with the Greeks, so
that it flourishes among all ranks in the Ionian Islands. Italy had
her Olimpia, probably through the Greek connections of Venice; and
the noble and learned Olimpia Morata rendered it famous. It was
brought to France by the niece of Mazarin, the Comtesse de Soissons,
of evil fame as a poisoner, and yet the mother of Prince Eugène.
From her, apparently, Olympe spread among French ladies and long
continued fashionable, and Surtee’s History of the County Palatine of
Durham mentions an Olympia Wray, married in 1660.
Here, too, must be mentioned Milone, though its connection with
the subject is only through Milon, the famous Greek wrestler of Crotona,
who carried a heifer through the Stadium at Olympia, and
afterwards ate her up in a single meal; killed a bull with one stroke
of his fist; and finally, was caught by the hands in the recoil of a
riven oak, and there imprisoned till eaten by the wolves. Michaelis
thinks the root of the word is the same with that of the old German
verb milan, to beat or crush, the relation of our mills. Thence may
likewise have come the Latin Miles, and the Keltic Milidh, both
meaning a warrior.
Milo belonged to the realms of romance. In the story of the Golden
Ass of Apuleius, Milon is the master of the house where the unfortunate
hero undergoes his transformation; and having thus entered
the world of imagination, Milon, or Milone as Italian poets call him,
became a paladin of Charlemagne; Milan was a Welsh knight in one
of Marie of Bretagne’s lays; and in a curious old French romance,
Miles is the father of two children, one of whom is brought up by
a lion, and defended by an ape as his champion. These stories, or
their germs, must have struck the Norman fancy, for a Milo appears
among the newly installed landholders in Domesday Book, and Milo
98Fitzwilliam stands early in the Essex pedigrees, but very soon
the vernacular form became Miles. Among the Norman settlers in
Ireland, Miles was a frequent name; and in the Stanton family, when
it had become so thoroughly Hibernicized as to dislike the Norman
appellation, one branch assumed the surname of MacAveely, son of
Milo, according to the change of pronunciation undergone by Erse
consonants in the genitive. Miles or Myles itself was adopted as an
English equivalent for the native Erse Maelmordha, or majestic chief,
and has now become almost an exclusively Irish name, though sometimes
used in England by inheritance from Norman ancestors, and
generally incorrectly derived from the Latin Miles, whereas its
immediate parent is certainly the Greek Milo.[39]
99
The names that we place in this class are such as arose under the
Christian dispensation. Some, indeed, are older, and many more
may be so, and may have been in use among slaves, peasants, and
persons of whom history took no cognizance; but the great mass,
even if previously invented, were given with a religious meaning and
adaptation, and many embodied ideas that no heathen could have
devised. Greek, above all others the ecclesiastical tongue, has sent
forth more widely diffused names of truly Christian meaning than
any other language; the formations of Latin, German, and English,
in imitation of these are, in comparison, inharmonious and ungainly,
carrying their meaning too openly displayed.
Among these are here mixed, when they belong evidently to the
same race, the exclusively modern Greek names, which have arisen
since Greece and her dependencies ceased to be the great store-house
of martyrs and saints, and the dispenser of sacred thought to the
Christian world. Many, indeed, of these names may be of equally
ancient date, only not belonging to any individual of sufficient
renown to have transmitted them to other countries.
Perhaps no land has been less beholden to others in her nomenclature
than modern Greece. Hebrew names have, indeed, come in
through her religion; a very few were accepted from the Latin in
the days when Constantinople was the seat of the Roman empire, and
when the churches were one; but scarcely one of the wide-spread
‘Frank’ names has ever been adopted by the Greeks. Even in
Slavonic Russia the nomenclature remains almost exclusively Byzantine;
the native Slave names are comparatively few, and those that
come in from other nations are discarded, as at Constantinople, for
some supposed Greek equivalent.
Already in speaking of Zeus it has been explained that this and
Θεός (Theos) are but differing forms of the same term for Divinity,
although one became restricted to the individual Deity; the other
was a generic term in heathen days, retaining, however, so much of
100spiritual majesty that it was employed in the Septuagint to express
the true Creator, and thus Christians embraced it as the designation
of the supreme object of worship.
The word Theos itself had been assumed as a surname by one of
the worst of the line of the Syrian Antiochus, and Theon had never
been infrequent among the Greeks. Θεόφιλος (Theophilos), God-beloved,
to whom is dedicated the Gospel of St. Luke, must have
been so called before his Christianity. Thenceforward Theophilus
became a name in the Church; but it has been less used on the
Continent than in England. There, probably from its occurrence in
Holy Scripture, and also from being generally the title of the
favourite speaker in religious dialogues, it has been in some use. The
feminine, Theophila, was the name of the mother of Sir Joshua
Reynolds.
| English. |
French. |
Italian and Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
| Theophilus |
Théophile |
Teofilo |
Theophilo |
Theokles (Θέοκλής), divine fame, was an ancient heathen name, and
it is most probable that Θεκλα (Thekla) is the contraction of the
feminine. St. Thekla was said to have been a disciple of St. Paul,
at Inconium, and to have been exposed to lions at Antioch. Though
they crouched at her feet instead of tearing her, she is considered as
the first virgin martyr, and it was deemed that the highest possible
praise for a woman was to compare her to St. Thekla. Another
Thekla of Alexandria is believed to have been the scribe of that
precious copy of the Gospels given by Cyril Lucar to Charles I., and
now in the British Museum; and thus Thekla has always had high
reputation in the East, though less known in the West, except that
‘Tecla’ is the patroness of Tarragona.
| German. |
French. |
Italian. |
Russian |
| Thekla |
Técla |
Tecla |
Tjokle |
Θεόδορος (Theodoros), and Θεόδορα (Theodora), divine gift, are the
most usual of these names; the first universal in the East and West,
the second prevalent in the Eastern Church, but less common in the
Western than the incorrect feminine Dorothea.
There were numerous saints called Theodorus; the favourite of the
West being he of Heraclea, a young soldier, who burnt the temple of
Cybele, and was martyred in consequence. The Venetians brought
home his legend, and made him their champion and one of their
patron saints, whence Teodoro has prevailed in the city of the Doge;
and from a church dedicated to him at Rome the Spaniards must
have taken their Teodor, the French their Théodore, and the Germans
the similar Theodor, which has always been frequent there.
101The ancient Britons must have known and used this name; for
among their host of obscure saints of princely birth appears Tewdwr;
and the Welsh made so much use of this form that when the handsome
Owen ap Tewdwr won the heart of the widow of Harry of
Monmouth, Tudor was an acknowledged surname, and in two generations
more it became a royal one.
Here, however, the Theodores are a recent introduction. They seem
only to have been really hereditary in Wales, Greece, and Venice.
By Greece is also meant all those Greco-Slavonic countries that
received their nomenclature from Constantinople, in especial Russia,
where the th is exchanged for ph, so as to produce the word Feodor;
and the Germans, receiving it again, spell it Pheodor.
| Welsh. |
French. |
Portuguese. |
Spanish
and Italian. |
| Tewdwr |
Théodore |
Theodoro |
Teodoro |
| English. |
|
|
|
| Theodore |
|
|
|
| German. |
Hamburg. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
| Theodor |
Tedor |
Feodor |
Feodor |
| Pheodor |
Tetje |
Fedor |
|
| Slavonic. |
Illyrian. |
Lett. |
Hungarian. |
| Todor |
Todor |
Kodders
|
Twador |
| |
Toso |
Kwedders |
Finland. |
| |
|
|
Theotari |
The feminine Theodora has two independent saints, a martyr and
a Greek empress. It suffers no alterations except the Russian F at
the commencement, and is not common except in the East. The
West prefers the name reversed, and rendered incorrect. Dorotheus
and Theodorus may indeed be exact equivalents; but the invention
of Theodora makes the giver feminine instead of the gift. It is the
beauty of the legend of St. Dorothea that has made her name so great
a favourite. Never did pious fancy form a more beautiful dream
than the story of the Cappadocian maiden, who sent the roses of
paradise by angelic hands as a convincing testimony of the joy
that she was reaping. The tale is of western growth, and the chief
centre of St. Dorothea’s popularity as a patroness was in Germany;
but the name was likewise in great favour in England, where
Massinger composed a drama on her story. Dorothy was once one
of the most usual of English names; and ‘Dolly’ was so constantly
heard in every household, that it finally became the generic term for
the wooden children that at least as late as the infancy of Elizabeth
Stuart, were called babies or puppets. In the days of affectation,
under the House of Hanover, Dorothy fell into disuse, but was
102regarded as of the same old Puritan character as Abigail or Tabitha.
Probably from the influence of German literature, the German contraction
Dora, or more properly Dore, has come in as almost an independent
name, which, perhaps, ought to be translated as simply a
gift, though often used as a contraction for Dorothea. The fashion
has again come round, and Dorothy has become the favourite name.
In the last century, Dorinda was a fashionable English fancy embellishment,
Doralice a French one—perhaps from the German Dorlisa—Dorothea
Elisa. The Russian Darija is reckoned as a translation;
but it does not seem probable, for the patroness of this latter was an
Athenian lady, martyred with her husband, Chrysanthus, at Rome,
and buried in a catacomb, which was opened in the days of Constantine
the Great. The modern Greeks call the name, Thorothea.
| English. |
French. |
German. |
Bavarian. |
| Dorothea |
Dorothée |
Dorothea |
Derede |
| Dorothy |
Dorette |
Dore |
Duredel |
| Dolly |
Doralice |
Dorlisa |
Durl |
| Dora |
Dorothea |
|
|
| Dorinda |
Dore |
|
|
| |
Dorlisa |
|
|
| Swiss. |
Dutch. |
Danish. |
Spanish. |
| Torli |
Dört |
Daarte |
Dorotea |
| |
Dortchen |
|
|
| Portuguese. |
Italian. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
| Dorothe |
Dorotea |
Dorofei |
Dorota |
| |
|
Darija |
Dorosia |
| |
|
Darha |
|
| |
|
Daschenka |
|
| |
|
Dorka |
|
| Illyrian. |
Lusatian. |
Lett. |
Esthonian. |
| Doroteja |
Dora |
Darte |
Tigo |
| Dora |
Horta |
Tike |
Tio |
| Rotija |
Horteja |
Tiga |
|
| Horta |
Vortija |
|
|
| Lithuanian. |
Ung. |
|
|
| Urte |
Doroltya |
|
|
Before leaving the word doros, we may mention the name Isidoros,
a very old and frequent one among the ancient Greeks, and explained
by some to mean Gift of Isis; but this Egyptian deity is an
improbable origin for a name certainly in use before the Greek
kingdom in Egypt was established, and it seems more satisfactory
to refer the first syllable to ἰς (strength), a word which when it had
its digamma was Γις, exactly answering to the Latin vis (force or
103strength). It commenced many old Greek names, but none that
have passed on to Christian times except Isidorus, which was first
borne by one of the grim hermits of Egypt, then by an Alexandrian
author, and then by three Spanish bishops of Cordova, Seville, and
Badajos. They probably received it as a resemblance of the Gothic
names beginning with eisen (iron). In consequence, Isidoro and the
feminine Isidora have continued national in Spain, and Isodoros in
Greece, whence Russia has taken Eesidor.
Theodotos (God-given) was in common use among the Greeks of the
early empire, and apparently in Spain was corrupted into Theodosius,
since Spain was the native land of him who rendered this form
illustrious. Theodosia has been in favour in many parts of Europe,
copied probably from some of the Byzantine princesses. The canonized
personages of the masculine and feminine forms are, however,
by no means imperial; the one being a hermit, the other a virgin
martyr. Theone is also a German feminine.
| English. |
|
French. |
Italian. |
| Theodosius |
|
Théodose |
Teodosia |
| English. |
Italian. |
Russian. |
Illyrian. |
| Theodosia |
Teodosia |
Feodosia |
Desse |
The entire race of Greek words thus derived must be carefully
distinguished from the Gothic ones, which at first sight appear to
resemble them: such as Theodoric, Theudebert, &c., but are all, in
fact, taken from the Teuton word Theut (the people).
Of Theophanos we shall speak among the names taken from sacred
festivals, but we must not leave these titles of pious signification
without mentioning Τιμόθεος (honour God), from τιμὴ (honour or
worship), the noun formed from τίω (to honour or esteem), connected
of course with the Latin timor (fear).
Timotheus had been in use even in heathen times, as in the case
of Alexander’s musician.
But probably it was with a full religious meaning that the good
Eunice chose it for that son who was to be the disciple of St. Paul and
the first bishop of Ephesus. From him, and from several subsequent
Saints, the East and West both learnt it, but at the present day it
flourishes chiefly in Russia as Teemofe. In Ireland, it was taken as
one of the equivalents of the native Tadgh (a bard), and the
absurdities of Irish Tims have cast a ridiculous air over it, mingled
with the Puritan odour of the Cromwellian days, such as to lower it
from the estimation its associations deserve. Mr. Timothy Davison,
in 1670, named his daughter Timothea, but happily his example does
not seem to have been followed.[40]
| 104 |
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Russian. |
| Timothy |
Timothée |
Timoteo |
Timofei |
| Tim |
|
|
Timoscha |
| Polish. |
Slavonic. |
Lett. |
|
| Tymotensz |
Timoty |
Tots |
|
| Timoty |
|
|
|
The Greek verb χρίω (chrio), to touch, rub, or anoint, formed the
term Χριστός, which translated the old Hebrew prophetic Messiah
(the Anointed), and thence became the title of the Saviour, the
very touch-stone of faith.
Therefore it was that at Antioch the disciples came to be called
Χρίστιανοι (Christianoi), a Greek word with a Latin termination, the
title that they accepted as their highest glory, and which has ever
since been the universal and precious designation of a believer. The
first person who is known to have been baptized after this title, was
St. Christina, a Roman virgin of patrician birth, who was martyred
in 295. Her marvellous legend declares that she was thrown into
lake Bolsena, with a mill-stone round her neck, but that she floated
to the surface, supported by angels, and that she was at last shot to
death with arrows. She is therefore, of course, patroness of Bolsena
and of the Venetian States, where Cristina is frequent; and her fame
travelled to Greece, Bohemia, and Hungary, from which last place
the Atheling family brought it to England and Scotland in the
person of Christina, Abbess of Romsey. Christian, like the other
Greek names of this importation, took deep root in Scotland, where
Kirstin is its abbreviation among the peasantry; and Christina, or
Stine, and Tine, is common in Germany. John Bunyan’s Christiana,
as the feminine of his allegorical Christian, has made this form the
most common in England. Christine, either through Germany or
Scotland, found its way to Scandinavia, where the contraction is
Kirste, or Kirstine. Being vigorous name-makers at the time of
their conversion, the Northmen were not content to leave this as a
mere lady’s name inherited from the saint, but invented for themselves
a masculine Christian, or Christiern as they call it in Denmark,
which has belonged to many a sovereign in that kingdom, where it
is especially national, and contracts into Kirsten.
Christabel was already a name before Coleridge’s time. It is to be
found in Cornwall, in 1727, and in the North of England. It occurs
at Crayke, in Yorkshire, between 1538 and 1652.
| English. |
German. |
French. |
Swedish. |
| Christian |
Christian |
Chrestien |
Kristian |
| |
|
Chrétien |
|
| Danish. |
Netherlands. |
Dantzig. |
Frisian. |
| Christian |
Kerstan |
Zan |
Tsassen |
| |
Karston |
Dutch. |
Tziasso |
| |
Krischân |
Korstiaan |
Zasso |
| |
Kruschan |
|
Sasze |
| Swiss. |
Polish. |
Slavonic. |
Illyrian. |
| Krista |
Krystyan |
Kristijan |
Kristian |
| Chresta |
|
|
Kersto |
| Chresteli |
|
|
Hristo |
| Lusatian. |
Bulgarian. |
Lett. |
Esthonian. |
| Khrystjan |
Krustjo |
Kristo |
Kersti |
| Kristo |
|
Skersto |
Hungarian. |
| Kito |
|
|
Kerestel |
| FEMININE. |
| English. |
French. |
German. |
Bulgarian. |
| Christiana |
Christine |
Christiane |
Khrustina |
| Christian |
|
Christine |
Lithuanian. |
| Christina |
|
Stine |
Krikszte |
| Chrissie |
|
Tine |
|
| Xina |
|
Kristel |
|
| Portuguese. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
Danish. |
| Christinha |
Cristine |
Cristina |
Karstin |
| Slavonic. |
Lusatian. |
Lett. |
Esthonian. |
| Kristina |
Krystla |
Kristine |
Kirstin |
| Kina |
Kita |
Kersti |
Kirste |
| |
Kitka |
Skersten |
|
From the same holy title was derived that of Χριστοφόρος (Christ-bearer),
claimed by many an early Christian as an expression of his
membership, as St. Ignatius on his trial spoke of himself as Θεοφορος.
To this title was attached the beautiful allegory of the giant ever in
search of the strongest master, whom he found at last in the little
105child that he bore on his shoulders over the river. Simplicity soon
turned the parable into credited fact, and St. Christopher became the
object of the most eager veneration, especially as there had been a
real martyr so called, and mentioned in the Mozarabic service-book.
He was put to death in Lycia, and his relics were supposed to have
been at first at Toledo and afterwards at St. Denis. The sight of
St. Christopher’s image was thought to be a protection from sickness,
earthquake, fire, or flood, for the rest of the day, and it was therefore
carved out and painted in huge proportions outside churches and
106houses, especially in Italy, Spain, and Germany. The cumbrous
length is cut down in England into Kit, Kester, and Chris. The
modern Greeks shorten Christophoros into Christachi. The two
feminine are the German Christophine and English Christophera.
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
Swedish. |
| Christopher |
Christopher |
Christophe |
Kristofer |
| Kester |
Christal |
|
Kristofel |
| Kit |
|
|
|
| Chris |
|
|
|
| Netherlands. |
German. |
Swiss. |
Italian. |
| Toffel |
Christoph |
Chrestoffel |
Cristoforo |
| Toff |
Stoffel |
Stoffel |
Cristovano |
| |
Stoppel |
|
Gristovalo |
| Portuguese. |
Spanish. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
| Christovao |
Cristoval |
Christofer |
Kristof |
| |
|
Christof |
|
| Lusatian. |
Lett. |
Lithuanian. |
|
| Kitto |
Kristoppis |
Kristuppas |
|
| |
Kristagis |
|
|
Christopher was once far more common in England than it is at
present. In the list of voters at Durham in the year 1500, there
were thirteen Christophers, and in 1813 there were as many as ten.
The Germans have also Christophilon, meaning, loved by Christ.[41]
Perhaps we ought to consider Sophia (Σοφία) as one of the words
most closely connected with divine attributes, since its use as a name
was owing to the dedication of that most gorgeous of Christian
temples by which Justinian declared that he had surpassed Solomon.
It was called, and it has borne the title through its four hundred
years of bondage to Islam, Sta. Sophia (the holy wisdom of God),
that figurative wisdom whom Christians considered the Book of
Proverbs to point out as the Word of God. Moreover, the words of
the ‘Preacher,’ in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, “Wisdom (Σοφία) is the
mother of fair Love and Hope and holy Fear,” suggested an allegory
of a holy woman with three daughters so called, and thus, in compliment,
no doubt, to the glorious newly-built church, the niece of
Justinian’s empress, afterwards wife to his nephew and successor, was
called Sophia, a name which thenceforward became the fashion among
107the purple-born daughters, and spread from them among the Slavonian
nations, who regarded Constantinople as the centre of civilization.
Through these Slavonians Sophia spread to Germany. A Hungarian
princess was so called in 999; another, the daughter of King
Geysa, married Magnus of Saxony, in 1074, and Saxony scattered its
Sophias in the next centuries all over the neighbouring states and
into Denmark, where it has always been a royal name. Very nearly
had the Electress Sophia brought it to our throne, and though the
unhappy Sophia Dorothea of Zelle never took her place in the
English Court, her grand-daughters made it one of the most fashionable
ladies' names under the House of Hanover; and though its
reign has passed with the taste for ornamental nomenclature, yet the
soft and easy sound of Sophy still makes her hold her own.
| English. |
French. |
German. |
Danish. |
Frisian. |
| Sophia |
Sophie |
Sophia |
Saffi |
Vye |
| Sophy |
|
Fieke |
|
|
| Italian. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
Lett. |
Hungarian. |
| Sofia |
Ssofija |
Zofia |
Sappe |
Zsofia |
| |
Ssonia |
Zosia |
Wike |
Zsofe |
| |
Ssoniuska |
|
|
|
Great is the controversy that hangs on the form of Πέτρος, the
surname divinely bestowed upon the faithful disciple Simon Barjona,
when he made his great confession of faith in the Godhead and
Messiahship of his Master.
“Thou art Petros (a stone), and on this Petra (a rock) I will build
my Church,” are the words.
The apostle was sometimes called in his own lifetime by the
Hebrew or Syriac equivalent Κηφᾶς, or Cephas; but Petros, or Petrus,
being both Greek and Latin words, he went down to posterity thus
distinguished. Many a Pietro was called after him in Italy, to be cut
down into Piero or Pier, and amplified into Pietruccio, or Petruccio
and Petraccio. The devout Spaniards caught up the name, and had
many a Pedro, nay, three Pedros at once were reigning at a time in
three Peninsular kingdoms, and the frequency of Perez as a surname
shows how full Spain is of the sons of Pedro. France had many a
Pierre, Pierrot, or, in Brittany, Perronnik. Perrault, a common surname,
may be a derivation from it, as is St. Pierre, one of the territorial
designations. Before the Revolution, La Pierre and La France
were the unvarying designations of the two lackeys that every family
of any pretension always kept in those days of display.
England had Peter, which Peter-pence, perhaps, hindered from
being a favourite, and borrowed from the French, Piers and Pierce.
108Feories is the Irish version of Pierce. Pedder or Peer are both much
used in the North, and Peter in Germany; while the great Muscovite
made Petr notable in his empire. The Irish, regardless of the true
history of Patricius, want to make St. Patrick a namesake of St.
Peter, and therefore the Paddys own not only their national apostle,
but the prince of apostles, for their patrons. The feminines of Peter
are Petronilla, said to have been his daughter, and whence has come
Petronilla in Spanish, Petronille shortened into Nille in Norway,
Pernel or Parnel, once exceeding common, though now forgotten, in
England; but other female names have been made direct from that
of the saint, Peronetta in Italy, Perretta in France, and even Petrina
in Scotland and Sweden.
| English. |
French. |
Swedish. |
Danish. |
| Peter |
Pierre |
Per |
Peder |
| Piers |
Pierrot |
|
|
|
|
| Pierce |
Perrin |
|
|
|
|
| |
Peire |
|
|
|
|
| Dutch. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
| Pieter |
Pietro |
Pedro |
Pedro |
| Piet |
Piero |
|
Pedrinho |
| |
Pier |
|
|
|
|
| |
Pietruccio |
|
|
|
|
| Russian. |
Polish. |
Illyrian. |
Lusatian. |
| Petr |
Picti |
Petai |
Pjeti |
| Petruscha |
Pies |
Pero |
Petsch |
| Petrinka |
|
Petrica |
Peto |
| |
|
Pejo |
|
|
|
| Bulgarian. |
Lett. |
Esthonian. |
Kelt. |
Petur
Petko |
Peteris
|
Pedo
Pet |
Pétar
Feoris |
} |
Erse |
| |
|
|
Per
Petrik |
} |
Breton |
| FEMININE. |
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Portuguese. |
| Petrina |
Perette |
Petronilla |
Petronilha |
| Petronella |
Petronelle |
German. |
llyrian. |
| Pernel |
Petrine |
Petronille |
Petra |
| |
|
Nelle |
Petrija |
| |
|
Nillel |
Petrusa |
109
Rejoicing that “life and immortality had been brought to light”
quickly broke out in the very names given to Christians at their
baptism, and full of import were the appellations invented in these
early ages of the Church, to express the joyful hope of everlasting
life.
Even in the Sanscrit, a-mrita expresses the elixir of life, “the
amreeta cup of immortality,” which terminates the woes of Kailyal
in the Curse of Kehama, and according to Hindoo myth was produced
by the celebrated churning of the ocean. The name is traced
to a privative and mri, a word to be met with again in mors, murder,
&c., and the notion of a water of life continued to pervade all the
Indo-European races. Among the Greeks this life-giving elixir
was ἀμβροσία (ambrosia), immediately derived from ἄμβροτος (immortal),
a word from the same source. In various legends this ambrosia
served to express the human craving for heavenly and immortal food,
until at length, in later times, ambrosia came to be regarded as the
substantial meat of the gods, as nectar was their drink.
It was reserved for Christianity to proclaim the true ambrosia, the
veritable food of Paradise, and thus it was that Ambrosios became a
chosen name, borne in especial by that great Archbishop of Milan,
who spent one of the most illustrious lives recorded in Church history.
The Church has never forgotten this great saint; and Milan, where
his own liturgy has never been discontinued, is especially devoted to
her Sant' Ambrogio, but his history is perhaps a little too much in
the clear light of day to afford the convenient shadow requisite for
name-spreading legend, and his name has but moderate popularity.
Already, as we may suppose, his fame had spread to Britain when
Aurelius Ambrosius, the brave champion who so long withstood the
Saxon invaders, bore it and left it to the Welsh as Emrys.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
Russian. |
| Ambrose |
Ambroise |
Ambrogio |
Ambrosio |
Amvrossij |
| Brush |
|
|
|
|
| Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Lusatian. |
Hungarian. |
Welsh. |
| Ambrozij |
Ambroz |
’Bros |
Ambrus |
Emrys |
| |
|
Mros |
|
|
| |
|
Brosk |
|
|
| |
|
Mrosk |
|
|
In the same spirit was formed Ἀθανασίος (Athanasios), from the
word θάνατος (death). The Undying was in itself a name of good
hope for a Christian, and it became dear to the Church at large
through the great Alexandrian patriarch, the bulwark of the faith.
It is in the East that his name has been kept up; the West, though
of course knowing it and using it for him individually, shows few
110namesakes except in Italy, where it is probably a remnant of the
Greek influence upon Venice and Naples. The feminine Atanasia is,
I believe, solely Italian.
| French. |
Italian. |
Russian. |
Servian. |
| Athanase |
Atanasio |
Afanassij |
Atanacko |
| |
Atanagio |
|
|
So again the new Christians took the old word ἀνάστασις (meaning
an awakening or raising), from ἀνίστημι (to make to stand up), and
used it to signify the Resurrection; then formed from Ἀναστάσιος (Anastasios),
of the Resurrection,—having the elements of the Resurrection
within him or her, for the feminine Anastasia was as early
and as frequent as the masculine. Indeed the strange caprices of fate
have decreed that, though the masculine form is exceedingly common
all over the Eastern Church, it should, in spite of three saints in the
calendar, one of papal dignity, be almost unused in the West, except
in Bavaria, whilst the feminine, borne by two virgin martyrs, is
prevalent everywhere, and chiefly in Ireland. England once used the
name more than at present, and then Anglicized it into Anstace.
Anstiss, Anstish, Anstyce, all occur frequently as female names in the
elder pages of a Devonshire parish register, where Anstice is now a
surname. Anstis Squire is in the Froxfield register in 1587, and the
name must once have been much more usual.
| French. |
Italian. |
Polish. |
Bavarian. |
| Anastase |
Anastagio |
Anastazij |
Anastasl |
| |
|
|
Stas |
| |
|
|
Stasl |
| |
|
|
Stasi |
| FEMININE. |
| English. |
Irish. |
French. |
Russian. |
| Anastasia |
Anastasia |
Anastasie |
Anastasia |
| Anstace |
Anty |
|
Nastassja |
| |
Stacy |
|
Nastenka |
Amongst these well-chosen baptismal titles may be mentioned
Ζωή (Life), no doubt given as meaning that the principle of Eternal
Life was then implanted. It is strange that neither the Eastern nor
Western calendar shows a Zoë, though a woman thus entitled was
said to have been cured of dumbness by a miracle of St. Sebastian,
and afterwards to have been the first of the martyrs in the persecution
in which he died, about the year 286. After this, Zoë became
frequent among the women of the Greek Church, belonging to many
of the royal ladies of the Blachernal, among others to her who
111endeavoured to shake the constancy of the sea-king, Harald Hardrada,
to his Muscovite Elisif. From the lower empire it travelled to
Russia, where Zoia is at present very common, and in the time of
romantic interest in the new Greek kingdom, Zoé became fashionable
in France, and still is much used there.[42]
Σέβας (Sebas), awe or veneration, was compounded into the word
Σεβαστός (Sebastos), as a translation for Augustus, the imperial title
coined by Octavianus to express his own peculiar sacred majesty.
It was not, however, apparently used for the original Augustus;
at least St. Luke calls him Αὔγουστος; and its technical use probably
did not begin till the division of the empire by Diocletian, and his
designation of two emperors as Augusti or Sebastoi, with their heirs
as Cæsars.
Subsequently to this arrangement no one would have dared to
assume the name so intimately connected with the jealous wearers of
the purple; and, accordingly, it was a contemporary of the joint
emperors, who is the martyr-saint of this name—Sebastianus, a soldier
at Rome, who, when other Christians fled, remained there to encourage
the flock in the first outburst of the last persecution. He
endured a double martyrdom; first, by the well-known shower of
arrows directed against him; and next, after his recovery under the
care of a pious widow, who had carried away his supposed corpse to
112bury it, he defied the emperor again, and was beaten to death in the
arena by clubs.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| |
|
|
|
| Sebastian |
Sebastien |
Sebastiano |
Sebastian |
| |
Bastien |
Bastiano |
|
| |
|
Basto |
|
| Portuguese. |
German. |
Norse. |
Bavarian. |
| Sebastião |
Sebastian |
Sebastian |
Bastian |
| Bastiao |
Bastian |
Baste |
Basti |
| Swiss. |
Russian. |
Slavonic. |
Hungarian |
| Bastia |
Ssevastjan |
Bostjan |
Sebestyen |
| Bastiali |
|
Bostej |
|
| Bascho |
|
|
|
| FEMININE. |
| German. |
French. |
Russian. |
Bohemian. |
| Sebastiane |
Sebastienne |
Ssevastjana |
Sebesta |
Devout women buried him in the catacombs, and his name slept
for at least a hundred years till Pope Damasus built a church over
his catacomb, which has ever since been called after him, and subsequent
popes made presents of his relics to Tuscany, France, and
other countries. A notion arose, Mrs. Jameson thinks, from his
arrows reminding the classical world of the darts of Apollo, that he
was connected with pestilence. His name is thus found all over
Europe, though less commonly in England and the Protestant parts
of Germany than farther south. Indeed its especial home is Portugal,
where it must have been specially cherished in memory of the rash
Don Sebastião, the last of the glorious House of Avis, for whose
return from the fatal African campaign his country so long looked
and longed.
More ancient was the term βασιλεύς (basileus), a king or prince,
properly answering to the Latin rex, as did Sebastos to Augustus,
but usually applied in the Greek-speaking countries to the emperor.
Thence came many interesting words, such as the term used in the
empire for courts of royal judgment, Basilica, whence upon their
conversion into places of Christian worship, the title Basilicon became
synonymous with church.
So, too, that royal-looking serpent who was supposed to wear a
crown on his head, and to kill with a look, was the basilisk; and
the familiar basilicon ointment was so termed as being fit for a king.
Βασίλειος (kingly) was not infrequent among the early Christians,
and gained popularity through that great father of the Church, the
Bishop of Neo-Cæsarea, as well as other more obscure saints. It is
extremely common in the Eastern Church, and especially in Russia,
where the first letter suffers the usual change into V. The feminine,
Basilia, is still in use among the modern Greeks, and once even seems
to have been known among English ladies, since the sister of Earl
Strongbow is thus recorded in history, but its use has died away
amongst us.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
| Basil |
Basile |
Basilio |
Vassilij |
Bazyli |
| |
Basine |
|
Vasska |
Illyrian. |
| |
|
|
|
Vassilij |
| |
|
|
|
Vaso |
In heathen days Εἰρήνη (Eirene), peace, was personified and adored
as a goddess; in Christian times, when peace on earth was preached,
it was formed into a name—that which we know as Irene. Irene was
the pious widow, whose care revived St. Sebastian after his first
113martyrdom, and in 303, three sisters, Agape (love), Irene, and Chionia
underwent martyrdom at Thessalonica, but Irene seems to have
absorbed almost all the subsequent honour, although Agapè is occasionally
to be found in modern Greece, and formed the masculine
surname Agapetus, once the property of a pope, and still used in
Russia.
Irene was extremely frequent among the Greek empresses, and
belonged to the lady who would fain have added herself to the list of
Charlemagne’s many wives. Thence the Russians have it as Eereena,
and in that ancient Greek colony at Sorrento, where the women’s
features so strongly recall their Hellenic descent, Irene is continued
as one of their baptismal names.
Thence was derived the name of the great father of the Church,
Εἰρηναῖος (Eirenaios), Irenæus; but few of the fathers had popular
names, and Irenæus has been little copied, except in Eastern Europe,
where the Russians call it Irinej, and the Hungarians, Ernijó.
The Teuton fried and Slavonic mir have been infinitely more fruitful
in names than the Greek Irene, and as to the Roman pax, its
contributions to nomenclature are all posthumous.
Erasmus comes from ἰράω (íráo), to love, and is related to Eros.
The first Erasmus was tortured to death in Diocletian’s persecution,
at Formici, whence his relics were transferred to Gaeta, and he there
became the patron of the Mediterranean sailors, who used to invoke
him as St. Ermo or St. Elmo, at the approach of a storm, and he thus
was thought to send the pale pure electric light that shimmers on the
topmast, warning the sailor of the impending storm. The name of
Erasmus was assumed by the learned Dutchman, under the belief
that it translated his name of Gerhard (really spearhard), and from
him Rasmus and Asmus are common in Holland, and Rasl has somehow
found its way to Bavaria. Russia, too, has Jerassom, but this
name lies in doubt between Erasmus and Gerasimus (the venerable),
one of the early ascetics of Palestine.
Gelasius, the laugher, was the name of a pope, and for that reason
was considered as appropriate and ecclesiastical. It has had the
strange lot of being used in Ireland as the substitute for their native
name of Giolla Iosa, or servant of Jesus, and was actually so used by
the Primate reigning at the time of the English annexation of
Ireland.[43]
Γρηγόριος (Gregorios), came from γρηγορέω, a late and corrupt form
of the verb ἐγείρω (to wake or watch). A watchman was a highly
appropriate term for a shepherd of the Church, and accordingly
Gregorios was frequent among early bishops. Gregorios Nazianzen the
friend of St. Basil, Gregorios Thaumaturgos or the wonder-worker,
and others of the same high fame, contributed to render it highly
popular in the East, and in the West it was borne by the great pope,
114for whose sake it became a favourite papal title, so that it has been
borne by no less than sixteen occupants of the chair of St. Peter.
It has, however, been far less popular among those who own their
sway than among the Eastern Christians who are free from it, and
though we find it in Scandinavia, this is only as a modernization of
the Norse Grjotgard, while the Macgregors of Scotland draw their
descent not from Gregory, but from Grig or Gairig, a Keltic word
meaning the fierce.[44]
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Danish. |
| Gregory |
Gregoire |
Gregorio |
Gregos |
| |
German. |
|
Gregus |
| |
Gregor |
|
Swedish. |
| |
Gregus |
|
Greis |
| |
Gregoire |
|
|
| Russian. |
Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Slavonic. |
| Grigorij |
Grzegorz |
Rehor |
Gregor |
| Grischa |
|
|
Grega |
| |
|
|
Gorej |
| Illyrian. |
Lett. |
Lithuanian. |
Hungarian. |
| Gregorije |
Grigg |
Greszkus |
Gergelj |
| Gerga |
|
Grygallis |
Gero |
The Maronite Christians have a tradition that Georgos was a
Christian sentinel at Damascus, who connived at the escape of St.
Paul, when he was let down in the basket, and was therefore put to
death; but whether this be true or false, among what may be called
the allegorical saints of the Greek Church, one of the most noted is
our own patron Γῆ (Ge), earth, and ἔργω (ergo), anciently Γέργω
(fergo), descended from the same source as our own verbs to work and
to urge, formed Γεωργός (earthworker or husbandman). A Cappadocian
saint and martyr, of whom nothing was known but that he had been
a soldier and died in the last persecution, bore the name of Georgios,
and was deeply reverenced in the East, where Constantine erected a
church in his honour at Byzantium. As in the case of St. Christopher,
and probably of St. Alexis, this honoured name became the nucleus
of the allegory, of the warrior saint contending with the dragon, and
delivering the oppressed Church, and of course the lovers of marvel
turned the parable into substance. In 494, Pope Gelasius tried to
separate the true Georgius from the legend, which he omitted from
the offices of the Church, but popular fancy was too strong for the
pope, and the story was carried on till the imaginations of the
Crusaders before Jerusalem fixed upon St. George as the miraculous
115champion whom they beheld fighting in their cause, as Santiago had
done for Galicia. Thereby Burgundy and Aquitaine adopted him as
their patron saint; and the Burgundian Henry carried him to
Portugal, and put that realm under his protection; as a hundred
years later Richard I. did by England, making “St. George for merry
England” the most renowned of battle-cries. From Burgundy he was
taken by the Germans as a patron; and Venice, always connected
with Greece, already glorified him as her patron, so that “In the name
of St. George and St. Michael I dub thee knight,” was the formulary
throughout half Europe, and no saint had so many chivalrous orders
instituted in his honour.
Still the name was less early used in the West than might have
been expected, perhaps from the difficulty of pronunciation. Georgios
always prevailed in the East, and came to Scotland in the grand
Hungarian importation, with the ancestor of the House of Drummond,
who bear three wavy lines on their shield in memory of a great battle
fought by the side of a river in Hungary, before the Atheling family
were brought back to England, attended by this Hungarian noble.
On the usurpation of Harold, he fled with them to Scotland, and
there founded a family where the Eastern Christian name of George
has always been an heir-loom. It was probably from the same
Hungarian source that Germany first adopted Georg, or Jürgen, as it
is differently spelt, and thence sent it to England with the House of
Brunswick; for, in spite of George of Clarence, brother of Edward
IV., and a few other exceptions, it had been an unusual name previously,
and scarcely a single George appears in our parish registers
before 1700, although afterwards it multiplied to such an extent as to
make it doubtful whether George, John, or Charles be the most
common designation of Englishmen.
The feminine is quite a modernism. The first English lady on
record, so called, was a godchild of Anne of Denmark, who caused
her to be christened Georgia Anna. The name had, however, previously
existed on the Continent.
Venice took its Giorgio direct from Greece, but the name was not
popular elsewhere in Italy; and at Cambrai, an isolated instance
occurs in the year 1300, nor has it ever been common in France.
The Welsh Urien (Uranius) descends from heaven to earth by considering
George as his equivalent. The Irish translate the name into
Keltic as Seoirgi.[45]
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
Italian. |
| |
|
|
|
| George |
George |
Georges |
Giorgio |
| Georgy |
Geordie |
Georget |
|
| Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
Wallachian. |
Provençal |
| Jorge |
Jorge |
Georgie |
Jortz |
| |
Jorgezinho |
|
|
| 116German. |
Frisian. |
Bavarian. |
Swiss. |
| Georg |
Jurgen |
Görgel |
Jörg |
| Jurgen |
Jurn |
Gergel |
|
| Swedish. |
Danish. |
Dutch. |
Russian. |
| Göran |
Georg |
Georgius |
Gayeirgee |
| |
Jorgen |
Joris |
Georgij |
| |
|
Jurriaan |
Jurgi |
| |
|
Jurria |
Egor |
| |
|
|
Egorka |
| Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Slavonic. |
Illyrian. |
| Jerzy |
Jiri |
Jurg |
Giuraj |
| |
|
Jurck |
Giuro |
| |
|
|
Giuko |
| |
|
|
Djuradj |
| |
|
|
Djurica |
| |
|
|
Juro |
| |
|
|
Jurica |
| Lusatian. |
Lett. |
Lithuanian. |
Esthonian. |
| Juro |
Jorrgis |
Jurgis |
Jurn |
| Jurko |
Jurrusch |
Jurguttis |
|
| FEMININE. |
| English. |
French. |
German. |
Portuguese. |
| Georgiana |
Georgine |
Georgine |
Georgeta |
| Georgina |
Georgette |
|
Illyrian. |
| |
|
|
Gjurjija |
| |
|
|
Gjurgjinka |
Of the four great virgin saints, revered with almost passionate
affection in the Roman Catholic Church, each has been made the
representative of an idea. Probably Agnes, Barbara, Katharine, and
Margaret were veritable maidens who perished in the early persecutions,
and whose lives, save for some horrible incident in their tortures,
were unknown; but around them crystallized the floating allegories
of the Church, until Agnes became the representative of the triumph
of innocence, Margaret of the victory through faith, Katharine of intellectual,
and Barbara of artistic devotion. There was a speedy
lapse from the allegory to the legend, just as of old, from the figure
to the myth; and the virgins' popularity in all countries depended,
117not on their shadowy names in the calendar, but on the implicitly
credited tales of wonder connected with them.
Barbara was said to be a maiden of Heliopolis, whose Christianity
was revealed by her insisting that a bath-chamber should be built
with three windows instead of two, in honour of the chief mystery of
the Creed. Her cruel father beheaded her with his own hands, and
was immediately destroyed by thunder and lightning. Here, of
course, was symbolized the consecration of architecture and the fine
arts to express religious ideas, and St. Barbara became the patroness
of architects, and thence of engineers, and the protectress from thunder
and its mimic, artillery. The powder room in a French ship is still
known as la sainte Barbe. Her name has thus been widely spread,
though chiefly among the daughters of artificers and soldiers, seldom
rising to princely rank. Barbara is the feminine of βάρβαρος (a
stranger), the term applied by the Greeks to all who did not speak
their own tongue. Horne Tooke derives it from the root bar (strong),
and thinks it a repetition of the savage people’s own reduplicated bar-bar
(very strong); but it is far more probably an imitation of the incomprehensible
speech of the strangers; as, in fact, the Greeks seem
rather to have applied it first to the polished Asiatic, who would have
given them less the idea of strength than the Scyth or the Goth, to
whose language bar belonged in the sense of force or opposition.
It is curious to observe how, in modern languages, the progeny of the
Latin barbarus vary between the sense of wild cruelty and mere rude
ignorance, or ill-adapted splendour.
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
Italian. |
| Barbara |
Babie |
Barbe |
Barbara |
| Bab |
|
|
|
| Barbary |
|
|
|
| Danish. |
German. |
Swiss. |
Russian. |
| Barbraa |
Barbara |
Baba |
Varvara |
| |
Barbeli |
Babali |
Varinka |
| |
Barbechen |
Babeli |
|
| Slavonic. |
Illyrian. |
Bohemian. |
Lusatian. |
| Barbara |
Barbara |
Barbora |
Baba |
| Barba |
Varvara |
|
Babuscha |
| Barbica |
Bara |
|
|
| |
Vara |
|
|
| |
Barica |
|
|
| Lett. |
Lithuanian. |
Hungarian. |
|
| Barbule |
Barbe |
Borbola |
|
| Barbe |
Barbutte |
Boris |
|
| Babbe |
|
|
|
118The true old English form is Barbary. It appears thus in all the
unlatinized pedigrees and registers; and the peasantry still call
it so, though unluckily it is generally turned into Barbara in
writing.[46]
The word ἄγος (agos), a thing to which religious awe attaches, gave
the adjective ἄγνος (agnos), sacred or pure, whence was named the
tree whose twigs the Greek matrons strewed on their beds during the
festival of Demeter, and which the Romans called by a reduplication
of its title in both languages, the Agnus Castus. Agnus, the Latin
for a lamb, is said to have come from the consecration of those
creatures to sacred purposes; and thence, too, came Agnes, the name
of the gentle Roman maiden, the place of whose martyrdom named
the church of Sant' Agnese. It is said to have been built by Constantine
the Great only a few years after her death, on the spot where
she was put to the utmost proof; and it retains an old mosaic, representing
her veiled only by her long hair, and driven along by two
fierce soldiers.
Another very ancient church of Sant' Agnese covers the catacomb
where she was interred, and she has always been a most popular saint
both in the East and West, but most especially at her native city.
There a legend became current, probably from her name, that as her
parents and other Christians were weeping over her grave in the
catacomb, she suddenly stood before them all radiant in glory, and
beside her a lamb of spotless whiteness. She assured them of her
perfect bliss, encouraged them, and bade them weep no more; and
thus in all later representations of her, a lamb has always been her
emblem, though it does not appear in the numerous very early figures
of her that are still preserved.
A saint who was the object of so many legends could not fail of
numerous votaries, and Agnes was common in England and Scotland,
and was a royal name in France and Germany. The Welsh form is
Nest. A Welsh Nest was the mother of Earl Robert of Gloucester.
Iñes, as the Spaniards make it, indicating the liquid sound of the gn
by the cedilla, gained a mournful fame in Portugal by the fate of
Iñez de Castro, and Iñesila has been derived from it, while the former
English taste for stately terminations to simple old names made the
word Agneta. It is more common in Devonshire than in other
counties. In Durham, there is a curious custom of calling any female
of weak intellect, “a Silly Agnes.” Italy has invented the masculine
Agnolo and Agnello, often confounded with Angelo, and used as its
contraction.[47]
| 119 |
| English. |
Welsh. |
Manx. |
French. |
| Agnes |
Nest |
Nessie |
Agnes |
| Aggie |
|
|
Agnies |
| Agneta |
|
|
|
| Italian. |
Spanish. |
Portugues |
Swedish. |
| Agnese |
Ines |
Inez |
Agnes |
| Agnete |
Inesila |
|
Agneta |
| Agnesca |
|
|
|
| Danish. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
Slavonic. |
| Agnes |
Agnessa |
Agnizka |
Neza |
| Agnete |
Agnessija |
Bohemian. |
Nezika |
| |
|
Anezka |
|
| Servian. |
Lett. |
Esthonian |
Lithuanian. |
| Janja |
Agnese |
Neto |
Agnyta |
| Lusatian. |
Nese |
|
|
| Hanza |
|
|
|
No name has been the occasion of more pretty fancies than
Μαργαρίτης (a pearl), itself taken from the Persian term for the jewel,
Murvarid (child of light), in accordance with the beauteous notion
that the oysters rising to the surface of the water at night and opening
their shells in adoration, received into their mouths drops of dew
congealed by the moon-beams into the pure and exquisite gem,
resembling in its pure pale lustre nothing so much as the moon
herself, “la gran Margherita,” as Dante calls her. The thought of
the pearl of great price, and of the pearl gates of the celestial city,
no doubt inspired the Christian choice of Margarite for that child of
light of the city of Antioch in Pisidia, whose name as virgin martyr
standing in the Liturgy without any authentic history, became, before
the fifth century, the recipient of the allegory of feminine innocence
and faith overcoming the dragon, even as St. George embodied the
victory of the Christian warrior. Greek though the legend were, as
well as the name, neither flourished in the Eastern Church; but
Cremona laid claim to the maiden’s relics, and Hungary in its first
Christianity eagerly adopted her name, and reckons two saints so
called in the eleventh century, besides having sent forth the sweet
Margaret Ætheling, the wife of Malcolm Ceanmohr, the gentle royal
saint of the Grace Cup, who has made hers the national Scottish
female name. From Scotland it went to Norway with the daughter
120of Alexander III., whose bridal cost the life of Sir Patrick Spens;
and it had nearly come back again from thence with her child, the
Maid of Norway; but the Maid died on the voyage, and Margaret
remained in Scandinavia to be the dreaded name of the Semiramis
of the North, and was taken as the equivalent of Astrid and of
Grjotgard. From Cremona Germany learnt to know the child-like
Margarethe, one of the saints and names most frequently occurring
there; and Provence, then an integral part of the Holy Roman
Empire, likewise adopted her. From her was called the eldest of the
four heiresses of Provence, who married St. Louis, leaving Marguérite
to numerous French princesses. Her niece, the daughter of Henry
III., was the first English Margaret; but the name was re-imported
from France in the second wife of Edward I., and again in Margaret
of Anjou, from whom was called Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry
VII., and founder of the Lady Margaret professorship.
In her grand-daughter, Margaret Tudor, it ceased to be royal in
England, though it had taken root among the northern part of the
population, while, strangely enough, it hardly ever occurs among
the southern peasantry. The Italian reverence for Margherita, or
Malgherita, as they called her, was increased by the penitence of
Margherita of Cortona, whose repentance became so famed that she
was canonized. Many are the contractions of this favourite name,
since it is too long for the popular mouth. The oldest is probably
the Scottish Marjorie, as Bruce’s daughter was called, and which cut
down into Maisie, the “proud Maisie” of the ballad, and later into
Mysie, and was treated as a separate name. Mr. Lower tells us that
the surname of Marjoribanks is derived from the barony of Raltio,
granted to Marjorie Bruce on her marriage with the High Steward of
Scotland. Margaret turned into Meg before the time of “Muckle-moued
Meg of the Border,” and this as well as Maggie was shared
with England, which likewise had Margery and Marget, as well as
the more vulgar Peggy and Gritty, and likewise Madge.
The French contraction was in the sixteenth century Margot,
according to the epitaph, self-composed, of the Austrian, Flemish, or
French damsel, who was so nearly Queen of Spain:
“Ci gît Margot, la gentille demoiselle,
Qui a deux maris et encore est pucelle.”
But Gogo is not an improvement. Marcharit is the Breton form.
In Germany Grethel figures in various ‘Mahrchen,’ but Gretchen
is now most common, and is rendered classical by Goethe. Mete
in the time of Klopstock’s sway over the lovers of religious poetry
was very fashionable; and Meta almost took up her abode in
England, though the taste for simplicity has routed her of late.
Denmark, where the Semiramis of the North has domesticated the
name, calls it Mette and Maret, and places it in many a popular tale
and ballad as Metelill, or little Margaret.
Even the modern German Jews use it and call it Marialit; and
121the Vernacular Gaelic contraction used in Ireland is Vread, though
Mairgreg is the proper form.[48]
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
Italian. |
| Margaret |
Margaret |
Marguérite |
Margherita |
| Margaretta |
Marjorie |
Margot |
Malgherita |
| Margery |
Maisie |
Margoton |
Ghita |
| Maggy |
Maidie |
Goton |
Rita |
| Meggy |
Maggie |
Gogo |
|
| Madge |
Meg |
|
|
| Marget |
May |
|
|
| Peggy |
|
|
|
| Gritty |
|
|
|
| Meta |
|
|
|
| Spanish. |
German. |
Swiss. |
Danish. |
| Margarita |
Margarethe |
Margarete |
Margarete |
| Portuguese. |
Grete |
Gretli |
Mette |
| Margarida |
Gretchen |
|
Maret |
| |
Grethe |
|
Melletel |
| |
Grethel |
|
|
| |
Grel |
|
|
| |
Marghet |
|
|
| |
Mete |
|
|
| Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Slavonic. |
Finland. |
| Margareta |
Markota |
Marjarita |
Reta |
| Malgorzata |
|
Marjeta |
|
| Malgosia |
|
|
|
| Lett. |
Esthonian. |
Lithuanian. |
Hungarian. |
| Margrete |
Maret |
Magryta |
Margarta |
| Greta |
Kret |
Gryta |
Margit |
| Maije |
Krot |
Greta |
|
| Madsche |
|
|
|
The maiden martyr, whose name was chosen as the centre of the
allegory of intellectual religion, was Καθαρινή (Kathariné), Catharina
in Latin, from a virgin martyr of Alexandria, whose history being
unknown, became another recipient of a half-allegorical legend. It
is not found recorded earlier than the eighth century, and, indeed,
the complete ignorance of the state of the Roman empire, shown by
122making her the daughter of a king of Egypt, argues its development
at a very late period. Her exceeding wisdom, her heavenly espousals,
her rejection of the suit of Maximus, the destruction of the wheels
that were to have torn her in pieces, her martyrdom by the sword,
and the translation of her body by angels to Mount Sinai, are all
familiar through the numerous artistic works that have celebrated her.
The legend is thought to have grown up to its full height among the
monks of the convent that bears her name at the foot of Mount Sinai.
And the many pilgrims thither had the zest of a new and miraculous
legend, such as seems always to have been more popular than the
awful truth beside which it grew up; but it never obtained credit
enough in the East to make Katharina come into use as a name in
the Greek Church, and it was only when the Crusaders brought
home the story that it spread in ballad and mystery throughout the
West. Indeed, the name did not prevail till it had been borne by
the Italian devotee, Santa Caterina of Sienna, who tried to imagine
the original Katharina’s history renewed in herself, and whose
influence is one of the marvels of the middle ages. Before this, however,
the fair Katharine, Countess of Salisbury, had been the heroine
of the Garter, and John of Gaunt had named the daughter, who, as
Queen of Castille, made Catalina a Spanish name, whence it returned
to us again with Katharine of Aragon; but in the mean time Catherine
de Valois, the Queen of Henry V., had brought it again from
France.
The cause of the various ways of spelling this word would appear
to be that the more ancient English made no use of the letter K,
which only came in with printing and the types imported from
Germany. Miss Catherine Fanshaw wrote a playful poem in
defence of the commencement with C, avouching K to be no Saxon
letter, and referring to the shrewish Katharina and the Russian
empress as examples of the bad repute of the K; but her argument
breaks down, since the faithful Spanish Catalina, as English queen,
wrote herself Katharine, while the ‘Shrew’ in Italy could only have
been Caterina, and the Russian empress is on her coins Ekaterina.
On the whole, Katherine would seem properly to be a namesake of
the Alexandrian princess, Catherine, the Votaress of Sienna. No
name is more universal in all countries and in all ranks, partly from
its own beauty of sound, partly from association, and none has more
varied contractions. Our truest old English ones are Kate and Kitty—the
latter was almost universal in the last century, though now
supplanted by the Scottish Katie and the graceful Irish Kathleen.
Catherine has even produced a masculine name. Perhaps Anne
and Mary are the only others which have been thus honoured; but
the sole instance is Caterino or Catherin Davila, the historian, who
had the misfortune to have Catherine de Medici for his godmother.
| 123 |
| English. |
Scotch. |
Irish. |
Welsh. |
| Katharine |
Catharine |
Kathleen |
Cathwg |
| Catherine |
Katie |
Katty |
|
| Catharina |
Dutch. |
|
Bret. |
| Kate |
Kaat |
|
Katel |
| Kitty |
Kaatje |
|
Katelik |
| Katrine |
|
|
|
| French. |
Portuguese. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
| Cathérine |
Catharine |
Catalina |
Caterina |
| Catant |
|
|
|
| Caton |
|
|
|
| Gaton |
|
|
|
| Trinette |
|
|
|
| Cataut |
|
|
|
| Swedish. |
Danish. |
German. |
Dantzic. |
| Katarina |
Kathrina |
Katharine |
Trien |
| Kajsa |
Karina |
Kathchen |
Kasche |
| Kolina |
Karen |
Kathe |
|
| |
Kasen |
Thrine |
|
| Bavarian. |
Swiss. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
| Katrine |
Kathri |
Ekaterina |
Katarnyna |
| Kadreinl |
Kathrili |
Katinka |
Kasia |
| Treinel |
Tri |
Katinsha |
|
| Kadl |
Trili |
Katja |
|
| Kattel |
Trine |
|
|
| Ketterle |
Hati |
|
|
| |
Hatili |
|
|
| Slovak. |
Illyrian. |
Esthonian. |
Hungarian. |
| Katrina |
Katarina |
Katri |
Katalin |
| Katra |
Katica |
Kaddo |
Kati |
| Katrej |
|
Kats |
Katicza |
From θέρω (to heat) was derived θέρος (summer), which, in sunny
Greece, came likewise to mean the summer crop, just as in Germany
Herbst serves for both autumn and harvest. θερίζω (to reap or gather in
the crop), and from this verb comes the pretty feminine Theresa, the
reaper. “The first to bear the predestined name of Theresa,” as
Montalembert says, was a Spanish lady, the wife of a Roman noble
called Paulinus, both devotees under the guidance of St. Jerome,
whose writings most remarkably stamped the memory of his friends
124upon posterity; and this original Theresa was copied again and
again by her own countrywomen, till we find Teresa on the throne of
Leon in the tenth century. The name was confined to the Peninsula
until the sixteenth century, when that remarkable woman, Saint
Teresa, made the Roman Catholic Church resound with the fame of
her enthusiastic devotion. The Spanish connection of the House of
Austria rendered it a favourite with the princesses both of Spain and
Germany. The Queen of Louis XIV. promoted it in France as
Thérèse, and it is specially common in Provence as Térézon, for
short, Zon. The empress-queen greatly added to its fame; and it
is known everywhere, though more in Roman Catholic countries and
families than elsewhere. That it nowhere occurs in older English
pedigrees is one of the signs that it was the property of a saint whose
claims to reverence began after the Reformation.
| English. |
French. |
Portuguese. |
Spanish. |
| Theresa |
Thérèse |
Theresa |
Teresa |
| Terry |
Térézon |
|
Teresita |
| Tracy |
Zon |
|
|
| Italian. |
German. |
Hamburg. |
Bavaria. |
| Teresa |
Theresia |
Tresa |
Res’l |
| Teresina |
|
Trescha |
|
| Bohemian. |
Slavonic. |
Illyrian. |
Hungarian. |
| Terezie |
Terezija |
Tereza |
Terezia |
| |
|
Terza |
Threzsi |
The real popularity of the word, witnessed by its many changes of
sound, is, be it observed, in those Eastern domains of the empress
where her noble spirit won all hearts to the well-remembered cry
“Moriamur pro Rege nostrâ Maria Theresa.”
Eustaches has already been explained as one of these harvest
names. And to these may be added that of the old Cypriot shepherd
hermit Σπυρίδων (Spiridōn), from σπυρίς (a round basket). He was
afterwards a bishop, and one of the fathers of Nicea, then going
home, died at a great age, asleep in his corn field; in honour of
whom Spiridione, or Spiro, as the Italianized Greeks call it, is one
of the most popular of all names in the Ionian Islands, and has the
feminine Spira.[49]
Margaret, which has been spoken of elsewhere, is the most noted
of jewel names, and it probably suggested the few others that have
prevailed.
Σμάραγδος (Smaragdos) is supposed to have been named from μαίρω
125or μαρμαίρω (to twinkle or sparkle), whence the dog-star was called
Μαῖρα (Maira). This beauteous precious stone, bearing the colour of
hope, was further recommended to Christians because the rainbow
of St. John’s vision was “in sight like unto an emerald.” Thus,
Smaragdos was one of the early martyrs; and the same occurs
occasionally in early times, once as an exarch of Ravenna; but it
was never frequent enough to be a recognized name, except in two
very remote quarters, namely, as the Spanish Esmeralda and the
Cornish Meraud, the last nearly, if not quite, extinct.
The Sapphire was erased for ever from the nomenclature of Christians
by the fate of the unhappy Sapphira, except that Σαπφήρω
(Sapphēro), a name thus derived, is used among the modern Greeks
of the Ionian Islands; and so also is Διαμάντω (Diamanto).
For want of a better place, the Italian name Gemma must here be
mentioned, though purely Latin, and coming from a word meaning
the young crimson bud of a tree, though since used for a gem or
jewel. In Erse Gemlorg, gem-like, is almost exactly the same in
sound and spirit.
Moreover, both precious metals are used as female names in modern
Greece, Ἀργύρω (Argyro), silver, connecting itself with the Arianwen,
or silver lady, of Wales; and Χρυσωῦχα (Chrysoucha) from Χρυσός
(Chrysós), gold. This latter word has formed many other names,
beginning from Chryses and his daughter Chryseis, whose ransom
was the original cause of “Achilles' wrath of mighty woes the spring.”
In the soubriquet of Chrysostomos, or Golden Mouth, we have already
seen it, and it is found also in Χρύσανθος (Chrysanthos), golden flower,
the husband of Saint Daria, in whose honour prevails the Bavarian
Chrysanth or Santerl.
Muriel, an old English name, comes from μύρον (myrrh). Both it
and Meriel were once common, and have lately been revived.[50]
The pursuit of the relics of saints had already begun even in the
fourth century. No church was thought thoroughly consecrated save
by the bones of some sainted Christian, and it was during the first
fervour that led men to seek the bodies of the martyrs in their hiding-places,
that St. Ambrose discovered the bodies of two persons at
Milan, whom a dream pronounced to be Kosmos and Damianos, two
martyred Christians.
They, of course, were placed among the patrons of Milan, and their
names became favourites in Italy. Kosmos originally meant order;
but, having been applied to the order of nature, has in our day come
usually to mean the universe.
Cosimo, or Cosmo, as the Italians called it, was used at Milan and
Florence, where it gained renown in the person of the great man who
made the family of Medici eminent, and who prepared the way for
their aspirations to the elevation that proved their bane and corruption.
126France calls the word Côme without using it as a name, and Russia
adopts it as Kauzma.
Damianos was from the verb δαμάω, identical with our own tame,
which we have already seen in composition. He had a good many
chivalrous namesakes, as Damiano, Damiao, Damien, and the Russians
call him Demjan. The old Welsh Dyfan is another form strangely
changed by pronunciation.
Ἀλήθεια (Aletheia), truth, came from α and λήθω (to hide), and thus
means openness and sincerity.
When it first came to be used as a name is not clear. Aletha, of
Padua, appears in 1411; and the princess, on whose account Charles
I., when Prince of Wales, made his journey to Spain, was Doña
Maria Aletea. About that time Alethea made her appearance in the
noble family of Saville, and either to a real or imaginary Alethea
were addressed the famous lines of the captive cavalier:—
“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.”
Moreover, in 1669, Alethea Brandling, at the age of nine, was
married to one Henry Hitch, esq., and the name occurs several
times in Durham pedigrees.
As far as the English Alethea is concerned, she is probably the
alteration of an Irish name, for she chiefly belongs to the other
island, and is there called Letty. What feminine it was meant to
translate must be uncertain, perhaps Tuathflaith (the noble lady).
Tom Moore called his Egyptian heroine Atethe, from the adjective,
and this has been in consequence sometimes used as a name.
The name Althea must not be confounded with it. This last is
Ἄλθεια (wholesome). It belonged of old to the unfortunate mother
of Meleager, and now designates a genus of mallows, in allusion to
their healing power.
We find the prefix πρό, forming part of the word προκοπή (progress),
whence the name Προκόπιος (Prokopios); in Latin, Procopius, progressive.
It was the name of a martyr under Diocletian, in Palestine,
and is a favourite in the Greek Church. The short-lived successor of
Jovian was so called; also the great Byzantine historian; and now
Prokopij is very common among the Russian clergy; and Prokop or
Prokupek has found its way into Bohemia. Russia, likewise, uses in
the form of Prokhor, the name of Próchorus (Πρόχορας), one of the
seven deacons, and much Græcized indeed must the imaginations of
his Jewish parents have been when they gave him such an appellation,
signifying the leader of the choral dances in the Greek
theatres.
PART VI. Teutonic Names. — CHAPTER I. THE TEUTON RACE. — Section I. — Ground occupied by the Teutons. — CHAPTER II. NAMES FROM TEUTON MYTHOLOGY. — Section I. — Guth. — Section II. — The Aasir. — Section III. — Odin, or Grîmr. — Section IV. — Frey. — Section V. — Thor. — Section VI. — Baldur and Hodur. — Section VII. — Tyr. — Section VIII. — Heimdall. — Section IX. — Will. — Section X. — Hilda. — Section XI. — Ve. — Section XII. — Gerda. — Section XIII. — Œgir. — Section XIV. — Ing—Seaxnot. — Section XV. — Eormen. — Section XVI. — Erce. — Section XVII. — Amal. — Section XVIII. — Forefathers. — CHAPTER III. NAMES FROM OBJECTS CONNECTED WITH MYTHOLOGY. — Section I. — Day. — Section II. — The Wolf. — Section III. — Eber, the Boar. — Section IV. — The Bear. — Section V. — The Horse. — Section VI. — The Eagle. — Section VII. — The Raven. — Section VIII. — The Swan. — Section IX. — The Serpent. — Section X. — Kettle. — Section XI. — Weapon Names. — Section XII. — Thought. — CHAPTER IV. HEROIC NAMES OF THE NIBELUNG. — Section I. — The Nibelung. — Section II. — Sigurd. — Section III. — Brynhild. — Section IV. — Gunther. — Section V. — Hagen. — Section VI. — Ghiseler. — Section VII. — Ghernot. — Section VIII. — Folker. — Section IX. — Dankwart. — Section X. — Theodoric. — Section XI. — Uta, Ortwin. — Section XII. — Sintram. — Section XIII. — Elberich. — CHAPTER V. THE KARLING ROMANCES. — Section I. — The Paladins. — Section II. — Charles. — Section III. — Roland, &c. — Section IV. — Renaud. — Section V. — Richard. — Section VI. — Astolfo. — Section VII. — Ogier le Danois. — Section VIII. — Louis. — CHAPTER VI. DESCRIPTIVE NAMES. — Section I. — Nobility. — Section II. — Command. — Section III. — Brightness. — Section IV. — War. — Section V. — Protection. — Section VI. — Power. — Section VII. — Affection. — Section VIII. — Appearance. — Section IX. — Locality. — Section X. — Life.
283
The great mass of modern European nomenclature springs from
the class of languages which it is convenient collectively to call
Teutonic.
Nothing shows the identity of the entire Teutonic race more than
the resemblance of the names in each of the branches. Many are
found in each of the stems—Gothic, Scandinavian, and High and
Low German—the same in sense, and with mere dialectic changes in
sound, proving themselves to have sprung from a name, or from
words, current in the original tribe before the various families parted
from it. Others are found in some branches and not in others; but
there are comparatively very few belonging to a single tongue, and
the analyzation of one into its component words is never safe till the
same name has been sought for in the cognate languages. All the
more popular of these personal names have gone on a little in the
rear of the spoken language of the country, undergoing changes,
though somewhat more slowly. Then, perhaps, some famous character
has, as it were, crystallized his name for ever in the form in
which he bore it, and it has been so continued, ever after, in his own
country, as well as imitated by others, who often have adopted it in
addition to their own original national form of the very same.
The Teutonic names were almost all compounds of two words.
Sometimes a single word was used, but this was comparatively rare.
For the most part, families were distinguished by each person bearing
the same first syllable, with other words added to it to mark the
individual, much in the same way as we have seen was the custom
of the Greeks. Some families, like the royal line of Wessex, would
alternate between Æthel and Ead; others between Os and Sieg and
the like. The original compounds forming names were expressive
284and well chosen; but it seems as if when once certain words had
come into use as component parts of names, they were apt to be put
together without much heed to their appropriateness or signification,
sometimes with rather droll results. Their names were individual,
but every man was also called the son, every woman the daughter, of
the father; a custom that has not passed away from some parts of
Norway, the Hebrides, or even the remoter parts of Lancashire,
where, practically, the people use no surnames. A family was further
collectively spoken of by the ancestor’s or father’s name, with the
addition of ing, the derivative or patronymic; as, in France, the sons
of Meervig were the Meerwingen; the sons of Karl, the Karlingen;
not Merovingians and Carlovingians, as Latinization has barbarously
made them. Remarkable features, or distinguished actions, often
attached soubriquets to individuals, and these passed on, marking off
families in the genealogical songs of the Scallds; and from these
derivations, as well as from the fertile source of territorial terms,
have most of our modern surnames arisen.
The words whence names were compounded were usually the
names of deities and those of animals, together with epithets, or terms
of office, generally conveying good auguries. They were usually
connected with some great hero belonging to the various cycles of
myth, in which the Teuton imagination revelled, and which, for the
most part, under Christian influence, descended from the divine to
the heroic, and then to the fairy tale.
These Teutonic centres of legend may be considered as threefold.
There is the great Scandinavian mythological system, as elaborate
and as poetical as that of the Greeks, and which belonged in part, at
least, to the Goths, Franks, and Saxons, though their early conversion
deprived it of five hundred years of development; and Louis le
Debonnaire unfortunately destroyed the poetry that would have
shown us what it had been among them.
Next, there is the cycle of Romance, represented in Scandinavia
by the latter part of the elder Edda and by the Volsunga Saga, in
Denmark by the Vilkina Saga, and in the centre of Europe by the
Nibelungenlied, where old myths have become heroic tales that have
hung themselves round the names of Attila the Hun and Theodoric
of Verona, who in Germany is the centre of a great number of
ancient legends, once doubtless of deified ancestors.
Thirdly, we have the grand poetical world, in which Charlemagne
has been adopted as the sovereign, and Roland as the hero—the
world of French romance, Spanish ballad, and Italian poetry, which
is to continental chivalry what the Round Table is to our own.
285
It is hard to class this first class of names under those of mythology,
for they bear in them our own honoured word for the Deity;
and though some arose when the race were worshippers of false
divinities, yet under the same head are included many given in a
Christian spirit.
Some philologists tell us, though they are not unanimous in the
explanation, that this name is from the same source as the Sanscrit
Svadáta, self-given or uncreate, and as the Zend Quadata, Persian
Khoda, and our own Teuton term for Deity—the Northern Gud and
Gothic Guth, whence the High German Cot and low German God.
Others explain it as the creating or all-pervading. Others, again,
derive it from od, possession, and in early Christian times there was
a distinction between God (mas.) and the neuter god, an idol. It is
equally doubtful whether this divine word be the origin of the adjective,
guth, gut, cuot, gode. Whether they are only cognate, or whether
they are absolutely alien, and the adjective be related to the Greek
ἀγαθός—wherever they come from, the names derived from either
God or good are so much alike, as to be inextricably mixed, so that
they must be treated of together.
The North is the great region of these names; but they are not
very easy to distinguish from the very large class beginning with
gund, war, as in pronunciation, and latterly in spelling, the distinctive
letters, n and u, get confounded or dropped.
It is probable, however, that among those from Gud we may place
Gudhr, which was owned by one of the Valkyrier, the battle maids
of northern belief, and must, with her, have meant the brave, or the
goddess; Guda was known in Scandinavia; and Germany used the
name, till it was translated into Bona or Bonne, and thus passed
away.away.
In the northern version of the Nibelungen, the second heroine is
Gudruna. The last syllable means wisdom, or counsel; it is the
same as rune, the old northern writing, and alludes to the wisdom
that Odin won at so dear a rate. Gudruna may then be translated
divine wisdom, a name well suited to the inspired priestesses, so
highly regarded by the Teutons. It was very common in the North;
eighteen ladies so called appear in the Icelandic Landnama; and it
286was so universal there, that Johann and Gudruna there stand for
man and woman, like our N. or M. In Norway, likewise, Gudruna is
common; and, near Trondjem, is contracted into Guru; about
Bergen, into Gern or Gero. High German tongues rendered it
Kutrun.
The Landnama-bok, which gives all the pedigrees of the free
inhabitants of Iceland for about four hundred years, namely, from
the migration to the twelfth century, gives us Gudbrand, divine
staff, now commonly called Gulbrand; Gudbiorg, divine protection;
Gudiskalkr, God’s servant, or scholar, which is the very same as
Godeskalk, the name assumed by the first Christian prince of the
Wends of Mecklenburg, who was martyred by his heathen subjects,
and thus rendered Gottschalk a German Christian name; in Illyrian,
Gocalak; and known even in Italy as Godiscalco, just like Gildas or
Theodoulos. Gudleif is feminine, Gudleifr masculine, for a divine
relic; and this last coming to England with the Danes, turned into
a surname as Gulleiv, then shortened into Gulley, and lengthened
into Gulliver—a veritable though quaint surname for the Lemuel
Gulliver whom Swift conducts through Laputa and Brobdignag,
with coolness worthy of northern forefathers.
Gudleik, divine service, is, perhaps, repeated by our St. Guthlac;
but both these may come from gund. Gudmund contracts into
Gulmund, divine protection. Five ladies called Gudny appear,
which latter termination is a common feminine form, and comes
from the same word as our new. If an adjective, it would mean
young and pretty; if a noun, it stands for the new moon, a very
graceful name for a woman. Guni is the contraction used in the
North.
Gudfinn and Gudfinna must be reminiscences of Finn, whom we
shall often meet in the North. Gudrid and Gudridur mean the
divine shock or passion, from the word hrid or hrith, one that is
constantly to be met with as a termination in northern names, and
which has sometimes been taken for the same as frid, with the
aspirate instead of the f. Guri is the contraction.
Gudveig’s latter syllable would naturally connect itself with the
wig, war, that is found in all the Gothic tongues; but Professor
Munch translates it as liquid—divine liquor—the same meaning as
Gudlaug and the masculine Gudlaugr; laug, from la, liquor, or the
sea. Divine sea, would be a noble meaning for the Gulla or Gollaa
to which Gudlaug is commonly reduced in Norway.
Gudvar is divine prudence or caution, the last part being our word
ware; in fact, every combination of the more dignified words was
used with this prefix in the North, and it was probably the Danes
who introduced this commencement into England, for we do not
find such in pedigrees before the great irruption in Ethelred I.’s time.
In spite of the romantic story of Earl Godwine’s rise into honour
from acting as a guide to a Danish chief, it is certain that he was of
an honourable family, of Danish connection, and thus he probably
obtained his name, which would mean God’s beloved, and thus
translate Theophilos. Few are recorded in history as bearing the
287same; but there must have been some to transmit the frequent
surname of Godwin and Goodwin, the latter connected to our minds
with the Goodwin Sands, which were really once the estate of the
ambitious earl. Godin is the remains of the same in French. It is
found at Cambrai, in 1065, belonging to the “Echanson d'Ostrevant.”
The old French word godeau meant a cup, and, as Godin soon became
a surname of a family which carried a cup in their arms, there might
have been a double allusion to the office of the ancestor and to the
sound of the name. Godine and Godinette were also in use there,
but were considered as feminines to Goderic—a very old word,
which, strange to say, was, at Cambrai, equivalent to fainéant, or ‘ne’er
do weel,’ it must be supposed in allusion to some particularly
discreditable Goderic, as everywhere else it signifies divine ruler.
Our own St. Goderic was an Anglo-Saxon abbot, and the name,
which means divine rule, grew so common among the English, that
the Norman nobles called Henry I. and his Queen, Godric and
Godiva, in derision of the lady’s English blood. Goderic does,
indeed, swarm in Domesday Book, and has left the surname Goodrich.
“The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl who ruled
At Coventry,”
really existed, and was probably Godgifu, the gift of God, like
Dorothea, as ive or eva was the Norman rendering of gifu. Her
namesakes are in multitudes in Domesday, and, in 1070, one lived in
Terouenne, a pious lady, tormented, and at last murdered, by her
husband, on which account she was canonized as St. Godeleva.
The High Germans, however, made far more use of this commencement,
and won for it the chief honour. The elder forms are according
to the harsh old German sounds—Cotahelm, divine helmet, Cotahramn,
divine raven, Cotalint, divine serpent! But the more universal
spelling prevailed, as Frankish or Allemannic saints came into
honour. Gotthard, bishop of Hildesheim, was one of these. His
name, which may be rendered divine resolution, or, perhaps, firm
through God, was also borne by Godard, abbot of Rouen, and has
adhered to the great mountain-pass of the Alps, as well as to
families of Godard in France, Goddard in England. In Germany it
is still used as a Christian name; and in Lithuania is Gattinsch,
Gedderts, or Kodders.
Gottfrid, divine peace, was abbot of St. Quentin early in the
eleventh century, and named two godsons, the canonized bishop of
Amiens, and the far more famous Gottfried of Lorraine, who might
well, as leader of the crusading camp, bequeath his name to all the
nations whose representatives fought under him, and thus we find it
everywhere. In Florence it has become Giotto, to distinguish the
artist who gave us Dante’s face; in Germany, cut down into Goetz,
it distinguished the terrible, though simple-hearted, champion with
the iron hand, then, falling into a surname, belonged to Göthe. We
received our Godfrey from the conqueror of Jerusalem, but previously
the Gottfried had been taken up by the French, and was much used
288by the Angevin counts in the Gallicized form of Geoffroi. In alternation
with Foulques, the name continued among the Angevins till
they came to the English throne; and then Jaffrez, as the Bretons
called the young husband of their duchess Constance, was excited to
rebellion by the Provençals as Jaffré. Geoffrey spread among the
English, and the Latinizers made it into Galdfridus, which misled
Camden into translating it into Glad-peace.
| English. |
Breton. |
French. |
Italian. |
| Godfrey |
Jaffrez |
Godefroi |
Goffredo |
| Geoffrey |
|
Godafrey |
Godofredo |
| Jeffrey |
|
Geoffroi |
Giotto |
| Jeff |
|
Jeoffroi |
|
| Spanish. |
German. |
Polish. |
Lusatian. |
| Godofredo |
Gottfried |
Godfrid |
Frido |
| Gofredo |
Götz |
Dutch. |
Fridko |
| |
Gödel |
Govert |
|
Besides these, Germany has Godegisel, divine pledge; Godebert and
Godeberta, divine brightness; and Gottwald, divine power: repeated
in Provence by Jaubert.
Germany also has a Gottleip, the same with the old Anglo-Saxon
Guthlaf, meaning the leavings of God, or remains of Divinity, but
which has been made in modern German into Gottlieb, or love, and
contracted in Lower Lusatia into Lipo; in Dantzic, into Lipp. There
are several of these modern devotional German names, such as
Gottlob, the very same in meaning as belonged to the Speaker of the
Rump, Praise God Barebones, but has been continued as Lopo, or
Lopko, in Lusatia. In fact, the Moravians use these appellations,
and thus we have the modern coinage of Gottgetreu, Gotthilf, and
Gotthilfe, and even of Gottsei-mit-dir, much like the Diotisalvi of
Italy, and not without parallel among the early Christians.
The Spanish Goths left behind them Guzman, once either divine
might (magen), or Man of God. Guzman el Bueno was an admirable
early Spaniard, who beheld his own son beheaded rather than
surrender the town committed to his keeping. It became a surname,
and it may be remembered how Queen Elizabeth played with that of
Philip II.’s envoy, when she declared that if the king of Spain had
sent her a gooseman, she had sent him a man-goose.
Another old form taken by this word was Geata, or Gautr. It was
used as an epithet of Odin, and has been explained by some to mean
the keeper, and be derived from geata, to keep; but it is far more
likely that it is only another pronunciation of the same term for the
All-pervader or Creator.
Gautr is sometimes a forefather, sometimes a son of Odin; and
there is a supposed name-father, Gaut, for the Goths of Sweden,
whether they are the same as the Goths of Italy and Spain or not.
289In this form, Gaut had its own brood of derivatives, chiefly in
Sweden, but with a few straying into Germany; such as Gosswin,
divine friend, and Gossbert, in Provençal Joubert, Gossfried, which
may be the right source of Geoffrey.
The most noted of all is, however, Gotzstaf, or Gozstaf, meaning
either the divine staff, or the staff of the Goths. Twice has it been
endeared to the Swedes; first by Gustaf Vasa, the brave man who
delivered the country from the bondage of the union of Calmar, and
whose adventures in Dalecarlia, like those of Bruce in Scotland, were
more endearing than even his success. Him the country calls affectionately
“Gamle Kong Gosta” and no less was its love and pride in his
noble descendant, Gustaf Adolf, “the Lion of the North, the bulwark
of the Protestant faith,” who casts the only gleam of brightness over
the dull waste of the Thirty Years' War. Thus it is no wonder that
so many bear his name, Gustav, Gosta, Gjosta, that it is considered
in the North as the national nickname of a Swede; and it has the
feminine Gustava.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Swedish. |
| Gustavus |
Gustave |
Gustavo |
Gozstav |
| |
|
|
Gustav |
| |
|
|
Gosta |
| |
|
|
Gjosta |
| German. |
Lett. |
Esthonian. |
|
| Gustaf |
Gustavs |
Kustav |
|
| |
Gusts |
Kustas |
|
Tacitus tells us that the supreme god of the Germans was called
Esus or Hesus, and though some have thought he meant the Keltic
Hu, it is far more likely that he had heard the word As or Æs, the
favourite Teutonic term for their divinities.
The word is known in all the Teutonic languages: it is As, Aasir
in the North, Os, Es in Anglo-Saxon, and Anseis or Ensi in Gothic and
High German. Jornandes tells us that the Goths called their deified
ancestors anses, but it is only in the North that the literature of the
Pantheon of the race was so developed that we can follow it out.
The Aasir are in northern myth a family like the Olympian gods
of Greece; they inhabit Valhalla, and there receive the spirits of the
worthy dead, to feast and hunt with them till the general battle and
final ruin of all things, when a new and perfect world shall arise.
Blended with this notion there is a grand allegory of the contention
between the seasons. The Aasir, or summer gods, are always
struggling with the Hrimthusir, or frost powers, and winning the
victory over them.
And further, the tradition of a migration from the warmer East,
290and of the battles with the northern aborigines, is mixed up in the
legends, and the Aasir are a band of heroic settlers from Asgard or
Asia, who fix themselves in Europe, and become the ancestors of all
the various races of Teutons.
So speak the Edda and the various sagas of the North; and though
the poetry and legends of the other nations have not come down to
us, their use of the names formed from as, os, ans, testifies to their
regard for the term as conveying the idea of deity.
To begin with the North, where the pronunciation is the purest,
the word in the singular is aas, in the plural, aasir or æsir, and the
older form of these names began with the aa, though usually spelt
with a single a in Norsk and Icelandic, with an e in Danish. And
let it be remembered throughout, that the Northern aa is pronounced
like our o.
The Low Germans change the aas into os, and in this way most of
the Anglo-Saxon and continental German names commence.
Ans, the High German and Gothic form, occurs in the Frank,
Lombardic, and Gothic names. Asgaut or, as the Saxons call it,
Osgod, and Asgrim, are both reduplications of divinity.
Asa appears in the Landnama-bok, and Aasir, the collective term
for the gods, is used in Norway as a name corrupted into Asser, or
Ozer. It is probably the same with Esa, the ancestor of the Bernician
kings, who may have used ‘Os’ in compliment to him. Aasketyl is
the divine kettle or cauldron, probably connected with creation. It
was usually called in the North Askjell, and has the feminine Askatla.
Oscetyl, as the Anglo-Saxons spelt it, was used by them in Danish
times, when a so-called marauder terribly tormented them; but
Frank pronunciation so affected the Normans, that they brought in
the name as Ansketil; and a person so called was settled at Winchester
in 1148.
Aasbjorn, divine bear, is a queer compound, and so is Aasolfr, or
divine wolf; but as will be shown when we come to the beasts
themselves, a certain divinity did hedge about these formidable
animals in the days of name-coining in the North. The first Asolfr
with whom I have met was a Christian, who, with twelve companions,
was wrecked upon the shores of Iceland in the interval between its
settlement and conversion. They erected buildings, resolutely refused
all commerce with the heathen, and lived solely on the produce of
their fishing. A church has since been built where they settled. The
name has fallen into Asulf in the North, and was paralleled by Osulf
in England. As to the divine bear, he had a wider fame, for Asbiorn
came among the Northmen to Neustria, and was there Frenchified.
An Osborn was the seneschal who was murdered in the sleeping
chamber of William in the stormy days of the minority of the future
conqueror; and his son, William Fitzosborn, was the chief friend and
confidant of the stern victor of Hastings. Osborn figures in Domesday,
and has now become a common English surname, which used to be
translated house-born, before comparison with the other tongues had
shown the true relations of the word. Asbera is the northern
feminine.
291Esbern Snare, or the swift, the Danish noble, whose heart and eyes
were to have furnished Finn’s child with amusement, was really a
powerful earl at the end of the twelfth century, and his still more
celebrated twin brother, Bishop Absalom, was a great statesman and
warrior, and prompted Saxo Grammaticus to write his chronicle of
Norway. Bishop Absalom is believed to have, like his brother,
received at baptism one of the derivatives from the old gods of
Denmark, namely, Aslak, the divine sport or reward, a name which
in Denmark and Sweden is always called Axel, in which shape it
belonged to Oxenstjerna, the beloved minister of Gustavus Adolphus,
and has ever since been a favourite national name. Aslak is in the
North pronounced Atlak, and sometimes taken for the original Atli
in the Volsunga Saga; but this is far more probably the Tartar
Attalik. We had a Bernician Aslak of the like meaning. Never
were there a more noted pair of twins than these brothers, of the bear
and the sport. Well might their birth be first announced to their
absent father, on his return to the isle of Soro, by twin church
steeples, built by the mother to greet his eyes over the sea. His
name, Askar, or Ansgjerr, divine spear, was so common that sixteen
appear in the Iceland roll, and the word Osgar gets confused with
the Keltic Oscar, son of Ossian; nay, it may perhaps have been his
proper name. A Frank Ansgar, born in Picardy about the year 800,
was the apostle of Denmark, and afterwards bishop of Hamburgh and
Bremen; he was canonized as Anscharius, and is popularly called in
his bishopric St. Scharies, by which title the collegiate church of
Bremen is called. It is curious to find the Ansbrando of ancient
Lombardy reflected by the Asbrandr, divine sword, of Iceland.
Lombardy had likewise Anshelm, the divine helmet, softened down
into Anselmo or Antelmo, the name of that mild-natured Lombardic
Archbishop of ours, whose constancy cost him so dear in his contention
with the furious Rufus and politic Beauclerc. That firmness, however,
together with his deep theological writings, won him the honours of
sanctity, though it is only on the Continent that his name took root:
England had no national love for her Anselm; and he chiefly appears
in Italy, France, and Germany, where he has been cut short as Anso,
endeared as Ensilo, has a feminine Ansa, and is called by the Jews
Anschel.
Of other terms which, like helm, give the idea of protection, there
are many; the feminine Asbjorg or Asburg, divine fort, is reflected
by the Anglo-Saxon Asburgha. Asgardr, divine guard, may be most
probably an allusion to the abode of the gods, Asgard, the abode to
which the rainbow-arch Bifrost was the access, trod, according to the
grand death song of Eirikr Blodaxe, by the spirits of the courageous
dead on their way to feast in the hall of Odin. As men’s names
appear the Norwegian Asgard, and Ansgard, a Winchester householder
in Stephen’s time; but the Northern feminine Asgerdur is the divine
maiden, in honour of the goddess Gerda. Asmundr is the northern
form of a favourite name, giving the idea of protecting with the hand.
It is called Ansmunt in old German, Osmund in Anglo-Saxon and
Norman-French, and in this form was most popular, at first perhaps,
292from Osmond de Centeville, the brave Norman, who fled from Laon
with the young Richard Sans Peur, but afterwards for the sake of a
Norman Osmond, who was canonized as Bishop of Salisbury, whence
this form in England and Osmont in France have continued.
Aasvalldr, divine power, was in Germany Ansvalt, and has modernized
as Asvald; but the Anglo-Saxon Oswald was the glory of the
name in the Northumbrian monarch, “free of hand,” as even his
Welsh foes called him, who has left Oswald to be an English name.
Asvor and Asvora express divine prudence.
“Aslaug, dottur Sigurdur Fafnisbana,” is recorded in the Landnama-bok
in sober earnest as having married Ragnar Lodbrog.
Divine legacy, or relic, appears in Asleif, the English Oslaf.
The northern Aasny, with Ashildur, has always been a favourite.
Osthryth, divine threatener, came out of the house of Bernicia into
Mercia, where she was murdered by the Danes, and revered as St.
Osyth with a priory in her honour.
Thoroughly English are likewise Osmod, divine mood or wrath;
Osfrith, divine peace; Osred, divine council; Osgifu, divine gift;
Oswine, divine friend, the third of the admirable but short-lived
kings of Bernicia; Oswiu, who overthrew him, was probably named
from a word meaning sacred, of which more in its place. Osbeorht
we share with Germany, which calls it Osbert, and has the feminine
Osberta. In fact, most of these names were in use there, beginning
with os or ans, according to the dialect in which they were used.
Ansgisel was one of the Frankish forms, that section of the race
always making much use of gisel, a pledge.[107]
The head of the Aasir was Odin, as we have learned to call him
from the North, which worshipped him long after we had forgotten
our Wuotan, except in the title of his day of the week. There are
various opinions as to the meaning of his name, some making it come
from the word for rage in the North, odhr; in A. S., wod; and still
wuth in German; and the adjective wud in Scottish. It thus may
allude to Odin being the god of storm and tempest. Others take the
name from O. G., watan, N., vatha, to pervade, the title of the
Divinity, as being through all things. This is, in fact, the same as God.
However this may be, Odin, in the higher myths, is the All-father,
standing at the head of Asgard, as Zeus does of Olympus. He
governs all things, and knows all things. He obtained this mighty
influence, says the Edda, by hanging for nine nights on the world-tree,
Yggdrasil, without food or drink, transfixed with a spear, as a
self-sacrifice. Then he looked down into the depth, and sank from
the tree into it; but in the abyss beneath he drank the costly poet-mead,
293and learnt powerful songs, obtaining the Runes, the beginning
of wisdom, by which he could compel to his will all nature: wind,
sea, and fire, hate and love!
Coupled with this entirely divine Odin, there was the abiding
notion of ancestry beginning with a god; and no one, of any nobility,
was content without having Odin for his forefather. Even when
Christianity dethroned Odin from his place in Heaven, he was still
retained as a heroic ancestor; and somewhat grotesquely, the old
chroniclers, after carrying up their kings to him, brought him down
from Noah, and he became reduced to be the leader of the great
migration from Asia, while the gods were made his human sons.
We do not find Odin itself forming part of any personal name; it
seems to have been avoided as Zeus was in Greece, and, to a greater
degree, Jupiter in Rome. But he had no less than forty-nine epithets,
all of which are rehearsed in the prose Edda, and his votaries
were called by one or other of these.
Finn has been spoken of already as one of these; also Gautr, as one
of the forms of divinity. Grîmr is another, coming from the old
Norse word grîma, a mask or helmet. Odin was called Grimr, meaning
the concealed, or possibly the helmeted; and the names beginning
with Grim may generally be referred to the hidden god.
Grîmhild, or in High German, Krimhild, was originally one of
the Valkyrier, or choosers of the slain, who was so called, as being
endowed with a helmet of terror. Hidden battle-maid, or helmeted
battle-maid, would be her fittest translation. In the northern version
of the Nibelungenlied, Grimhild is the witch-mother of Sigurd’s
wife, Gudrun, and performs a part like that of the Oda, or Uta, in
the German and Danish versions, in which the heroine herself is
called Kriemhild, or Chriemhild, and does her fatal part in wreaking
revenge for the murder of her husband. Grimhhildur was somewhat
used in the North, but nothing was so fashionable as Grim, who
occurs twenty-nine times in the Landnama-bok, and with equal
frequency in Domesday; besides that one of these Danish settlers
left his name to Grimsby, in Lincolnshire.
Grim has, of course, his kettle, in the North, Grimketyl, or Grimkjell;
in Domesday, Grimchel; an allusion, probably, to creation,
quaint as is the sound to our ears. Grimperaht, or helmeted splendour,
first was turned into Grimbert, then into the common German surname
of Grimmert. Grimar in the North was Grimheri in Germany.
Grim was in greater favour as a prefix in the High German dialects
than in the North, and chiefly in the Frankish regions.
Grimbald, helmeted prince, was a monk of St. Omer, transplanted
by King Alfred to Oxford, in the hope of promoting learning, and
he thus became a Saxon saint. Grimvald, helmeted ruler, was a
maire du palais in the Faineant times of the Franks; and in Spanish
balled el Conde Grimaltos, a knight at the court of Charlemagne, was
slandered and driven away with his wife to the mountains, where
the lady gives birth to a son, who was baptized Montesinos, from
the place of his birth, and educated in all chivalry till he was old
enough to go to Charlemagne’s court, refute the slander by the ordeal
294of battle, and restore his family to favour. Grimaldo was a name
borne by the Lombard kings, and left remains in the great Grimaldi
family of Genoa.
Most of our English Grims were importations, and there are few of
them, though we have Grimulf in Domesday, probably a Dane.
Every false religion preserves in some form or other the perception
of a Divine Trinity, and the Teutonic Triad consisted of Odin, Frey,
and Thor, whose images always occupied the place of honour in the
temples, and who owned the three midmost days of the week.
The history of the word freyr is very curious. The root is found
in pri, Skt., to love or rejoice, the Zend frî, the Greek φίλος. To be
glad was also to be free; so freon or frigon means to free and to love,
and thence free in all its forms (N. fri; Goth, frige; H. G. frei; L.
G. freoh). Thus, again, the Germans came by froh, and we by fresh.
Fro was both glad and dear; and as in Gothic frowida was joy, so is
freude in modern German; and we exult in frolics and freaks. He
who loved was known by the present participle, frigonds, the friend of
modern English, the same in all our Teutonic tongues; and as the
effect of love is peace, the term was fred or fried, our Saxon frith,
which we have lost in the French-Latin word. To be free was to be
noble, so the free noble was Frauja, the name by which Ulfilas always
translates Κύριος, in the New Testament, by a beautiful analogy,
showing, indeed, that our Lord is our Friend and our Redeemer,
loving us, and setting us free.
Frauja, or free, was the lord and master, so his wife was likewise
frea, both the beloved and the free woman; the northern frue,
German frau, and Dutch vrowe, all, as donna had done in Italy,
becoming the generic term for woman.
Out of all the derivatives of this fertile and beautiful term, there
were large contributions to mythology, and a great number of
names.
Freyr, lord, lover, was once a god of very high rank, lord of sun
and moon, hermaphrodite, and regulating the seasons, blessing
marriage, and guarding purity: and this was probably a universal
idea brought from Asia.
As old notions formed into mythic tales, and the gods grew human,
the wife of Odin was invented, and what could she be but the frau,
the lady of Asgard, Frigga? Again, Freyr was brought down from
his mysterious vagueness, and turned into a nephew of Odin, with
the moon to take care of, and, moreover, was disintegrated into a
brother and sister, called Freyr and Freya.
The sixth day of the week had probably originally belonged to
Freyr, but Frigga got possession of it; and, in right of her presiding
over love and marriage, she was considered to be Venus; and in
France and Italy her day is still Vendredi and Venerdì, while we
have it as Friday, the Germans as Freitag, the North as Fredag.
295Freya is also a goddess of love, and drives over every battle-field
with her car drawn by cats (once, perhaps, panthers, like those of
Bacchus, whom her brother is thought to resemble), and chooses
half the slain, whom she marshals to their seats at the banquet of
Valhalla. Her husband, Othur or Odhr, curiously repeats Odin’s
name, as she does Frigga’s. She weeps continually drops of gold
when he is absent, and the metal is poetically called Freya’s tears.
Her brother, Freyr, was always a chaste, dignified, beneficent
personage, a sort of severe Bacchus, or grave Apollo. In the great
final battle, he is to be destroyed by Surti. He is the tutelary god
of Sweden, as was Odin of the Saxons.
There are hosts of names connected with these deities, or the words
sprung from their source. Frith in Saxon, frey or freya in the
North, fried in German, falling in France into froi, was a favourite
termination generally masculine, and so probably in honour of
Freyr; and though it is safe to translate it peace, it probably also
meant freedom.
Old Spanish has Froila, or Fruela, among the kings of the
Asturias, and this may be translated lord, and compared with the
Freavine, or Frowin, free darling, now become Frewen. Franta,
too, was a king of the Spanish Suevi.
Fritigern, king of the Visigoths, who first fixed himself on the
Danube, bore the name afterwards Frideger (spear of peace), in
Germany, a compound much resembling that borne by that Jezebel
of the Meerwings, Fredegunt, or Frédégonde, as she is called by
French historians. Freygerdur ofof the North, as found in the
Landnama-bok, serving four men and two women, is there explained
either as freedom-preserver, or peace-keeper.
But what is to be said of Fridthjof, or Frithjof, the renowned hero
of the Frithjofsaga, being no better than peace-thief? Northern
pirates thought no scorn of being thieves, and we shall fall on plenty
more of them; but the compound is certainly startling.
Fridulf, or Fridolf, peace wolf, is nearly as bad; but it seems to
have contracted into Friedel in Germany, and expanded into Fridolin,
probably in imitation of Fedlim, or some such Erse name, since the
saint thus recorded in the calendar is one of the many Scottish
missionaries of the fifth century, who preached to the Burgundians.
He is the titular patron of the Swiss canton of Glarus, whose shield
bears his figure in the Benedictine dress he never wore. Thence
Schiller took the name of the youth in his ballad on the strange
adventure of Isabel de la Paz of Portugal, which is best known
through Retzch’s illustrations. The German Friedel must be short
for this, as Frider is for Fridheri, peace-warrior. In fact, Germany
is the great land of this commencement, and has fostered the best
known of the whole. There was indeed a Fridrikr in the Landnama-bok,
and a Fredreg, or Frederic, in Domesday, but these
would have been forgotten but for an old Frisian bishop, Freodhoric,
who, in the time of Louis le Debonnaire, had been murdered
while praying in his chapel, and being canonized, was a patron
saint of the Swabian house. Friedrich with the red beard, or
296Barbarossa, a Ghibelline hero, caused Federigo to be popular among
that party in Italy; and when his Neapolitan grandson’s claims to
the kingdom of the Two Sicilies had been transmitted, through
Manfred’s daughter, to the Aragonese monarchs, Fadrique became
usual in Spain. Friedrich had grown national in Germany, and not
a king of Prussia till the present has reigned without being so called,
in compliment to their hero, who, while the soldiers called him
Old Fritz, thought it graceful to write himself Frédéric, having
with his French tastes, taken a dislike to the sound of his own name,
297even in the softened spelling of his adopted language. It was from
the father of this monarch that the son of George II. was called
Frederick, a name we have twice had next in succession to the
crown. The Danes obtained the name from their German connections,
and make it alternate on the throne with Christiern. The
feminine is a late invention in Germany, very common there but
barely recognized elsewhere.
| English. |
French. |
Breton. |
Spanish. |
| Frederick |
Frédéric |
Fêidrik |
Fadrique |
| Fred |
Ferry |
|
|
| Portuguese. |
Italian. |
German. |
Dutch. |
| |
|
|
|
| Frederico |
Federigo |
Fridrich |
Frederik |
| Federico |
|
Fritz |
Freerik |
| Frisian. |
Swedish. |
Danish. |
Swiss. |
| Frerk |
Fredrik |
Frederik |
Fredli |
| Frek |
|
|
Fridli |
| Friko |
|
|
|
| Russian. |
Polish. |
Slovak. |
Bohemia. |
| Fridrich |
Fryderyk |
Friderik |
Bedrich |
| |
Fryc |
|
|
| Lusatian. |
Lettish. |
Lithuanian. |
Finn. |
| Fidrich |
Sprizzis |
Prydas |
Rietu |
| Bedrich |
Prizzis
Wrizzis
Wrizzis |
Prydikis
Priczus |
Wettrikki
Wetu
Wetukka |
| Hungarian. |
Greek |
| Fridrik |
Φρεσδερικος |
| FEMININE. |
| English. |
French. |
Portuguese |
Italian. |
| Frederica |
Frédérigue |
Frederica |
Federica |
| Freddie |
|
|
Feriga |
| German. |
Swiss. |
Polish. |
Bohemian. |
| Fridrike |
Fredrika |
Frydryka |
Bedriska |
| Fritze |
Greek. |
|
|
| Fritzinn |
Φρεδερική |
|
|
| Rike |
|
|
|
| Rikchen |
|
|
|
Probably this popular Frederick has devoured all the other forms
with the same commencement; for after the middle ages had fairly
begun, we hardly ever hear of the German Fridrad, Fridrada,
Fridhelm, Fridrun, Fridbald, Fridbert, Fridburg, Fridgard, Fridilind.
Fridmund, peace protection, Fridwald, peace-power, has been preserved
in Friesland as Fredewolt, Fredo, or Freddo. Fridleifr in
the North has fallen into Friedlieb in Germany: it is the same as
the Frithlaf whom our Saxon chroniclers bestowed on Wuotan by
way of ancestor.
Our own Saxon saint, Frithswith, strong in peace, was the daughter
of the Lord of Oxford, in the eighth century. She lived in a little cell
at Thornbury, had various legendary adventures, which may be seen
portrayed in a modern window of the cathedral at Oxford, and
became the saintly patroness of the University and Cathedral, where,
by the name of St. Fridiswid, she reigned over Alma Mater, till
Wolsey laid hold of the church and its chapter for his own splendid
foundation of Christchurch. Frethesantha Paynell was wife of
Geoffrey Lutterell, about the fourteenth century; and Fridiswid is
by no means uncommon in the old genealogies of Essex and the
northern counties. Alban Butler gives Frewissa as the contraction;
but in Ireland, according to Mr. Britton’s capital story of The Election,
it is Fiddy.
From frei, free, modern Germany has taken Freimund, by which
they mean Freemouth, though it ought to be free protection,
Freimuth, free courage, Freidank, free thought. But the older word
for free plays a far more important part in modern nomenclature,
namely, Frang, the High German form of free lord.
The nation called Cherusci by Tacitus denominated themselves
Frangen when they warred on northern Gaul, overspread it, and
termed it for themselves Frankreich. As their primary energy decayed
their dominion divided; Frankenland, under the Latinism of
Franconia, became leagued with the lands of the Swabians, Allemanni,
and Saxons, and thus became part of Deutschland and of the Holy
Roman Empire, while Frankreich was leavened by the Gallo-Romans,
who worked up through their Frank lords, and made their clipped
Latin, or Langue d’oui[108] (the tongue of aye), the national language,
and yet called themselves Les Français, and the country France.
And as the most enthusiastic and versatile of the European commonwealth,
they so contrived to lead other nations, and impress their
fashions on them, that the Eastern races regarded all Europeans as
298Franks, called their country Franghistan, and the patois spoken by
them in the Levant became Lingua Franca.
Franc, or Franco, was the archbishop of Rouen who made terms
with Rollo; but the name of real fame arose otherwise.
Long before the emperor Charles V. had pronounced French to
be the language for men, an Italian merchant of Assisi caused his
son, Giovanni, to be instructed in it as a preparation for commerce.
The boy’s proficiency caused him to be called ‘il Francesco,’ the
Frenchman, until the baptismal Giovanni was absolutely forgotten;
and as Francesco he lived his ascetic, enthusiastic life; as Franciscus
was canonized; and the mendicant order, humbly termed by him
fratres minores, lesser brethren, were known as Franciscans throughout
the Western Church.
Many a little Italian of either sex was christened by his soubriquet,
and though one of the first feminines on record was the unhappy
lady whose fall and doom Dante made famous, yet the sweet renown
of the devout housewife, Santa Francesca di Roma, assisted its popularity;
there was a Françoise at Cambrai even in 1300, and Cecarella
is the peasant mother of a damsel in the Pentamerone.
San Francesco di Nola reformed the Franciscans into a new order,
called the Minimi, or least, as the former ones were the Minores.
It is to him that the spread of the name beyond the Alps is chiefly
owing, for Louise of Savoy was so devoted to him, that she made him
sponsor and name-father to her passionately loved son, and sewed his
winding-sheet with her own hands.
The name was not absolutely new to France, for that of the grandson
of the first Montfort, Duke of Brittany, had been Fransez, and so
had been that of the father of the Duchess Anne, who carried her old
Keltic inheritance to the crown of France; but it was her daughter’s
husband, François I., the godson of the saint of Nola, who was
the representative Frenchman, the type of showy and degenerate
chivalry; and thus spread François and Françoise universally among
the French nobility, where they held sway almost exclusively till
the memories of the House of Valois had become detestable; but by
that time the populace were making great use of it, and at the present
time it is considered as so vulgar that a French servant in England
was scandalized that a child of the family should be called Francis.
Franz von Sickingen is an instance that already Germany knew
the name; but it did not take root there at once. The grandchildren
of François I., intermarrying with the house of Lorraine, rendered
his namesakes plentiful, both in the blood-stained younger branch
of Guise, and in the dull direct stem, the continuation of the Karlingen,
who at length, by the marriage with Maria Theresa, were
restored to the throne of Charlemagne, in the person of him whom
the classicalizing Germans termed Franciskus I. This cumbrous form
is still official, but Franz is the real name in universal use in the
German parts of the Austrian Empire, though the Slavonic portions
generally use the other end of the word, as Zesk.
It was the same gay French monarch who sent us our forms of
the name. Mary Tudor, either in gratitude for his kindness, or in
299memory of her brief queenship of France, christened her first child
Frances—that Lady Frances Brandon whose royal blood was so sore
a misfortune to her daughters, and who had numerous namesakes
among the maidens of the Tudor court; but they do not seem to
have then made the distinction of letter that now marks the feminine,
and they used what is now the masculine contraction. “Frank,
Frank, how long is it since thou wast married to Prannel?” was the
rebuke of the Duke of Richmond to his Howard lady when he was
pleased to take down her inordinate pride, by reminding her of her
youthful elopement with a vintner.
The modern Fanny is apparently of the days of Anne, coming
into notice with the beautiful Lady Fanny Shirley, who made it a
great favourite, and almost a proverb for prettiness and simplicity,
so that the wits of George II.’s time called John, Lord Hervey,
‘Lord Fanny,’ for his effeminacy. Fanny, like Frank, is often given
at baptism instead of the full word; and, by an odd caprice, it has
lately been adopted in both France and Germany instead of their
national contractions.
The masculine came in at the same time, and burst into eminence
in the Elizabethan cluster of worthies—Drake, Walsingham, Bacon;
but it did not take a thorough hold of the nation, and was much left
to the Roman Catholics. It was not till Frank had been restricted
to men that it took hold of the popular mind, so as to become
prevalent.
The original saint of Assisi made devout Spaniards use Francisco
and Francisca, before the fresh honour won for the first by two early
Jesuits—the Duke of Gandia, the friend and guide of Charles V.,
and Xavier, the self-devoted apostle of the Indies. His surname has
thrown out another stock. It is in itself Moorish, coming from the
Arabic Ga’afar, splendid, the same as that of our old friend, the
Giaffar of the Arabian Nights, the Jaffier of old historians. Wherever
Jesuits have been, there it is; Savero in Italy, Xavier in
France, Xaverie in Wallachia, Xavery in Poland, Saverij in Illyria;
Xaveria for the feminine in Roman Catholic Germany, marking the
course of the counter-Reformation. Even Ireland deals in Saverius,
or Savy, though when English sailors meet a Spanish negro called
Xaver, they call him Shaver! Savary de Bohnn, whom Dugdale
places under Henry I., was probably a form of Sigeheri, or Saher,
which may have been absorbed by Xaver in Roman Catholic lands.
| English. |
Erse. |
Breton. |
French. |
| Francis |
Fromsais |
Franse |
François |
| Frank |
|
|
|
| Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
Italian. |
Wallachian. |
| Francisco |
Francisco |
Francesco |
Francisk |
| Francilo |
Francisquinho |
Franco |
|
| |
|
Cecco |
|
| 300German. |
Dutch. |
Scotch. |
Swedish. |
| Franciskus |
Frenz |
Francie |
Frans |
| Franz |
|
|
|
| Frank |
|
|
|
| Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Slovak. |
Lettish. |
| Franciszek |
Frantisek |
Francisek |
Spranzis |
| Franck |
|
Franc |
|
| |
|
Franjo |
|
| |
|
Zesk |
|
| Lithuanian. |
Finn. |
Hungarian. |
Greek. |
| Prancas |
Ranssu |
Ferencz |
Φραγκίσκος |
| |
|
Ferko |
|
| FEMININE. |
| English. |
Breton. |
French. |
Span. and Por. |
| Frances |
Franseza |
Françoise |
Francisca |
| Fanny |
Fantik |
Francisque |
|
| |
|
Fanchette |
|
| |
|
Fanchon |
|
| Italian. |
German. |
Dutch. |
Polish |
| Francesca |
Franziske |
Francyntje |
Franciszka |
| Cecca |
Franze |
Francina |
Franulka |
| Ceccina |
Sprinzchen |
Fransje |
Franusia |
| Ceccarella |
(Lower German.) |
|
|
| Bohemian. |
Slovak. |
Hungarian. |
Greek. |
| Frantiska |
Franciska |
Francziska |
Φραγκίσκη[109] |
| |
Franika |
|
|
| |
Franja |
|
|
The third in the Teutonic Triad is the mighty Thor, whose image
stood on the other side of that of Odin, in the northern temples,
whose day followed Odin’s, and who was the special deity of the
Norsemen, as Wuotan was of the Saxons, and Freyr of the Swedes.
The most awful phenomenon to which, in Northern Europe,
human ears are accustomed—the great electric sound from heaven,
could not fail to be connected with divinity, by nature, as well as by
the lingering reminiscence of the revelations, when it accompanied
the Voice of the Most High.
301If the classic nations knew the mighty roll as the bolts of Zeus or
Jupiter, they called it βροντή (brontè) and tonitru, names corresponding
to those divinities wherewith the other Aryans connected the sound—the
Perun of the Slavonians, the Taran of the Cymry, the Thunnr,
Donnar, or Thor of the Teuton. The Indra of the Hindu, came from
udra or eidan, water, as god of the waters of the sky, while the
Teutonic title was probably an imitation of the deep rolling sound,
and the god must have been called after it.
In the northern myths Thor is the eldest son of Odin, mightiest
of all the Aasir, partly in right of his belt of strength, which doubles
his force, and of the iron gauntlets which he wields whenever he
throws his mighty hammer—Mjolner, the crusher (from the word
that named Milo, also mills and meal)—which, like a boomerang,
always returns to him when he has hurled it. He has a palace called
Thrudheim, or Thrudvangr, the abode of courage, resting on five
hundred and forty pillars, which seems like a tradition of some
many-columned Indian edifice. It was he who was foremost in the
fight with the powers of evil; he bound Lok, the destroyer, and
banished him to Utgard, where the famous visit was made that
so curiously reflects Indian and Persian myths, and has dwindled
into the tricks of our Giant-killer and the German schneiderlein.
He has more adventures than any other single deity in northern
story, and continues champion of the gods till the final consummation,
when, after having destroyed many of the enemies, he is finally
stifled by the flood of poison emitted by the Midgard snake.
Thord seems to have been a contraction of the old Low German
Donarad, which has vanished; but in fact Thor, though regnant in
the North, was not very popular elsewhere, and almost all the names
he commences are Scandinavian; though the old Spanish Goths had
a king Thorismundo, Thor’s protection, the same as our Norman
Tormund. They had also an Asturian bishop, Toribio, who long
after was followed by a sainted namesake in Spanish South
America.
Every possible change that could be rung on Thor seems to have
been in use among the Northmen. The simplest masculine, Thordr,
comes seventy times in the Landnama-bok, Thorer forty-seven times,
after the early settler Thorer the silent, and the feminine Thora
twenty-two, and she still flourishes in Iceland and Norway.
Thor had his elf, Thoralfr, his household spirit Thordis, his bear
and his wolf. His bear, Thorbjorn, is fifty-one times in the Iceland
roll, and was not without a she-bear, Thorbera; and the ‘Torbern,’
in Domesday, was doubtless the father of the family of Thorburn.
Indeed, though Thor’s hammer was not an artistic one, he has had
other artist namesakes by inheritance, namely, the Flemish Terburg,
an offshoot from the northern Thorbergr, with its feminine Thorbjorg,
or Thorberga, and the great Danish Thorwaldsen, the son of Thorvalldr,
Thor’s power, or maybe of thunder-welder, the Thorwald of
Germany, and Thorold or Turold of the Norman Conquest. Readers
of Andersen may remember his story of the boy-sculptor mortified
by the consequential little girl declaring that no one whose name
302ended in sen was worth speaking to. Thorwald, too, was one of the
old Icelandic discoverers of America.
As to Thor’s wolf, Thorolf, it is contracted into Tolv in Norway,
and thus may be the origin of that curious Danish superstition that
at noon-day (twelve being tolv in Danish) Kong Tolv, a terrific and
mysterious personage, drives by in his chariot, invisible except to
maidens inadvertently left in solitude, when they are borne off by
him to his domains for seven years, which pass like a single day.
Forty-two Thorarinns, as well as a Thorarna for a feminine,
assisted to people Iceland, and of course Thor’s sword, spear, and
kettle were there too; Thorbrandr six times over. The spear and
kettle figure again in the story of Croyland Abbey, as told by Ingulf.
Turgar, the little child who escaped the destruction, is no doubt
Thorgeir, and it may be feared thus betrays a Norman invention;
but Turcetyl, the good man who re-built it, was really Ethelstane’s
chancellor, and no doubt took his name from some of the invading
Danes, who called the Thorketyl or Thorkjell of the North, Thurkil
or Trukill, of which we have some traces remaining in the name
Thurkell. Thorkatla was the Icelandic feminine.
It is an evidence how greatly our population was leavened by the
Danes, that though Thor names are very rare in Anglo-Saxon history,
we have many among our surnames, such as Thurlow from Thorleik,
Thor’s sport, Tunstall and Tunstan from Thurstan, the Danish Thorstein,
the proper form of Thor’s stone, who is thus the ‘stainless
Tunstall,’ whose ‘banner white’ waved in Flodden Field, just as long
before Tostain the white had been the foremost knight at Hastings,
and left his name to the northern peasantry to be confounded with
Toussaint, the popular reading of All Saints' day, and thus to pass
to the negro champion of Hayti, Toussaint L'Ouverture.
Thorgils, Thor’s pledge, also runs into Thurkil or Trokil, and cuts
down to Troels; but coming to the Western Isles has there continued
in the form of Torquil, and has been mixed up with the idea of the
Latin torques, a neck chain. The Swedes call it Thyrgils, and the
feminine is Thorgisla. It is Torchil in Domesday.
White Thors were Thorfinn and Thorfinna; Thorvid, or Thor’s
wood, is in Denmark Truvid, Truid, Trudt, probably our Truefit.
Besides these were used—
- Thorbert, Thor’s splendour (Torbertus in Domesday).
- Thorgautr, Thor the good (or Goth).
- Thorgerdur, Thor’s protection (thirty-seven in Landnama-bok).
- Thorgestur, Thor’s guest.
- Thorgrim, Thor the helmeted.
- Thorgunna, Thor’s war.
- Thorhildr, Thor’s battle-maid.
- Thorleif, Thor’s relic.
- Thormod, Thor’s mood.
- Thorhalla, Thor’s stone.
- Thorlaug, Thor’s liquor.[110]
303
Most beautiful of all the gods was Baldur, the fair white god,
mild, beautiful, and eloquent,—beloved but fore-doomed to death.
His story is well known. His mother, Frigga, vainly took an oath
of all created things not to be the instrument of his fate,—she omitted
the mistletoe; and Lok, the destroyer, having, in the guise of a
sympathetic old woman, beguiled her into betraying her omission,
placed a shaft of the magic plant in the hands of the blind god, Hodr,
when all the Aasir were in sport directing their harmless weapons
against the breast of their favourite. Baldur was slain, and his beautiful
wife, Nanna, died of grief for his loss. Even then Hela would have
relented, and have given him back, provided every living thing
would have wept for him; but one stern giantess among the rocks
refused her tears, and Baldur remains in the realms of death, until
after all his brethren shall have perished in the last great conflict,
when with them he shall be revivified in the times of the restitution
of all things, so remarkably promised in these ancient myths.
As to the source of his name, authorities are not agreed. Baldr
is a prince in several Teutonic languages, and the royal family of the
Visigoths were the Balten. Balths, bald, bold, is also a word among
them; but Grimm deduces the god’s title from bjel, or baltas, the
word that is the first syllable of the Slavonic Belisarius, and thus
would make the Anglian Baldœg mean bright as day. It is the word
that lies at the root of bellus, pretty, whose derivations are now so
universal in Romanized Europe. Others turn the name over to the
Bel, or Beli, of the Kelts, or the Eastern Belus; but on the whole,
the derivation Baldr, a prince, is the least unsatisfactory.
The legend seems to have been unknown to the German races, or,
at least, no trace of it has been found, and the names that constantly
occur beginning and ending with bald or pald, are supposed merely
to mean prince, and not to refer to the god. As an end it is more
common than as a beginning, and it is peculiar to the Anglian races,
our own Anglo-Saxons, the inhabitants of the Low Countries, and
continental Saxons. The names that have become universal all
emanated from one or other of these sources.
Baldric, or prince ruler, was Anglo-Saxon; but the Swedes learned
it as Balderik, the Poles as Balderyk, the French as Baudri. Baldred,
an English-named saint, was bishop of Glasgow; thence, too, the early
French took Baldramn, prince raven, which they made Baudrand,
and confused with Baldrand, prince of the house, also Baldemar,
famous prince, unless this is a confusion with Waldemar.
The most general of these was, however, Baldwine, princely friend,
who was very early a feudatory of the empire in Flanders, and the
name continued in his family, so as to take strong hold of the population,
and to spread into the adjoining lands. Baldwin was the father
of William the Conqueror’s Matilda, and the one Baldwinus before
the Conquest has very considerably multiplied after it, so that to us
304Baldwin has all the associations of a Norman name. Its European
celebrity was owing to the two knights of Lorraine and Bourg, who
reigned successively at Jerusalem after the first Crusade, and left
this to be considered as the appropriate Christian name in their short-lived
dynasty; and again, it was borne by the unfortunate count
who was thrust into the old Byzantine throne only to be demolished
by the Bulgarians, or if indeed he ever returned, to be disowned as
an impostor by his daughter.
| English. |
French. |
German. |
Dutch. |
Italian. |
| Baldwin |
Baudouin |
Balduin |
Boudewijn |
Baldovino |
| |
Baudoin |
|
|
Balduino |
The Germans have Baldo, the French Baud, both contractions from
either Baldwin or Balderich, and there are a good many surnames
therefrom in England, France, and Germany.
Examples of Baldegisel, prince pledge, Baldbrecht, Baldemund,
Baldeflede, Baldetrude, have also been found, but nowhere are any
such forms prevalent.
Baldur’s wife, Nanna, probably comes from nanthjan, in Gothic, to
be courageous. There are a few Frisians called Nanno, Nanne,
Nonne; but it is very probable that this old goddess may have
contributed to furnish some of the inherited names now all absorbed
in Anne.
Baldur’s unfortunate murderer has, strange to say, many more
namesakes. He was Nanna’s brother, blind, and of amazing strength,
and is supposed to typify unheeding rashness and violence, in opposition
to prudent valour. His name is in Gothic Hathus, in old
German Hadu, and in Anglo-Saxon Headho, and is said to come
from headho, an attack or fight, so that the right way to translate
it in the compounds would be by fierce when it begins the name—war
when it forms the conclusion.
It has a great many different forms. The old northern Hedinn is
believed to be one, belonging first to a semi-fabulous sea-king of the
mythic ages, who tried to elope with the Valkyr Hildur. From him
the sea was poetically called, in the strange affected versification of
the North, the road of Hedinn’s horses. There were eight Hedinns
in the Landnama-bok, and the word sometimes occurred at the end
of the name, as with Skarphedinn, the fierce but generous son of
Njal, who dies singing to the last in the flame, with his faithful axe
driven deep into the wall that the fire might not spoil its edge.
Tacitus mentions two chiefs whom he calls Catumer and Catualda,
and who are supposed to be by interpretation Hadumar, or fierce
fame, and Hadupald, or Haduwald, each of which would be fierce
prince. Hadumar has lingered in southern France, where it has
become Azimar, or Adhémar, the last, the well-known surname of
the Grignan family. Hadubrand, fierce sword, is one of the heroes
of the most ancient existing poem in Low German. Heddo is to be
found as a name of some Frisians, contracted either from this, or
305from Hadubert, or one of the other compounds. Even ladies were
named by this affix, as Haduburg, war protection; Hadulint, war
serpent; Haduwig, which the old German name-writer, Luther,
makes war refuge.
This last is the only usual form, owing to the saintly fame of a
daughter of the Markgraf of Meranie. While one daughter, Agnes,
was the victim of Philippe Auguste’s irregular marriage, the happier
Haduwig married a duke of Silesia, and shared his elevation to the
throne of Poland, where she evinced such piety as to be canonized;
and the name she left was borne by a Polish lady in the next century,
who converted her husband, the Duke of Lithuania. Thus doubly
sainted, all eastern Germany delighted in it, and the French sent it
to us; they calling it Hedvige; we took it as Hawoyse, and, descending
into Avice, or Avis, it was at one time very common here,
and is to be found in almost every old register.
| English. |
French. |
German. |
Polish. |
| Havoise |
Hedvige |
Hedwig |
Jadviga |
| Hawoyse |
Italian. |
Hedda |
|
| Havoisia |
Edvige |
|
|
| Avice |
|
|
|
| Avicia |
|
|
|
| Avis |
|
|
|
| Lusatian. |
Esth. |
Lett. |
Hungarian. |
| Hada |
Eddo |
Edde |
Hedviga |
| |
Edo |
|
|
The Spanish Goths, too, had their compounds of Hadu. The Lady
Adosinda, whom Southey has placed collecting the corpses of her
family in the ruins of the city destroyed by the Moors, is Haduswinth,
or fierce strength; and the Portuguese Affonso is from Hadufuns. This
last syllable, namely funs, means vehemence, and is, in fact, no other
than our own undignified fuss; Affonso, Afonso, thus mean fierce
fuss, though for more euphony, this lofty name of kings may be made
into warlike impetuosity.
In Northern mythology Tyr is another son of Odin, and god
of strength and victory. When, in the great fight with the powers
of evil, the terrible Fenris, the wolf of the abyss, was to be bound
with a fetter, slender, but which no power could break, he was only
induced to stand still by Tyr’s volunteering to put his right hand
into the monster’s mouth, as a pledge of the good faith of Asgard.
Finding himself chained, the wolf at once closed his jaws, and bit off
Tyr’s hand; nevertheless, the Runic letter Λ (thorn, the sound of dh),
306which was left-handed, like the god, and therefore his sign, was
esteemed the mark of truth and treaties.
Tyr has few namesakes. Tyre and Thyra, in the North, are the
only direct ones; but it sometimes finishes a word, as in the case of
Angantyr, favourite of Tyr, the warrior who obtained the terrible
sword, Tyrfing, forged by the dwarfs, which did, indeed, always give
victory, but which would never go back into its scabbard till it had
been fed with, at least, one human life. The dio, or thius, of the old
Gothic and German names thus arose, such as Alathius, the Latinized
Halltyr, and the like.
Niörd was god of the sea, almost equal in rank to Odin himself.
He was a very ancient deity, known to the German nations as
Nairthus, and probably, like Freyr, male and female. The goddess
Nerthus, mentioned by Tacitus, has been supposed by Grimm to
mean Niörd; but Hermann Luning makes it Törd, a wife of Odin,
and one of the three titles of the earth: at any rate, out of this
mention has been made a goddess—Hertha, who has not been without
namesakes.
Many derivations have been suggested for his name. Finn
Magnusson thought it might be cognate with the Greek νηρὸς (neros),
wet; Grimm, that it might be connected with the North, though he
declines to speak positively; and Hermann Luning deduces it from
nairan, to join, because the sea joins the land together.
Niörd’s direct derivatives seem to be Nordhilda and Nordbert;
the last fashionable in Germany, from a youth of imperial family,
who was, at the end of the eleventh century, brought to serious
thoughts by having his horse struck by lightning under him, when,
like St. Paul, he cried out “What wouldst Thou have me to do?”
He became a monk, and was afterwards archbishop of Magdeburg,
and founder of the Præmonstratensian Order; and Norbert became
known and used after he was canonized.
Niörd is used in the North; and thence too, perhaps, comes
Norman, which was in use, both in France and England, at the time
of the Conquest. It is puzzling to find in Domesday Book sixteen
Normans possessing land in England before the Conquest, and only
eight after it—one of whom, Norman d'Arcie, at least, was a Norman
born. Afterwards, during the friendly thirteenth century, English
nobles carried Norman to Scotland, where it was adopted in the
Leslie family, and, like Nigel, became exclusively Scottish. The
Highlanders called it Tormaid, which is considered to be really its
Gaelic form, not an equivalent. The last Englishman I have found
so called was Norman de Verdun, under Edward I.
The story of Niörd’s marriage is one of the wildest tales of later
Norse mythology. Iduna, the wife of Bragi, god of poetry, kept the
apples of gold which renewed the youth of the gods. However, Loki,
having fallen into the clutches of the great frost giant, Thiassi, in the
form of an eagle, only effected his release by promising to bring
Iduna and her apples to Jotunheim. He beguiled her into a forest,
under pretence that he had found finer apples than her own, and
there Thiassi flew away with her. The gods began to grow old
307without their apples, and insisted that Loki should bring her back.
He arrayed himself as a falcon, and, flying to Jotunheim, turned
Iduna into a sparrow and flew home with her, pursued by Thiassi.
The Aasir, seeing her danger, lighted a fire with chips on the walls
of Asgard, which flamed up and singed Thiassi’s wings, so that he
fell down among them and was slain. Afterwards, his daughter,
Skadi, came to avenge his death, but was mollified by being allowed
to choose a husband from the Aasir, however was only allowed the
sight of the feet to select from; and thus, hoping she had taken
Baldur, she obtained Niörd. Thiassi’s eyes are said to have become
stars; but, as usual, the northern astronomy has been ruined by the
classical, and no one knows which they are.
Bragi was followed as an Icelandic name. Its etymology is
uncertain; some make it cognate with Brahma; others with braga,
to shine; others with brain. Braga was poetry, and thence, from the
manner of recital, noun, has formed the uncomplimentary verb, to
brag, and the braggart.
Iduna, or more properly, Idhuna, Ithuna, is a myth of spring reft
away by winter, who dies of the warmth of the flame of the summer
gods. Her name does not seem to have been adopted in the North;
but it is almost certainly the origin of Idonea, which is very common
in old English pedigrees. Idonea de Camville lived under Henry
III.; Idonea de Vetriponte, Vieuxpont, or Oldbridge, is cited in the
curious tracts on Northern curiosities, put forth some years back in
Durham, which say the name is very common; and though it might
be the feminine of the Latin idoneus (fit), its absence in the Romance
countries may be taken as an indication that it was a mere classicalizing
of the northern goddess of the apples of youth.
The word itself is translated by Luning in the most satisfactory
manner as ‘she who works incessantly,’ and by Munch, as ‘she who
renovates incessantly.’ Idja is to work, unna, love, so that others
make her one who loves work. The word unna, however, though
derived from the verb an unna, to love, has come to mean only a
woman, and as such is frequently used as a termination, as well as
now and then standing alone as a female name, Unna, of whom there
are three in the Landnama-bok, and several in the Saga of Burnt
Njal.
Una is likewise used in both Ireland and the North; but in the
former it is said to mean famine; in the North it is most probably
from that word vin, win, or wine, a friend, which we shall often meet
with again, and which lies most likely at the root of unna.
The word idja, to work, the first syllable of Iduna’s name, formed
deisi, activity, and thence the person who ought to be active, the
old German itis, and Anglo-Saxon ides, a woman, in the North, deis
or dis. The idea of the active sprite was divided between womankind
and certain household spirits, like the Roman genii, only feminine
and possibly another name for the Nornir, as each man had his
own, and they were sometimes visible as animals suiting with the
character of their protégés: powerful chiefs had bears or bulls, crafty
ones foxes; and even on the introduction of Christianity, faith in
308the Disir was not abandoned, though there were no more sacrifices
at their Disir salen, or temples. Sometimes a family would have
various disir at war with one another, some for the old faith, some
for the new. While Iceland was still in suspense between heathenism
and Christianity, a young chieftain one night heard three knocks
at his door, and despite the warnings of a seer, went forth to see the
cause. He beheld nine women in black riding from the North, and
nine from the South, the disir of his family, the black for heathendom,
the white for Christianity. The black ones, knowing that they must
vanish from the land, seized his life as their last tribute, and wounded
him so that he returned a dying man to tell his tale. Probably these
disir are either the cause or the effect of those strange phantoms
which, whether of doves, dogs, heads, children, or women, portend
death in certain families. They may likewise account for some of
the family bearings in the form of animals.
Disa is a Norwegian and Icelandic name, now nearly disused: it
is also a very frequent termination, such as in Thordis, Alfdis,
Freydis, &c., and it may be most fitly translated as the sprite giving
the idea of the guardian protecting spirit that woman should be.
In the German names it appears as the termination itis or idis, as
Adelidis, one that appears at first sight like a mere Latinism.[111]
The porter of Valhall is Heimdall, the son of nine sisters, who
watches at the further end of the rainbow-bridge Bifrost to guard
the Æsir from the giants. He sleeps more lightly than a bird, can
see a hundred leagues by day or night, and can hear the grass growing
in the fields, and the wool on the sheep’s backs. He bears in one
hand a sword, in the other a trumpet, the sound of which resounds
throughout the universe.
When the powers of evil break loose, Heimdall will rouse the gods
to their last conflict by a blast of his trumpet, and in the struggle
will kill and be killed by Loki.
His name is explained by heim, home, and dallr, powerful. The
latter half is in Anglo-Saxon deall, in old High German tello, and
in the old Norse dallr, whence Dalla is found as a name in the
Landnama-bok.
Heim is in Ulfilas both a field and a village, and the Anglo-Saxons
use the word dhăm for an enclosure, and hām for a village; ham in
a similar manner, as is still shown in the diminutive, hamlet, for
a small village, as well as in the ham that concludes many local
names. At the same time, the word, slightly altered, assumed that
closer, dearer, warmer sense which is expressed by the terms, heim,
hiemme, hjem, hame, and home, in all the faithful-hearted Teutonic
race, yet which is so little comprehended by our southern relatives,
309that they absolutely have no power of expressing such an idea as “It’s
hame, and it’s hame, and it’s hame.”
Even in their heathenism “true to the kindred points of heaven
and home,” the guardian of the dwelling of the brave spirits of the
dead was made by the Northmen no grim Cerberus nor gloomy Charon,
but the Home ruler.
And though Heimdall nowhere occurs as a name, yet the old
German Heimirich is almost identical with it; though it should be
observed that heim is a commencement peculiar to the Germans;
we never find a name with this first syllable originating either with
the Northmen or the English.
Where Heimirich first began does not appear, but it sprung into
fame with the Saxon emperor called the Fowler, and his descendant
won the honours of a saint, whence this became a special favourite
in Germany, where it was borne by six emperors, by princes innumerable,
and by so many others that the contraction Heintz had already
passed to cats when Reinecke Fuchs was written.
It is from the endearment, Heinz, that, the handsome and unfortunate
son of Frederick II, who, after his brief royalty in Sardinia,
spent the rest of his life in a Genoese prison, was known to Italy
as Enzio, and to history as Enzius.
From the Kaisers, the third Capetian king of France was christened
Henri, a form always frequent there, though only four times on the
throne. Its popularity culminated during the religious wars, when
Henri de Valois, Henri de Bourbon, and Henri de Guise were fighting
the war of the three Henris; but in spite of the French love and
pride in le grand monarque, the growing devotion to St. Louis, from
whom the Bourbon rights to the throne were derived, set Henri
aside from being the royal name, until the birth of him whom legitimists
still call Henri V.
There are but three instances of ‘Henricus,’ even after the Conquest,
in Domesday; and it must have been from the reigning French
monarch that William the Conqueror took Henry for his youngest
son, from whom the first Plantagenet King received and transmitted
it to his ungracious son, his feeble grandson, and through him to the
elder House of Lancaster, then to the younger, who for three generations
wore it on the throne, and for whose sake it was revived in
the House of Tudor. Its right native shape is Harry; the other
form is only an imitation of French spelling. It was ‘Harry of
Winchester’ who cried out for help at Evesham; Harry of Bolingbroke
who rode triumphant into London, and who died worn out in
the Jerusalem chamber; Harry Hotspur whose spur was cold at
Shrewsbury; Harry of Monmouth who was Hal in his haunts at
Eastcheap, and jested with Fluellen on the eve of Agincourt; Harry
of Windsor who foretold the exaltation of Harry Tudor when “Richmond
was a little peevish boy,” and Harry VIII., or bluff King Hal,
who lives in the popular mind as an English Blue Beard; perhaps
connected in some cases with the popular soubriquet of the devil.
An early Swedish bishop bore the name, and so did a bishop of
Iceland before the twelfth century; but these must have been
310foreigners, for there are no other instances in the North in early
times, though the general fusion of European names brought in
Hendrik, to the loss of the native Heidrick, just as Heinrich seems
to have in Germany destroyed an independent Haginrich.
| English. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
| Henry |
Henri |
Enrique |
Enrico |
| Harry |
Henriot |
|
Arrigo |
| Hal |
Breton. |
Portuguese. |
Enzio |
| Halkin |
Hery |
Enrique |
Arriguccio |
| Hawkin |
|
|
Arrigozzo |
| |
|
|
Guccio |
| German. |
Dutch. |
Danish. |
Frisian. |
| Heimirich |
Hendrik |
Hendrik |
Enrik |
| Heinrich |
Hendricus |
Swedish. |
Polish. |
| Hein |
Heintje |
Henrik |
Henryk |
| Heine |
|
|
|
| Heinz |
|
|
|
| Heinecke |
|
|
|
| Henke |
|
|
|
| Henning |
|
|
|
| Bohemian. |
Lett. |
Lithuanian. |
|
| Jindrich |
Indrikis |
Endrikis |
|
| |
Indes |
Endruttis |
|
| |
Induls |
|
|
| FEMININE. |
| English. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Swedish. |
| Henrietta |
Henriette |
Enriqueta |
Henrika |
| Harriet |
Italian. |
Portuguese. |
German. |
| Harriot |
Enrichetta |
Henriqueta |
Henriette |
| Harty |
|
|
Jette |
| Hatty |
|
|
|
| Etta |
|
|
|
| Hetty |
|
|
|
The founder of the Portuguese kingdom was a Henri from Burgundy;
but the name did not greatly flourish in the Peninsula till
Enrique of Trastamare climbed to the Castilian throne, and his namesakes,
alternating with Juan, threw out the old national Alfonso and
Fernando.
311On the whole this is one of the most universal of Teutonic names,
and one of the most English in use, although not Anglian in origin.
The feminine seems to have been invented in the sixteenth century,
probably in France, for Henriet Stuart appears in the House of Stuart
d'Aubigné in 1588, and there were some Henriettes to match the
Henris at the court of Catherine de Medicis. England received the
name from the daughter of Henri IV., Henriette Marie, whom the
Prayer Book called Queen Mary, though her godchildren were
always Henrietta, so Latinized by their pedigrees, though in real
life they went by the queen’s French appellation, as well as English
lips could frame it, so that Hawyot was formerly the universal
pronunciation of Harriet, and is still occasionally used.
Heimo, or Hamo, is another old German form, becoming in French
Hamon, Haymon, Aymon; and Amone in Italian. Les Quatre Filz
Aymon were notable freebooters in Karling romance, and in Italy
were i Quattro Figli d'Amone. Early Norman times gave us Hamo,
Hamelin, and Fitzaymon; but except for an occasional Hamlyn in
an old pedigree, they have disappeared.
Germany had Heimrod, Heimbert, and Heimfred; but these are
not easy to disentangle from the derivatives of the word hun, which
are much more in use.[112]
This section has thus been headed because the Will was one of
the ideas most strongly expressed in various forms in the religion
of the high-spirited North.
The word to will is of all tongues; the Greek βουλή, Latin velle
or volo, Gothic viljan, Keltic iouli, all show a common origin, and every
Teuton language has the derivatives of will, just as the Romance
have of volo.
But it is the Teuton who brings the Will into his mythology.
When the creation began, the cow Audumbla licked out of the stones
a man named Bur, who was the grandfather of the three primeval
gods, Odin, Wili, and Vê, the All-pervading, the Will, the Holy; and
it was these who together animated the first human pair. We hear
no more of Vili or Hœmir, as he is also called after he thus infused
feeling and will into the first man; but we meet the word will again
forming valjan, to choose, velja in the North.
Thence the home where Odin welcomed his brave descendants was
Valhall, the hall of the chosen; and the maidens who chose the happy
who were there to dwell, were the Valkyrier, or Walcyrge, the last
syllable from kjöra, or curen, to choose, the word whence an electoral
prince is called in German, Kürfurst. But the passport to the hall of
the chosen was a glorious death on the battle-field; and thus it was that
val, vali, wali, belonged to the carnage of the fight, since slaughter
did but seal the marks of the Valkyr upon the brave, whose spirits
were passing over the rainbow-arch, while the comets marked the
312course of the chariot which glanced across the sky with weapons
forged for their sport in battle and chase.
So the Hall of the Chosen became the Hall of Carnage, the abode of
the slain; and it is remarkable that no Christian writer transfers the
term to Paradise, although the epithet Schildburg, the castle of shields,
is once applied to Heaven as the home of the victors. Indeed, Valhall
was not eternal; the warrior there admitted had yet to fight his
last fight by Odin’s side, perish with him and his sons, and share
with them the renovation of the universe. So deeply interwoven
in the ideas of the North was a violent death with the hope of
bliss, that crags in Norway affording scope for a desperate leap,
were called the vestibule of Valhall, and the preference for a death
on the battle-field lingered into Christian days, so that not only did
fierce Earl Siward bemoan his fate in dying of sickness, albeit he rose
upon his feet to draw his last breath, but even the Chevalier
Bayard mourned angrily over the fever that had nearly caused him
to pass away like a sick girl in his bed.
Well then might the Valkyrier be the favoured messengers of
Odin, sent forth to select the champions who should become the
guests of their mighty forefather, himself called Valfreyr, or
Slaughter Lord. They hovered over the camp in armour with
swan wings, marked those who were to fall, and wove the web of
slaughter ere the battle began. Their number varies in different
sagas, and so do their names, although Hildur is always the chief.
Their last appearance was when the islander of Caithness beheld the
twelve weaving their grisly web in a loom of lances, the weights of
men’s heads, on the eve of the Good Friday of the battle of Clontarf,
between King Sigtrygg and Brian Boromhe, singing the weird song
that Gray translated long before Teutonic antiquities were revived:
“Horror covers all the heath,
Clouds of carnage blot the sun:
Sisters, weave the web of death;
Sisters, cease, the work is done.”
The work done, the web was torn in sunder, and divided between
the Valkyrier, who flew off, half to the North, half to the
South, denoting the rending of the ancient faith.
In fact, in later sagas, the Valkyrier lose their wild mystery
and divinity, and fall into mere magic maidens, sometimes with
extraordinary strength, sometimes with swan wings, and, at the very
last gasp of the supernatural, with goose feet, which at their next step
become merely large feet. The mother of Charlemagne absolutely
makes the transition from Bertha the goose-footed, to Berthe aux
grands pieds.
To this source probably may be referred Wala or wise woman,
the inspired priestess, also called in ancient German the Velleda.
Cæsar tells us that the matrons among the Germans cast lots, and
prophesied the issue of battle, and thus Wala may have been the
wise or inspired woman. The great prophetic song of the fate of
the Aasir is Voluspa, either the wise woman’s spae, or the inspired
313spae or prophecy; for vola or volur means inspired in ancient
German (no doubt from the wala or prophetess), and by a very
small transition, mad. Probably the Kelts borrowed it, for fol was
inspired or mad; and Folia of Ariminium is mentioned by Horace
as a magician. Our fool is thus traceable to vola, inspired, but
probably through the Keltic and French medium.
Vili, though his myths have been forgotten, still stands as a
great ancestor. From him in Germany, either directly or through
a renewal of him as a forefather, must have been named the great
race of the Billingen, the first dynasty of the continental Sachsen,
who gave emperors to Germany.
Billing is the son of Wili, or Will; and so again is, in the North,
Vilkin, the father of the famous smith Volundr, whose name is
probably from this original root, will or mind, though its immediate
source is thought to be vel, art or cunning, cognate with our own
guile, and probably the participle of a lost verb, to devise. Some
connect it with Vulcan, from the name and character of Volundr.
He was the son of a sea maiden, and of Vidja the Vilkin; and he
and his two brothers each married a Valkyr, who, at the end of a
stated period, had to be absent for nine years, giving to each husband
magic gifts and precious stones that dimmed when disaster was
about to befall them. Volundr was the fortunate brother of the
three, and was the mighty smith to whom all good weapons are
ascribed. From him the early part of the Norse poem ending with
the slaying of Fafner is called the Volsunga Saga, as, from his
father, the Danish version is the Wilkina Saga; for the hero himself
is his descendant, a Wælsing, or Vilking, and fights with his
redoubted weapons. Weland again makes the impenetrable corslet
of Beowulf, “the twisted breastnet which protected his life against
point and edge;” he is the Wiolent, Velint, or Wieland of Germany,
and Galando of Italy, the Galant of France, who forged their Joyeuse,
the sword of Charlemagne, and Cortana, that of Ogier. A skilful
Weland is mentioned in an old Anglo-Saxon MS. found at Exeter,
and in King Alfred’s translation of Boëthius he renders the line,
“Ubi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii jacent?”
(meaning, of course, an artificer, the sense of the name,) “Where are
now the bones of the wise Weland, the goldsmith who was most
famed?” A workman is still called in Iceland, Völundrinjarn, and a
labyrinth is Volundrhus. This famous armourer took possession of
a Druidical cromlech in the midst of the battle-grounds between the
Danes and Saxons on the Berkshire downs, and there drove his
shadowy trade as Wayland Smith, close to King Alfred’s own birthplace,
Wantage. He was spared from oblivion by being embalmed
in Kenilworth, where the only blunder is in making Lancelot Wayland
the real name of the estimable mountebank, who personated
the mythical smith. Though Wieland is a German surname, the
coincidence of an English Wayland was too much for probability;
and, in fact, Scott does not seem to have known how very ancient
Wayland Smith had really been.
314Names in Wal are chiefly Northern, those in Wil mostly Saxon.
Ullr, or Ull, another Northern form, has been much used in Iceland;
and among the Northern isles of Scotland, where it may be remembered
that Ulla Troil was the real name of Norna. Ullr was the
stepson of Thor, son of Sif, and renowned as a great bow-bearer.
Wil is almost always a commencement. The Frank queen
Bilichilde was, of course, Willihilda, resolute battle. Our earnest
but turbulent Wilfrith, the Yorkshire bishop, hardly deserved to be
called resolute peace; but as patron of Ripon, his name has continued
in the North, Wilfroy being very frequent in older registers in the
neighbourhood of Ripon, though of late fashion has adopted it in the
form of Wilfred.
In the seventh century, we sent Germany two missionaries with
this prefix, Willibrord and Willihold; also Willibald, resolute prince,
went on pilgrimage with his father, St. Richard of Wessex, in 721,
and finished his career as bishop of Aichstadt, leaving his name to
take root in various forms.
| English. |
French. |
Portuguese. |
Dutch. |
Bavarian. |
| Willibald |
Guillibaud |
Guilbaldo |
Willebald |
Willibald |
| Wibald |
|
Vilibaldo |
|
Waldl |
| |
|
|
|
Waltl |
Native to Germany is Williburg, which has a northern fac-simile
Vilbjorg, and Vilgerd, the same in meaning, resolute protection;
Willrich, resolute ruler; Willehad, resolute violence; Willeram,
resolute raven; Willihard, reduplicating firmness; Willigis, willing
pledge, or pledge of the will; Willimar, resolute fame, making our
surname Wilmer. Williheri, resolute warrior, is the source of the
German Willer, the English Weller, the French Villiers and Villars,
which, with their aristocratic sound, betray little of their kindred to
Sam Weller.
Where the most popular of all the Wills was invented it is not easy
to discover, but Germany is its most likely region, since helm is a
specially Germanic termination, and the Billings favoured the commencement;
besides which the pronunciation in that language leaves
the words their natural meanings, Will-helm, resolute helmet, or,
perhaps, helmet of resolution. The native northern name would be
Vilhjalm, but this is never used, it being only imported bodily as
Wilhelm into Denmark from Germany, just as our Ethelbert is
superseded by Albert.
The cause of its adoption in Normandy cannot have been one of
the eight saints in the Roman calendar who bear it; for not one is
anterior to the son of Rollo, the second Duke of Normandy, from
whom William descended to the Conqueror, and became one of the
most national of English names.
| English. |
Welsh. |
Breton. |
French. |
| William |
Guillim |
Guillern |
Guillaume |
| Will |
|
Guillarn |
Guillemot |
| Willie |
|
|
|
| Bill |
|
|
|
| Wilkin |
|
|
|
| Old French. |
Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
Italian. |
| Willelme |
Guillermo |
Guilhermo |
Guglielmo |
| Willeaulme |
Guillen |
|
|
| German. |
Dutch. |
Swiss. |
Frisian. |
| Wilhelm |
Willem |
Wilhelm |
Willo |
| Wilm |
Wim |
Wille |
|
| Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Lett. |
Greek. |
| Vilhelm |
Vilem |
Willums |
Goulielmos |
| |
|
Wille |
Bilelmos |
| FEMININE. |
| English. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
| Wilhelmina |
Guillerume |
Guillemma |
Guglielma |
| Wilmett |
Guillemette |
Portuguese. |
Swedish. |
| Wilmot |
Minette |
Guilhermma |
Vilhelmine |
| Mina |
Mimi |
|
|
| Minella |
Guillette |
|
|
| |
| German. |
Swiss. |
Lithuanian. |
Dutch. |
| Wilhelmine |
Mimmoli |
Myne |
Willemyn |
| Helmine |
Mimmeli |
Mynette |
Willempje |
| Mine |
Polish. |
|
|
| Minchen |
Minka |
|
|
| Minna |
|
|
|
Old Camden’s account of it is too quaint not to be here inserted:
“William, gerne. For sweeter sound drawn from WilhelmWilhelm, which is
315interpreted by Luther much defence, or defence to many; as
Wiliwald, ruling many; Wildred, much reverent fear, or awful;
Wilfred, much peace; Wilibert, much brightness. So the French,
that cannot pronounce W, have turned it into Philli, as Philibert for
Wilibert, much brightnesse. Many names wherein we have Will
seem translated from the Greek names composed of πολύς; as Polydamas,
Polybius, Polyxenes, &c. Helm yet remained with us, and
Villi, Willi, and Billi yet with the German for many. Others term
William willing defender, and so it answereth the Roman Titus, if
it come from tuendo, as some learned will have it. The Italians that
liked the name but could not pronounce the W, if we may believe
316Gesner, turned it into Galeazzo, retaining the sense in part for helm;
but the Italians report that Galeazzo, the first viscount of Millain,
was so called for the many cocks that krew lustily at his birth. This
name hath been most common in England since William the
Conqueror, insomuch that on a festival day in the court of King
Henry II., when Sir William St. John and Sir William Fitzhamon,
especial officers, had commanded that none but the name of William
should dine with them in the great chamber, they were accompanied
with one hundred and twenty Williams, all knights, as Robert Montensis
recordeth, anno 1173.”
Camden’s authority is not Martin Luther, but one Mr. Luther
Dasipodius, by whom he sets great store, and whose ‘German villi or
billi, many,’ must have been the word now called viel. Verstegan’s
history of William is still droller, namely, that any German who
killed a Roman assumed the golden head-piece of the slain, and was
thence called Gildhelm, which would of course be inconsistent with
the old German form of Wilihelm. Be it observed that our surname
Wilmot descends from a name to be found in German as Wilmod,
resolute mood; but the feminine Wilmett, which is to be found continually
in old Devon and Cornwall registers, is no doubt the same as
the old French Guillemette, and it is a pity it has been discarded for
the cumbrous German Wilhelmina, or the Williamina that is of no
language at all.
Camden is probably right in taking Filiberto from Wiliberaht,
or Wilibert, resolute splendour, though Germans refer it to viel,
the same as our full, and the Greek polys. The founder of the
name in the sixth century was a Frank Willibert, who founded the
abbey of Jumièges, which the Normans first desolated and then
restored, their Frenchified tongues bringing the patron’s name to
England as Fulbert, which is still occasionally found in old families.
The ninth grand master of St. John meantime bore the French
form, which historians wrote as Philibert; and the old counts of
Savoy alternated Filiberto with Amê, until they blossomed out
into double names, as Vittore Amadeo or Filiberto Emanuele.
The Val of choice, or slaughter, is not, Professor Munch tells us,
to be confounded with another Val, taken from the word waleh, or
waalh, a stranger, which, as has been already said, named Wales.
Our own Waltheof, being spelt in his native tongue Wealtheof,
thus removes himself and an Icelandic Valtheof from being slaughter-thieves
to being foreign-thieves; a change not much for the better.
There were fierce Danish ancestors, however, to account for this predatory
appellation lighting upon the earl, whom the Conqueror
executed at Winchester, and the English revered as a saint; then
from him it descended to his grandson, Waltheof de St. Lys, the
stepson of St. David of Scotland, companion of the excellent prince
Henry, and, finally, abbot of Melross, where he was canonized as
St. Walthenius, or Walen, and thus accounts for the surname of
Wathen.
Walmer is, in old German, Walahmar, and thus shows itself to be
foreign fame; Walager is also foreign war, and became Valgeir in
317the North, Gaucher in France; and thence, too, by corruption,
Valgard, the evil genius of the Njal Saga.
Walaraban, or Walram, seems appropriate as slaughter-raven, but
is uncertain. The French made it Gauteran; and in the form of
Waleran it was used in the House of Luxembourg, Counts of St.
Pol; it is Galerano in Italy.
Walabert, a monk who died at Luxen, in 625, is the same as the
northern Valbjart; and another Valbert, or Vaubert, as he is called
in France, had a daughter Valtrud, canonized as St. Vautrude, or
Vaudru. From Walamund, the French take Valmont; and Walarik,
an Auvergne hermit, was Latinized as Valaricus, and Frenchified into
St. Valery, a territorial surname.
The Gothic king Wallia is left in possession of the battle-field;
and so are the northern Valdis and Valbiorg, both thorough
Valkyr names, not yet disused. Valtrude, an early saint, must
certainly be named from a slaughter-maiden. So probably was
Walburh, slaughter-pledge, one of the English missionary ladies
employed by St. Boniface in Mainz. She was a very popular saint,
and is called Valpurgis, Vaubone, Vaubourg. Her English church is
Wembury, in Devon. Part of her relics were translated from Eichstadt
to Furnes, near Ostend, in 1109, on the 1st of May, when one
of her festivals is kept. Then is supposed to follow the Valpurgis
Nacht, the Witches' Sabbath, on the Brocken. Surely this strange
connection with the saintly abbess must be due to some old observance
in honour of a Valkyr Valburg. Valasquita, an old name
found among the ladies of the Asturias, Navarre, and Biscay, was
probably from this source.[113]
Chief among the Valkyrier was Hildur, Hild, or Hiltia, who is
never wanting in any enumeration of these warlike spirits. The
word, in its original sense, means battle, and has thus attached
itself to the principal war-maiden; nay, it has passed from her to
be a poetical term for any maiden, and is one of the very commonest
terminations to feminine names throughout the Teutonic world, and
is likewise often found at the beginning of men’s names, predominating
perhaps in Germany.
Alone, it was only used in the North and in England, where the
Deiran princess Hildur became the holy abbess Hilda of Whitby,
succeeding St. Begga, and leaving a reputation for sanctity enhanced,
by the sight of
“The very form of Hilda fair
Hovering upon the sunny air;”
a vision which, though Clara de Clare could not see it, is to be beheld
318under certain conditions of light, in the windows of Whitby church
to the present day; as well as the ammonites, believed, as usual,
to have been serpents turned to stone at the prayer of the saint.
In honour of her, Hilda is still used as a name about Whitby.
The mother of Rolf Gangr, progenitress of our royalty, who vainly
besought Harald Harfagre not to banish her sons from Norway, was
named Hildr; and the name still survives in Scandinavia and Iceland,
where the Landnama-bok shows it to have been very plentiful,
seventeen ladies being recorded as bearing it. There, too, occurs
Hildiridur, battle hastener, a thorough Valkyr name, but not very
suitable to Fouqué’s sweet Lady Minnetröst, of the moonlight brown
eyes.
Hildelildis, Battle Spirit, is an Anglo-Norman lady’s name.
The true Frank form of the aspirate was, however, exceedingly
harsh, amounting to the Greek χ, and therefore, usually set down
in its transitions through Latin and French as a ch. So we meet,
among the Meerwings, with Childebert, who by translation is Hildebert,
battle-splendour, and Childebrand, or battle-sword.
These two last names, in their Low German form of Hiltibrant
and Hiltibraht, occur again in the old poem, already referred to, of
Hiltibrant and Hadubrant, both meaning battle-swords, which goes
through a dispute about Hadubrand’s father, and, finally, leaves them
in the middle of a single combat.
Hildebrand is, as we know from old German and Danish poems,
the companion and friend of Dietrich of Bern. He had, like some
hero in every cycle of story, married and deserted a young wife;
and after assisting his master in many adventures, and much dragon
killing, and being the sole survivor of all Dietrich’s men in the great
massacre of the Nibelung, he encountered, without knowing him,
his young son, Alebrand. In a single combat, where both do their
devoir, the old knight is wounded, the younger overthrown. Then
they discover each other, by the tokens that Hildebrand had left
with the mother, and
“Up rose the youthful Alebrand,
And into Bern they ride;
What bears he on his helmet?
A little cross of gold.
And what on his right hand bears he?
His dearest father old.”
So, recommended by fame, Hildebrand continued a knightly
name in England and Germany for many ages, and belonged to
that battle-sword of the Church, who, on his election to the papacy,
was called Gregory VII., though we still continue to think of him
as Pope Hildebrand; and the eccentric Dr. Wolff tells us that one
of the dreams of his youth was to wear the tiara by the name of
Hildebrand! In Italy, pronunciation turned it into Aldobrando,
then into Aldrovando, and then Latin made Aldrovandus.
Hildegunnr, battle-maid of war, was another northern name, and
is the same as the German Hildegund, which was rather a favourite.
319It is Aldegonde in the Cambrai register, and the territorial surname
of St. Aldegonde is memorable in the revolt of the Low Countries.
Hildegard, in honour of an abbess in the Palatinate, who died in
1004, is still a very common name among German ladies, and going
to Denmark, has been corrupted into Ollegaard. It is exactly the
same in meaning with the northern Hildebjorg. So again are
Hildewig and Hildegar, and among the Gothic queens of Spain is
found Hilduara, or battle prudence.
St. Hiltrude of Liessies, revered in Poitou and Hainault, unites
two Valkyr titles—Hildur and Thrudr; for Thrûdr is generally
enumerated among the Valkyr. The word once meant, in the
North, fortitude, or firmness, and is possibly connected with truth;
but in all the Teuton languages it signifies maiden, or virgin.
Perhaps, in connection with the Valkyrer, Hildur might have been
the patroness of courage, and Thrudr of fortitude; but, unfortunately,
perhaps from the spells used by the women in soothsaying before a
battle, Thrudr sank down from its high estate, and drude, or drut,
means a witch, and in German, also, an evil spirit. Thrudvangr,
or Constancy’s abode, was one of the names of Valhall. Thrud,
trud, tru, is, in Scandinavia and Germany, as favourite a feminine
termination as Hilda, and, no doubt, with the same meaning,
though its owners would fain translate it by truth; but it cannot be
brought nearer than constancy, or fortitude. Sometimes it stands
alone. Drot, as it has become by pronunciation, figures in the
Heimskringla; and the Danes must have brought it to England,
for in Bishop-Middleham, in the county of Durham, we meet, in
1683, with Troth Bradshau, who is again Trouth, or Troath, in the
old spelling. Trott also several times occurs; and we are thus led
to the conclusion that the dear old Dame Trot of the nursery bears
the respected name of the Valkyr of fortitude. Truth is, perhaps,
the same, originally coaxed by Puritan invention.
Cyndrida, or Quendrida, as the histories call her, the wife of Offa,
is suspected by Mr. Kemble to have been mixed up with her namesake,
Thrudr, the Valkyr. She was said to be a Frankish princess,
who came floating over the waters, having been exposed in a boat for
some unknown crime. Her beauty fascinated Offa, king of Mercia;
he married her, and she was the only old English queen who
caused her image to be stamped on her coins. She treacherously
murdered her son-in-law, and was put to death by being thrown
down a well. Some part of this is history; other parts are thought
to be taken from an Anglian myth of an elder fabulous Offa, whose
wife was almost certainly a Valkyr, and, on her marriage, lost her
supernatural strength. Cyne, or Cwen, a woman, only appears
again with Cwenburh, another Saxon queen, and may have been
merely an affix.
Other German masculine forms are Hildeman, or Hilman;
Hildemund, or Hilmund; Hildewart—in Friesland, Hilwert;
Hildefrid, or Hilfrid; Hildebold; Hilding; Hildrad, the Hildert,
or Hillert, of Friesland; Hilram, the contraction of Hilda’s raven.
Gothic Spain coined, however, the most noted form of the name
320when Hildefuns, or battle vehemence, came on the Latin lips of her
people to be Ildefonso, or Illefonso, as the great bishop of Toledo,
of the seventh century, was called. Then, shortening into Alfonso,
and again into Alonzo, the same came to the second gallant king of
the Asturias, husband of Pelayo’s daughter, and became the most
national of all the Peninsular names, belonging to eleven Castillian
kings and nine Aragonese, and to the present king of Spain; but
never passing beyond the Peninsula as a royal name, save to the
Aragonese dynasty in Sicily and Naples. In England we nearly
had it, for one of the sons of Edward I. and the Castillian Eleanor
was so baptized; but his early death saved our lips from the necessity
of framing themselves to its southern flow. Alphonse has been a
favourite French name. The Portuguese Affonso, though often used
as its equivalent, is Hadufuns, very similar in meaning, but rather
meaning war vehemence than battle vehemence. The feminine is
the Spanish Alfonsina, and the French Alphonsine.[114]
| English. |
German. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
| Alphonso |
Alfons |
Alphonse |
Ildefonso |
Alfonso |
| Alonzo |
|
|
Alfonso |
|
| |
|
|
Alonso |
|
The third deity who, with Odin and Wili, gave life to man, was
Ve, who bestowed blood and colour.
Ve is thought to be connected with the Persian word veh, pure,
and to lie at the root of veihan, to consecrate, in Mæso-Gothic;
weihan, in German; whence Christmas is Weihnacht, holy night.
Ve was the god in ancient German, vear the plural for gods; but,
moreover, ve, as a plural, meant sacred regions, and these, among the
Teutons, were groves; wih, a grove in old German, a temple in old
Saxon. Thence the northern vid, German wald, English wood,
all passing from the sense of the consecrated forest to be merely
the trees, and, in our language, the actual timber of which they are
composed.
Ve appears no more; but Vidar (Vithar), a son of Odin, explained
by Luning to signify the inexhaustible force of nature, is, in the
final conflict, to set his foot on the Fenris wolf, and rend him
asunder, and with Vali, the chosen, to pass unscathed through fire
and flood, and behold the renovation of all things.
Ve and Vid do their part in names. Vadi, Wade, or Wato, is a
giant ancestor in the Vilkinga Saga; and the father of Volundr is, in
321the North, Vidja or Vudga; in Germany, Wittege or Wittich, a
name mentioned by Jornandes as Vidigoja. The son of Volundr
also bears the same name, Vedja or Wilken, and kills the giant
Etgeir, called in the Danish ballad, Langbeen Riser, or long-legged
giant. The grave and the oven of the giant are still shown in
Zeeland.
It is the Vitiges whom the Byzantine writers mention among their
Gothic foes in Italy, and the Vitiza of the latter Visigoths in Spain,
and may fairly be rendered a dweller in a wood, though, in effect, it
conveyed the sense of consecration.
Thence, too, the Widukind, or Witukind, of Saxony, the fierce old
chieftain subdued by Charlemagne, whose name Scott gave to old
‘Witikind, the waster,’ but erroneously, for a Dane would have begun
his name with Ved. Before comparison had cleared up the history
of names, Witikind used, however, to be translated white child.
Germany has many of such grove names, the forest wolf and raven,
as Witolf and Witram; the forest prince, as Witrich, and his fame as
Witmar; also Witpald, Witperaht, and Witheri, the like of which
last is found in Domesday Book before the Conquest, as Wither, in
company with Witlac, Witgar, and Wit, and Witgils is high up in
the Anglo-Saxon genealogy.
It is tempting to refer such names as these to wit and wise, both
from vidjan, to know, and to think of the vedas; but the wood and
its spirit of consecration is the real source of all these, as of Vebiorn,
Vebrandr, Vedis, Vedornn, Vegeir, Velaug, Vemundr, Vedny, Vedhelm,
Vedhild, Vestan, all names of the North. Verena, the gentle
mother of Sintram, may, perhaps, be meant for Vedrun, which would
mean sacred wisdom, or for Vedrid, sacred eagerness; just as Sigrid
has formed Siri and Serena.
The only cases where wise or vit has produced a name, were Vitgeir
of Iceland, who received that prefix for his magic powers, and
Robert d'Hauteville, surnamed Guiscard, wise heart, or wizard, the
Norman conqueror of Apulia, from whose soubriquet Guiscard was
afterwards used as a name in France, whence Sir Guiscard d'Angle
appears in Froissart.
Ve, or verr, is common at the end of northern names, as in Raadve
or Randverr, and stood as vih at the end of the old Frankish names,
where it is apt to get confused with wig, war. Vid, the forest or tree,
is a favourate Norsk termination, apt to be taken for hvit, white.[115]
Freyr’s beautiful wife, whose loveliness was reflected by land and
sea, was Gerda, a word coming from gerdhi or gerthi, to gird round,
and thus denoting the enclosed cornfield, the emblem of peace and
blessing.
And, on the other hand, gerd was sometimes poetically used for the
322entire girding or harness of a warrior prepared for battle, and in both
these senses, as well as of the dedication to the goddess, Gerdur was
a favourite feminine in the North; and Gerda has still continued in
use in Norway and Iceland, besides supplying a great many terminations,
chiefly to Germany, in Ermengard, Hildegard, &c.
Its original source is exceedingly old, and conveys the idea of
turning round, as in γῦρος (gyros), curvus, &c., and all their derivatives
in the classical languages.
In the northern tongues arose gjorde (Nor.), gyrden (A. S.), whence
all the varieties of girth and gird. Thence came the Danish Gyrthr,
which, when borne by the best and most faithful of the sons of Earl
Godwin, was rendered into modern English as Gurth, and thus was
bestowed by Scott upon the honest thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood.
This name, then, properly means the warrior girt for battle.
Gard is part of a man’s name in the North; e.g., Gardar, who was
the Swede who first sailed round Iceland, came from Gardhar, house-warrior,
or perhaps patriot; Gardmund and Gardbrand, one the hand,
another the sword of the country, are also found; but, in general, this
is a termination, as with Finngard, Thorgard, Valgard.
Other names of men ending with gerd are generally corruptions of
words from geir.[116]
When the Aasir took up their abode in Asgard, they there found
the Jotun, or giants, of whom the chief was Fornioti, a word meaning
the aged. He had three sons, Hler, Logi, and Kari, ruling sea, flame,
and wind. After a long contest they seem to have been promoted to
the privileges of Aasir, and remained allies, if not friends, till the
treason of Logi or Loki brought about the death of Baldur, after
which the destroyer Loki and his children, the Fenris wolf (the wolf
of the fen or abyss), Hel, or death, and the Midgard serpent, were
bound till the last outbreak shall take place.
Kari and Hler appear to have retained their privileges as gods or
demi-gods of wind and wave. Kari is called Fasolt in Germany, but
his name of Kaari or Kari has continued in use in Norway and Iceland,
and belonged to the generous avenger of Burnt Njal and his sons.
Hler is evidently the Keltic Lyr, but on his promotion to rank with
the Aasir, he took the northern name of Agir, Ygg, or Œgir. He was
on very friendly terms with the Aasir, gave them banquets, visited
them at Asgard, and heard Bragi tell stories of their deeds; but his
usual occupation was to raise his hoary head above the water when
he meant evil to vessels; and when he raised storms, his wife Ran
(from rœina, to spoil,) sat fishing for sailors, whose spirits she imprisoned
like a water Hela, so that drowned men were said to be gone
to Ran, before Davy Jones superseded her in nautical language. His
daughter, Unna, was the wave rising as in human shape. All these
images evidently arose from the wild, heaped, confused masses of
323waves in the North Sea, which, instead of forming the even sweep of
ridge and furrow of the Atlantic, are in tumbling masses, suggesting
the human form. Unna is said to come from the same root as unda,
the Latin wave; but the word also means love, and thence a woman,
and there is a curious similitude in it to Aine, the granddaughter of
Lyr, in Irish legend. In Germany, Œgir was Ecke, but was reduced
to fresh water and rivers.
The root of the name of Œgir is, in fact, og or uok, the same as our
awe. Thence come many words, such as the Frank ega, cunning;
the Saxon ege, fear; also the verb eggan, to incite, still common in
the North; while we have to egg on.
It has been extremely fertile in names, in many different forms,
the simplest being the Frank Ega, a maire du palais. Our own two
kings, Ecgfrith and Ecgberht, are probably thus derived, though some
explain their first syllable by edge; but they are far more probably
the same with the awe of the North. Egbert continues in Friesland
as Ebbert.
Aug is the oldest form in the North, as in Augmund, which, however,
was soon turned into Ogmund, Agmund, and Amund, a shape
in which it is common in the North, while in the Low Countries it
gave the title of Egmont to the victim of Alva. Ogwald has run
something the same course in the North, and become Avald; Œgunn
and Œgulv are also there; and in Germany Egiheri once existed,
and gave us the surnames of Agar and Eggar; Eggerich makes the
Frisian Eggert, Iggerick, and Eggo.
The most famous German hero connected with the name is der
treue Eckhardt, who is well named awful firmness, warns travellers
from the tempting mountain of fatal delights, the Venusberg, once
belonging to Hela herself. Eckhard is chiefly Frisian in the present
day, and there it forms into Eggo, Ike, and Edzard.
It is identically the same name as Eginhard, the contemporary
chronicler of Charlemagne. The n being used in declining the leading
noun, is retained in the pronunciation of the name. Friesland, however,
separates the two, and shortens Eginhard into Eino, Aynnert,
Aynt.
Thus again is formed the original northern Aginhar, awful warrior,
who fell down into Agnar and Agne. Einar, of which there were
twenty-two in the Landnama-bok, looks very much like another contraction
of Aginhar; but analogy is against it; and Professor Munch
decides that the first syllable, both of Einar and Eindride, a rather
popular old Norsk feminine, is ein, one, in the sense of chief or
superior; so that Einar would be chief warrior, Eindride, Endride,
or Indride, as it is also used, superior rider.
The dative form of Ag is Agli, whence Egils, or Eigils, has come
to be a favourite northern name, and in this shape it is a very
frequent prefix. Egilona was the unfortunate wife of Rodrigo, the
last of the Goths, and afterwards of the Moorish prince, his conqueror,
whom she forced to do homage to the Cross, by having the door of
her room opposite to it made so low that he could not enter without
stooping. Agilo was a Frank nobleman, and in Domesday we fall
324upon an undoubted Agilward and Egelmar, and on what are probably
their contractions, Aylward and Aylmer, afterwards Aymar; but
both these are contractions of other names, and cannot always be
referred to the awful god of the sea. Agilard, Agilulf, and Agilbert
were Frank forms, the last Eilbert in German; Egilhart is Eilert, or
Eilo, in German; Eilert, Ayelt, or Ayldo, in Frisian. And the
Spanish Gothic Egica is another of the progeny of the old sea giant.
Oht is a word also meaning terror.[117]
Leaving the comparatively clear and consistent regions of Scandinavian
mythology, we pass to the divinities and forefathers of whom
we know far less, those of our own Anglian ancestors; some accepted
by them in common with the High Germans, others exclusively their
own, and some apparently known to the North, though not admitted
into the system of the Edda.
The northern cosmogony tells us of the first man, Buri, whom the
cow Audumbla licked out of the stone, and whose grandson Odin was.
It also tells us of the primeval man and woman, Ask and Embla,
whom Odin, Vili, and Ve, animated.
On the other hand, Tacitus, writing of the ancient Germans, makes
them start from an earth-born god, Tuisco, whose son was Mannus;
and again, Mannus’s three sons were Ingus, Iscus, and Hermius, Ing,
Esc, and Ed, from whom descended the Ingævones, Iscævones, and
Hermiones.
Tuisco is Tiu, or, more properly, the divine word in another form.
He represents the original stock of Teutonism, and also the human
sense of a divine origin, for Mannus, of course, is man.
Esk, or Ask, has scarcely formed any names, but Ing, or Yngve, was
looked on as the ancestor of the Swedish kings, who thence were
called the Ynglinga; and the history which rationalizes Odin is thence
termed the Ynglinga Saga, as it makes Yngve his son, and deduces
the line from him. Ing, the son of Tuisco, is, however, a far more
universal forefather, being almost without a doubt the name-father
of that great race that we have called Angeln, Anglo-Saxons, and
English.
Seaxnot, or Sahsnot, was probably another name for Ing. The
word means stone comrade, and he was supposed to be the ancestor
of the Sachsen, or Saxons, but he has not numerous namesakes. In
the East Saxon pedigree, we find Seaxbeohrt and Seaxbald, and in the
East Anglian Seaxburh or Sexburga; and in Scandinavia Sakse remained
as a name; and the historian of the twelfth century, who
enlightened us so much on Danish history, is Latinized as Saxo
Grammaticus.
Ing was a great deal more popular, though not among the Angles,
either insular or continental. The only trace of him in Germany
325is in the old name of Hinkmar, or Hinko; and our Anglo-Saxon
kings enumerated Ingvi, Ingebrand, and Ingegeat as connecting links
between themselves and Wuotan. The Goths, Burgundians, and
Vandals also claimed descent from Ingvja, and their princes were
called Ingvineones.
Ingve, or Ingvar, was a royal name in Scandinavia, and so travelled
with the sons of Rurik to Russia; where Igor, as he was there called,
led an army to strike terror into Constantinople, and the name has
since become confused with Egor, or George. Ingulf was the secretary
of William the Conqueror, and we would fain believe in the
history of Croyland that goes by his name. Ingebjorg found her
way into an old Saga as a demi-goddess directing wind and rain;
but her historical interest is connected with the unfortunate Danish
princess, whom Philippe Auguste married only to repudiate, and
whom French historians translate into Ingeberge, English ones into
Ingoberga. Hers is the most common female name in Norway.
The North has likewise Ingegerdur, Ingeleif, Ingemundr, Ingeridur,
Ingiallur, Ingvilldur, Ingjard, and Ingrim. Ingvilhild has become
Engelke, or Engel, and is, in fact, now merged in the idea of the
Greek Angel. The same fate has befallen other names in Germany
and France, where that best of all puns, as far as results were concerned,
that of St. Gregory between Angeli and Angli, has been
constantly repeated in nomenclature. The Eng, Ing, or Engel,
named from a forgotten tradition after Ing, was well pleased to be
dedicated to an angel; Ingram, once Ing’s raven, became Engelram,
and thought he was of angelic purity, in name if not in nature; and
either he or Engelhard passed into France as Enguerraud, the chief
Christian name of the brave house whose proud saying was—
“Je suis ni roi, ni comte aussi,
Je suis le Sire de Coucy;”
and the English called it Ingeltram, when Isabel, the daughter of
Edward III., made her love match with the brave Lord de Coucy,
whose loyalty was so sorely perplexed by his connection with her
family.
Engelfrid, Engelschalk, Engelberga, and Engelbert, are probably
originally German angels in connection with peace, discipleship,
protection, and splendour; and Professor Munch thinks the northern
Ingobert an instinctive attempt to nationalize the last. On the other
hand, he leaves to Ing, Angilbald, Angiltrud, Angelrich; as, in fact,
may be always done with every name of the kind that can be traced
to an owner prior to the time when angels were popular ideas among
our northern ancestors.
Ingvar was a terrible name to our Saxon ancestors, when the
Danish viking, so called, carried terror to our coasts; but Ivar is
not the short for it, but is from yr; German, eibe; Dutch, ibe;
English, yew; and har, a warrior, so that Ivar is the Yew warrior,
the bow-bearer, or archer. He is Iver in Danish, and in Scotland
and Ireland MacIvor has been adopted as a rendering of one of the
old hereditary Keltic names. Ivbald and Ivbert have also been used
326and cut down to Ibald and Ibert. Ireland had a St. Ivor, or Ivory,
who was considered to have prayed away from Fernegenall the
mures maiores qui vulgariter Rati vocantur so completely that none
survived; but whether he was named by Dane or Kelt does not
appear. At any rate, St. Ivory was deemed good to invoke against
rats.
It is probable that Ivhar is the real origin of Ives, the saint who
named the town in Huntingdonshire; but legend strangely makes
him a Persian bishop, who chose that locality for a hermitage, in the
seventh century, and whose body was discovered uncorrupt in the
year 1001, thus providing a patron for many an Ivar of Danish or
Norman extraction, who became Yvon, or Ivone, in France; and
Ivo in the chroniclers. Ivo de Taillebois is the villain of the story
of Hereward and his camp of refuge; and the name is common with
the Normans and Bretons, all the more for the sake of St. Ivo de
Chartres, who was imprisoned for his resistance to the adultery of
Philip I. and Bertrade of Anjou, and St. Ives of Brittany, the good
lawyer, called the advocate of the poor. These Breton Ivons may,
however, be from Sir Ywain, or Owen, the same as Eoghan.[118]
The third son of Mannus was said to be Er, a word, perhaps, connected
with Tyr on one side, and Ares on the other; for Ertag is the
Tuesday of Southern Germany, and Eresburg, now Mersburg, was
the centre of the worship of the continental Saxons. The day was,
however, also called, in Bavaria and Austria, Ermintag, or Irminstag;
and the deity worshipped at Eresburg was Irman, or Ermin; and
perhaps the word should be considered as Er-man in conjunction.
From him the Herminiones of Tacitus are said to be descended,
being chiefly the old Germans and the Franks.
At Eresburg, even up to the eighth century, there stood a great
central temple, containing a marble column on which stood an armed
warrior, holding, in one hand, a banner bearing a rose, in the other a
balance. The crest on the helmet was a cock, on the breastplate was
a bear, on the shield that hung from the shoulders was a lion in a
field of flowers. Around lived a college of priests, who exercised
judgment and made biennial offerings. Before going out to war, the
host, in full armour, galloped round the figure, brandishing their
spears and praying for victory. Lesser images were carried with the
army, and, on its return, captives and cowards were slain, as offerings
to the great idol.
This temple was destroyed by Charlemagne, who buried the idol
where afterwards stood the abbey of Corbye. In his son’s reign it
was dug up, and carried off by the French as a trophy, when the
Saxons rose to rescue it and a battle took place, after which it was
thrown into the river Innen, but was fished out, exorcised, purified,
and made to serve as a candelabrum in the church of Hillesheim.
327The battle was called Armansula, and the image Irmansul; whence
many have fancied that Irmansul was the chief German god.
Sul, or saul, is, however, a pillar; and it is a very curious fact that
two sacred columns were the penates of every Teuton’s hearth and
city. When a migration was decided on by the Scandinavians, a
solemn feast was held, the master of the house seated between his
two sulur, or columns, which he uprooted and carried with him, and,
on his approach to his intended home, he threw them overboard, and
followed them with his ship, landing wherever they were cast up.
It was thus that the situation of Reijkjavik, in Iceland, was determined.
Such columns, down to a very late period, stood at the gates
of the elder towns in Germany, and were called Ermensaulen, or,
sometimes, one the Rolandsaul, the other the Ermensaul.
Eormon, in the Anglian of Beowulf, means universal; eormoncyn,
the whole of mankind; in old Norse, jormün is the world, and Jormungandr
is another name of the Midgard snake which encircles the
world. Most likely, the Irmansul thus signified the universal column,
the pillar adored by all men; just as the Anglo-Saxons called the great
Roman road Eormenstreot, or Ermingstreet, the public road. Er,
then, would be the divinity, man the human word, and Erman would
thus express something revered by all; and thence, the name of the
tribes of the Hermiones and Hermunduri, both meaning all the people.
Later, the word jormün, or eorman, came to mean only very large;
and, probably, the Saxons of Thuringia had forgotten the original
signification of their columns when they gave the single one of
Irmansul such an exclusive prominence. Some have tried to explain
one pillar as Heermansaul, pillar of the army man, and the other as
Raginholdsaul, pillar of firm judgment, as emblems of military and
civil power; but though this meaning may have later been bestowed
on them, the signification of Eormon is decidedly adverse to this explanation,
and it is safest to translate it, when it occurs in names, as
public, or general.
| English. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
| Armyn |
Armand |
Armando |
Arminio |
| Armine |
|
|
Armanno |
| German. |
Swedish. |
Dutch. |
Swiss. |
| Hermann |
Hermann |
Hermanus |
Herma |
| |
|
Herman |
Hermeli |
| |
|
Manus |
|
| Slovak. |
Lettish. |
Esth. |
Lithuanian. |
| Jerman |
Ermannis |
Herm |
Ermas |
| |
|
|
Ermonas |
When the Cheruschi, themselves Herminiones, broke the heart of
Augustus by cutting off the legions of Quinctilius Varus, their leader
was Arminius, probably Irman or Eorman, though after-generations
328explained it as Heerman or Armyman. So that the hosts of Hermans,
named when national feeling was roused by French invasion, are in
his honour; previously, the Dutch Jacob Hermannsen had rendered
himself into Latin as Arminius. From Holland the Norfolk name
of Armyn must have been imported.
The Germans use, as the feminine, Hermine and Herminie, which
properly belong to the Latin Herminius; and the French have made
their own form of Armand into Armantine. A Burgundian hermit,
Ermin, too, gave St. Ermo to Italy, a name inextricably mixed with
Elmo, the contraction of Erasmus; it is the St. Erme of France.
Very early, so as to be almost mythical, was the Thuringian
Irmanfrit, or IrnvritIrnvrit, who hardly conduced to ‘public peace’ by
calling in the Saxons; but Hermanfred continued in use in Germany,
and was known to the French as Hermanfroi.
The Burgundian version of the great world-girding snake was
Ermelind, a name that came to a saintly virgin of the sixth century
from whom Ermelinda flourished as an Italian name, being probably
common to both Lombards and Burgundians, as both Vandals.
But these Irmins are most frequent in ancient Spain. The Suevi
had Hermanrik, or Hermanarico, public ruler, and the Goths, Hermanegar
and Hermangildo; the last being the prince who is revered
as having been converted from Arianism by his orthodox Frank wife,
and whose death, by his father’s persecution, sealed the triumph of
Catholicism in Spain. Hermenburga was a princess, offered to, but
refused by, a Frank king; and Ermesinda, or, as Southey’s poem calls
her, Hermesind, the daughter of Pelayo, carried the blue blood of the
Balten to the line of Alfonso. Her name meant public dignity.
Parallel to these the Anglo-Saxons enumerate Eormenric, Eormenburh,
Eormenburg, Eormengyth, Eormengild; and after the Conquest
there still continue the forms of Eremburga, Ermentrude, and Ermengarde;
the last by far the most frequent, and not yet disused in
Germany.
The Anglo-Saxons were accustomed to perform an incantation to
restore the fruitfulness of their fields. It began by the cry Erce,
Erce, Erce, Eordhan Môder, as if it were not earth itself, but her
mother that was called upon.
The same word erce is used for ark, chest, or ship, in the Anglo-Saxon
New Testament. And Erce does not seem to have been entirely
forgotten; for Erche, or Herkja, is a famous lady in old German hero
songs.
From thence, too, may have sprung the Old German adjective ërchan,
meaning holy, genuine, or simple, which is thought to have named
the famous Hercynian forest of ancient Germany, which would thus
be the sacred wood.
The founder of the East Saxon kingdom in England is called both
Escwine and Ercenwine, the darling of Ese, or of Erce. In the
Kentish genealogy we find Eorconberht, sacred brightness, answering
329to the Lombardo-Italic Erchimperto; and also Eorcongot, sacred
divinity.
St. Eorconwald, holy power, was a bishop of London, about 678,
and may almost be reckoned as the second founder of St. Paul’s, where
his shrine was greatly revered; and about the same time Erkenoald
was a maire du palais in France; and Erchenold, or Herchenhold,
was an old German name, meaning probably firm in truth.
In old knightly times, we find the German Erchanbald, meaning a
sacred prince, from which the French took many a Sire Archambault,
and the Italians Arcibaldo.
The Scots, by some strange fancy, adopted Archibald as the Lowland
equivalent of Gillespie, the bishop’s servant. So frequent was
it in the houses of Campbell and Douglas, that, with its contractions
of Archie and Baldie, it has become one of the most commonly used
in Scotland, recalling many a fierce worthy, from old Archibald
Bell-the-Cat downwards, and always translating the Gillespie of the
Campbells to Lowland ears.[119]
Amal is a very remarkable word. We have had it in Greek, as
Αἰμύλος; in Latin, as Æmilius; in the Keltic as Amalgaidh; and in
all it would seem as if one notion could be detected—that of work.
Even in Hebrew Amal means to work; aml is work in old Norse;
and we have still our verb to moil, taken therefrom. Mahl, be it remembered,
is in German a time; mahl, a stroke; mahlen, to paint or
make strokes; and so in the North, maal is a measure, or an end, a
goal. Probably there is a notion of repetition of marks, stroke upon
stroke, in all cases, and the Sanscrit meaning of Amal, or spotless,
without mark, is in favour of the meaning.
It is safest, however, to translate the Teutonic Amal by work, the
thought most familiar to the sturdy northern nations who used it,
and loved work for its own sake.
In the Vilkina Saga, the mighty smith Velint’s first great trial of
skill was with Amilias, an armourer at the court of King Nielung.
Velint struck him with his sword Mimung; he said he felt as if a
drop of water had flowed down him. “Shake yourself,” said Velint,
and the unfortunate smith fell down cloven painlessly from head to
heel, an example of labour versus skill.
Aumlung, the strong, is mentioned in the Book of Heroes, as feasting
at the Nibelung court; and it was at Duke Amelung’s court
that, according to the Danish ballad, old Sir Hildibrand had been
staying for twenty-two years, before, going back to Bern, he met his
unknown son Alebrand.
Amala was a favourite Lombardic commencement, and was likewise
much in favour with German ladies; it became first Amalie,
and then, when Italy and France had taken up the Latin Æmilia,
this old Teutonic form was mixed up with it; and Amelia in
330England, Amélie in France, are scarcely considered to differ from it;
and though historically Emily is the descendant of the Æmilii,
Amelia of the Amaler, yet both alike come from the original Amal.
Amalaswinth, which would bear the translation, dignity of labour,
though probably it was only given in the sense of dignity of the
Amaler, was the unfortunate Lombardic queen, whom the Romans
could not protect from the treachery of her favourites. Amalasontha
is what historians call her; but on Burgundian lips it came to be
Melisenda, Melicerte, Melusine.
Melisenda is in Spanish ballad lore the wife of Don Gayferos,
and, being taken captive by the Moors, was the occasion of the feats
that were represented by the puppet show in which Don Quixote
took an unfortunately lively interest. Melisende again was the
princess who carried the uneasy crown of Jerusalem to the House
of Anjou; and, perhaps, from the Provençal connections of the
English court, Lady Melisent Stafford bore the name in the time of
Henry II., whence Melicent has become known in England, and
never quite disused, though often confounded with Melissa, a bee,
and sometimes spelt Millicent.
Melusine was a nymph who became the wife of the Lord de Leezignan,
or Lusignan, on condition that he should never intrude upon
her on a Saturday; of course, after a long time, his curiosity was
excited, and stealing a glance at his lady in her solitude, he beheld
her a serpent from the waist downward! With a terrible shriek,
she was lost to him for ever; but she left three sons, all bearing
some deformity, of whom Geoffroi au grand dent was the most
remarkable.
Melusina continued in use in the south of France, Holland, and
Germany, and is occasionally used in England. We find Melicerte
in old French chronicles.
The very ancient queens of Navarre and the Asturias have a
wonderful set of aliases, and one, the oddest, is “Amelina, or Simena,
or Ximena,” the sister of Sancho I., of Navarre, who married Alfonso
the Great. Could the Spaniards, by any possibility, have contracted
the soft Amal into the harsh guttural Xi, which sounds as if it came
from a Moorish throat. Yet, Goths as they were, they show no Amal,
though their Ximen and Ximena reach up to 700, and Ximena
survived long as a name among their ladies, and was the wife of the
Cid, whence the French turned her into Chimène. Emmeline,
as it is now generally spelt, came from France as Emeline, and is
frequent in old ballad poetry, and in northern registers, as Emyln.
It is probably another form of this same Amaline, or lind, Amal’s
serpent.
The northern races have the one much reduced name of Malfrid,
from Amalafrida, of peace.
The ladies have certainly been the chief owners of Amal, as a
commencement; but it has had a brilliant part to play in the form
of Amalrich, Almerich, or Emmerich, on the German side; Almerigo
in Spain; Amalric, or Amaury, in France; Almerick in England.
Amaury was an Angevin king of Jerusalem; and our own Sir
331Almerick St. Lawrence was brother-in-arms to Sir John de Courcy,
and founded the House of Howth in Ireland. The House of
Lusignan, Melusina’s descendants, called it Aymar; and in this
form it came to England with Henry III.’s half-brother, whom he
promoted to the see of Winchester, but who episcopally called
himself Ethelmarus; though his nephew, Aymar de Valence, kept
his proper name. Emmery is a surviving English surname, and
Merica occurs in old Yorkshire genealogies.
But it is the Italian form, Amerigo, which was destined to the
most noted use,—when the adventurer, Amerigo Vespucci, gave his
name to the tract of land that Columbus saw for the first time in
his company; little knowing that it was no island, but a mighty
continent, which should hold fast that almost fortuitous title, whence
thousands of miles, and millions of men, bear the appellation of the
forgotten forefather of a tribe of the Goths—Amalrich, the work
ruler; a curiously appropriate title for the new world of labour and
of progress, on the other side the Atlantic.
Amalberge is an old Cambrai name; Malburg a Danish one;
Amalgund, Amalbert, Amalbertine, and Amalhild, have also been
known. The French Amelot must be the contraction of one of the
masculine forms.[120]
The deification of forefathers, or the claim to divine origin, whichever
it might be, led to the employment, as a prefix, of the very
word that expressed them—that word which we use still at the
beginning of ancestors, and that the Germans call ahnen. In old
German the singular was ano, and it signified a remote forefather.
The Rigsmaal, an old Icelandic poem which explains the origin of
the various castes which the northern races acknowledged, represents
Heimdall, the porter of heaven, as wandering to the earth, and being
entertained by Ai and Edda, or great-grandfather and great-grandmother,
who lived in a lowly hut; then by Avi and Amma (Lat.
Avus), or grandfather and grandmother, who had a comfortable
dwelling-house; and lastly by Fadher and Modher, whose abode
was a splendid mansion. The son of Edda was Thrall; the son of
Amma was Karl; the son of Modher was Jarl; and from these
descended the three castes of the North—the thralls, or slaves; the
churls, bondr, or farmers; and the jarls, or nobles.
This is an absolute mythic allegory by way of explanation of
existing circumstances; but the names therewith connected mostly
survived, though they refer to these mere embodiments of abstract
ideas.
Ai, or ani, enters into the composition of the Icelandic Anar,
ancestral warrior, and thus, no doubt, contributed to form our surname
of Anson, which, like almost all our great naval names, thus
traces back to some ancient viking, who has done us at least as much
332good as evil, by leaving us his sons to keep all other invaders from
our shores.
The old Saxon histories call some of these enemies by the name of
Anlaff, in particular the chief who visited King Æthelstan’s tent in a
minstrel’s disguise, and betrayed himself by burying the guerdon that
he was too proud to keep. The same persons whom England called
Anlaff, and Ireland Amlaidh, were, in the North, Alafr, or Olafr,
according to the custom of pronouncing the diphthong a like an o, and
then so spelling it, e.g., Aasbiorn, Osbiorn. The latter syllable is laf
or leif, from the verb lev, the Anglo-Saxon leafan, our own leave.
It is a word that never is used as a commencement, and but rarely
stands alone, though the North sometimes has a Leifr, and it is used
in the sense of what is remaining. Anlaff, or Olaf, is thus what is
left of his forefathers, his ancestor’s relic, and a very notable relic was
the gallant king Olaf Trygveson, the prime hero of the Heimskringla,
whose last battle is so nobly described there. Scarcely less noble is
his relative, Olaf the saint, the ally of England, who fought her
battles near London-bridge, and has left his name to the church of
St. Olave, near the site of the battle, though, unluckily, English
tongues made him St. Toly. St. Olaf was over-harsh in his endeavours
to introduce Christianity to his subjects, and perished in a war
with the rebels, assisted by Knut of Denmark and England; but his
name continued glorious, and another royal St. Olaf, in Sweden,
assisted to make it one of the most national of Scandinavian names,
even to the present day.
Its Latinism is Oläus, and its contraction Ole, or, rather, this
answers to the very old Aale, which, in its turn, answers to the Analo,
Anilo, Anelo, of the old Germans.
Leif, or laf, we shall often meet as a termination, both in the North
and in Germany, where it generally becomes leib or lip, and then the
modern Germans take it for love, and thus have changed the old Gottleip
into Gottleib. In the North it has scarcely fared better, especially in
the case of Thorleif, or Thor’s relic, who changed from Tholleiv to
Thoddeiv, or Tadeiv, on the one hand, and on the other, to Tellev,
which, thanks to some classically-disposed clergyman, has been written
Teleph, and referred to the Greek Telephus.
Of the other names connected with the Rigsmaal, we find Edda, the
great-grandmother, giving title to the ancient poem on cosmogony
and mythology that may be regarded as the parent of all the northern
songs. Thrall was likewise, in spite of its meaning, used as a name.
The next generation, Avi, Amma, and the son Karl, are the prominent
ones. The equivalent of Karl, Bondr, a farmer, is now and
then a northern name; but it is the great Frank Karling line whose
names so curiously answer to these.
Were they of the middle class of landholders, and were they proud
of it, and anxious to trace their connection back to the grandfather,
grandmother, and churl? Whether there were a Frank version of the
Rigsmaal we do not know, but the leading name of the family was
Karl, the churl (of which more in its relation to the cycle of Romance),
and it is found in constant company with Amma, or Emma, and
333alternates with one that almost certainly represented Avi, or grandfather.
Charles, Pepin l'Heristal, Charles Martel, Pepin le Bref, Charles the
Great, is the succession till the alternation was broken by the death
of Pepin, the eldest son of Charles the Great. Now this most undignified
Pepin is traced by the best authorities to be one of the many
forms of the primitive and universal abba, father, papa, and to answer
to the old German names of Bobo, Bobbo, and Poppo. And it is not,
therefore, probable that Pepin and Emma stood for the northern Avi
and Amma, both alike with the son Karl?
Amme, or Emma, no doubt formed by the first lispings of a child,
is amme, a nurse, in Germany, and ama, a housekeeper, in Spain.
As a name, it was at first exclusively Frank, and used by the
Karling daughters. The first Emma mentioned was the daughter
of Charlemagne; and the sister of Hugh Capet, who married Richard
the Fearless, of Normandy, was likewise so called. Her granddaughter
was the wife, first of Ethelred the Unready, then of Knut,
and the supposed heroine of the ordeal of the ploughshares. Emma
was considered as so un-English that her name was translated into
Ælfgifu. However, we find ‘Emme’ among the daughters of Dru
de Baladon, who came over with the Conqueror, and thus ‘Emm’
and ‘Emr’ are by no means uncommon in the registers of Yorkshire
and Durham, even down to the seventeenth century. Then Prior,
when modernizing and sentimentalizing the beautiful ballad of the
Nut Browne Maid, supposed to be on the history of the shepherd
Lord Clifford, called it Henry and Emma, whence it became rather
a favourite romantic name of literature. Clergymen were apt to use
it, in Latin registers, as a translation of Amy, as well as of its own Em.
It is also confounded with Emily, and at the present day recurs
extremely often in England, while it is almost disused in France,
its native home. The Welsh use it as a translation of Ermin,
probably a legacy of the Roman Herminii. Emmott is another
old name of northern England, probably amplified from Em; but
Emeline, as has been already said, is far more probably Amalina
than any relation to Emma.
Jarl, as might be expected, was a very favourite eponym; but
not in the same pronunciation; for it first became Irl, then Erl, in
nomenclature. Erling, a name much used by the Norsemen, and
often corrupted into Elling, is the son of the earl; and the Swedish
once had a Jarlar, or earl-warrior, who changed into Erlher, Erlo,
Erlebald, Erlebrecht, Erlhild.
334
The rich imagination of the North could not fail to preserve
the Eastern myths of natural appearances and animals with their
myths, and these ideas are as usual reflected in the names of the race.
In the Edda, Nôtt, or night, the dark, one of the Jotun, is the
wife of Dellingr, the brilliant and beautiful, one of the Æsir, and
their son is Dag or Day. Mother and son each have a chariot in
which they career round the sky, in pursuit of one another. The
horse of Day is Shinfaxi, of shining mane; the horse of Night is
Hrimfaxi, rime or frost manemane.
Day had many namesakes, though more often at the end than the
beginning of a word.
Dago, Tago, or Tajo, was a Gothic bishop of Zaragoza, whom
King Chindaswintha sent to Rome about 640, to bring home a
copy of St. Gregory’s Comment on the Book of Job, which had been
dedicated to a King of Spain, one of the Suevi, but had been lost
in the irruption of the Arian Goths. The Roman clergy had been
equally careless. Pope Theodorus could not lay his hands upon the
manuscript; and the search became so tedious, that finally Bishop
Tajo betook himself to prayer, and obtained a special vision of the
holy Pope Gregory himself, who directed him to the depository of
the manuscript.
This same Dagr figures in the Landnama-bok; and the North
has Dagfinn, perhaps once an allusion to the resplendent glory of
Odin, but usually translated white as day. Dagulf, or Daulf, day-wolf,
was no doubt in allusion to the wolf Sköll, who hunts the
sun daily round the sky, and will eat her up at last; whence to
this day a parhelion is called in Sweden a sun-wolf, Sololf. Eclipses
are caused when the wolf gains on the sun, who has no namesakes
in Teuton nomenclature, the few that sound like it being from
another source, namely, Salv or sölv, anointing or healing. The
feminine ny, though meaning the new moon when standing alone,
is only the adjective new, and means fresh and fair, so that the
northern Dagny is, fair as day. The Norse ladies also have Dagheid
or Dageid, cheerful as day.
Dagobert, or bright as day, was that long-haired king who, next
to Clovis, impressed the French imagination. He was the employer
of the great goldsmith St. Eloi, and the throne or chair of King
335Dagobert, ascribed to that great artificer, is still in existence. A
successor in the fainéant times was canonized, and together the
two Dagoberts, making one, have become the theme first of heroic
and then of burlesque in France. It was Takaperaht in Old
German; and there, too, Tagarat, or Dagrad, is to be found; but
in general, dag or tac comes at the end of words.
Dagmar—the favourite queen of the Danes, whose only fault was
lacing her sleeves on a Sunday—is called only by her epithet, Danes'
joy. Her true name was Margaret of Bohemia, and the Danish
princess Dagmar, who was christened after her, was on her Russian
marriage called Marie.[121]
It is for the place that he occupies in the Teutonic imagination,
rather than for his own merits, that the wolf stands foremost among
the creatures that have supplied Teutonic names.
He is also the most universal. Zeeb, Lycos, and Lupus, have
been already mentioned; and the midnight prowler, as the most
terrible animal of Europe, held his place in imaginations, whence
the lion and tiger faded for want of personal acquaintance. The
French have no less than forty-nine proverbs about wolves, many
no doubt remains of the beast epic.
Wolves called Geri and Freki sat on either side of Odin’s throne,
and devoured his share of the bears' flesh of Valhalla, a banquet
he was too ethereal to require. Wolves chase the sun and moon
round their daily courses; and a terrible wolf called Mangarmr,
or moon-gorger, is to devour the moon at the coming of the wolf-age,
which, in the Voluspa, shadows the last days of the world.
Fenris, the wolf of the abyss, is the son of Loki; and though bound
by the Æsir at the cost of Tyr’s right hand, will finally break loose,
destroy Odin himself, and only be rent asunder by Vidur in his
resistless shoes.
Nevertheless, ulf, vulf, wolf was highly popular as a name-root;
perhaps more common at the end than the beginning of a word,
but often standing alone. It was the diminutive Vulfila that was
the right name of that good bishop whose Mæso-Gothic version
of the Gospels goes by his Latinism of Ulphilas.
Ulf was twenty-three times in the Landnama-bok; and ulf in
every possible form ravaged the coasts of Europe. Wolf was again
the hereditary prefix in the House of Bavaria, where the dukes varied
between Wolf and Wolfart, till Wolfen became the designation of
the family, and a legend was invented to account for it. An ancestress
had, it was said, given birth to twelve infants all at once, and
in the spirit of the child who, being shown his twin brothers, asked
“Which shall we keep,” sent her maid to dispose of the eleven unnecessary
ones in the river. The father met her, and asked what
she had in her apron. “Only whelps,” she answered; but he was not
336to be thus put off, made an inspection, saved the children’s lives,
and called them the Wolfen, or wolf-whelps! The Book of Heroes,
however, makes the Wolfings descend from the brave Sir Hildebrand,
and be so called from a wolf on their shield granted them by the
Emperor Wolfdietrich, in remembrance of an adventure of his own
infancy, when he had been carried off by a she-wolf to her den, and
remained there unhurt—whence his name of Wolfdietrich. The
male line of the Wolfen, however, in time became extinct, and the
heiress married one of the Italian House of Este, which adopted the
German Wolf in the Italianized form of Guelfo, and constantly used
it as a name. Thence when the popes set up Otto d'Este, one of
the Wolfen of Bavaria, as anti-emperor in opposition to the House
of Hohenstaufen, his partisans were called Welfen; those of the
Fredericks, Waiblingen, from the Swabian castle of Waibling. The
Italian cities rang with the fierce cries of Guelfo and Zibelino, for
the pope or the emperor, and Europe learnt to identify the
Guelph with the cause of the Church; the Ghibelline with that
of the State, when the origin of the words had long been forgotten.
One of the Bavarian Wolfen d'Este became Duke of Brunswick
Luneburg, and from him descended the Hanoverian line of English
sovereigns, who in the time of Revolution thence were said to be
properly sumamed Guelf, or even Whelps, with about as much
correctness as when Louis XVI. was styled Louis Capet.
We had a wolf among our sovereigns in the days of the Heptarchy,
in Vulfhere, king of Mercia, the same as the northern Ulfar, and
German Wolfer, meaning wolf-warrior. Also Vulfhilda was a sainted
abbess in England, while Ulvhildur colonized Iceland. We had also
Vulfred, Vulfnoth, Vulfstein, better known as St. Wulstan, the admirable
bishop of Worcester. These English wolves of ours have a great
inclination to lapse into sheep’s clothing and become wool, in which
form we use them in the harmless surnames of Woolgar, Woolstone,
Woolmer, Wolsey.
Ulfketill, or Ulfkjell, as odd a compound as can well be found,
was one of the pirates who invested England, but is a peaceable
inhabitant in Domesday, where Ulf swarms, as Ulfac, Ulfeg, Ulfert,
Ulfener, Ulfric; just as he does in the Iceland Domesday, as
Ulfhedinn, Ulfherdur, Ufliotr.
In Germany, Wolfgang, perhaps best rendered as Wolf-progress,
was a sainted bishop of Ratisbon, in the tenth century, whence this
strange name flourished, and, coming to Göthe, became prized by
all his admirers. There, too, is Wolfram, the wolf-raven, Wolfrad,
and Wolfert.
Some have translated ulf, or wolf, at the end of a word by help;
but this is impossible, as though hulf is help in German, the f is
the property of that language alone.
A few of the Danes seem to have learnt to respect the qualities
of the magnificent Irish wolf-hound, whose qualities are highly
praised in the Heimskringla. Then they took to calling themselves
Hunde; and a son of Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, is called both Hvalp
and Hund. The name of Hundolf is, however, supposed to be either
337hardened from Hun, or else to be from a word meaning booty or
plunder, so as to mean the wolf of plunder.[122]
The boar, whom we found so popular in Roman nomenclature,
is equally so among the southern Teutons, among whom the tusky
boar was one of the prime beasts of chase. The Romans apparently
viewed him and his titles in their domestic aspect; but the Teutons
honoured the fierce Eber of their forests as their highest and most
dangerous prey, and gave him a place among their mythology.
Freyr had a boar with golden bristles, called Gullenbörsti, and
when the corn waved in the wind, the saying was, “Freyr’s boar is
passing by.” Epurhelm, an old German name, was thus an appeal to
the protection of Freyr.
The boar Sehrimnar was likewise the future feast of the brave in
Valhall, daily hunted and eaten, and as often resuscitated for the next
day’s sport and banquet. Scandinavia lay too far north for his porcine
majesty; and the Norsemen had no personal acquaintance with him
in their daily life, whatever they might look forward to; and thus
Eber, the wild boar, does not figure in their nomenclature, and scarcely
among our own insular Saxons, though he is said to have ranged our
forests.
But turning to the Goths, we fall at once upon Ebroinus, an evident
classicalism of Eberwine, not so much the boar’s friend, as Freyr’s
friend. Ebrimuth, another early Goth, is wild boar’s mood or wrath,
and in Visigothic Spain we find Eborico, namely, Eberik, boar ruler.
Frankland produced the formidable compound of boarwolf, Eberulf;
but its two owners grew up monastic saints in the sixth and seventh
centuries, and were honoured by the French as SS. Evrault, Evrols,
Evrou, or Evraud. The second of these saints was a native of Normandy,
and is patron of the abbey of Fontévraud, the burial-place of
Henry II. and Richard Cœur de Lion, and the noblest nunnery in
France.
It is difficult, however, to distinguish between the forms of the
French Eberulf, and the German Eberhard, who was abbot of Einsiedlen
in 934; indeed, it is highly probable that the Norman St.
Evrhault, though derived from a saint Latinized as Eberulfus, and in
German called Erulf, was supposed to be the same as Eberhard, and
that this accounts for the English form of Everard, which sprung up
from the four Evrards of the Domesday roll after the Conquest.
Eberhard hardly reaches the rank of saint in the Roman calendar;
but his exertions in a great famine that ravaged Alsace, Burgundy,
and Upper Germany, in 942, account for the nationality of his name
in all that region.
| 338 |
| English. |
Italian. |
Frisian. |
German. |
| Everard |
Everardo |
Evart |
Eberhard |
| Ewart |
Eberardo |
Evert |
Ebert |
| |
Ebbo |
|
Ewart |
| French. |
Dutch. |
Lett. |
Eppo. |
| Evraud |
Everhard |
Ewarts |
Ebbo |
| Ebles |
Evert |
|
Ebo |
| |
|
|
Ebilo |
| |
|
|
Ebin |
| |
|
|
Etto |
| |
|
|
Uffo |
| |
|
|
Uppo |
| |
|
|
Appo |
The Germans likewise have a feminine from this ‘boarfirm’ word
Eberbardine, contracted into Ebertine, or Ebba, and in Frisian, Ebbe
or Jebbe. I am afraid these German forms do not certainly account
for the Saxon Ebba, or Æbbe, sister of St. Oswald, and foundress of
the famous priory of Coldingham. However, England had one St.
Eberhilda, who was a pupil of St. Wilfrid, and foundress of a monastery
called Everidisham, the locality of which cannot be discovered;
but the abbess must have left an impression on the ladies of the
North, to judge by the frequency of the occurrence of Everilda, which,
with the contractions of Averilla and Averil, is not yet extinct.
Offa, the Low German legendary hero—is very probably called by
a contraction of the wild boar. His name is repeated by the king
of Mercia, who seems to have borrowed somewhat of the legend in his
story, and Offa was not extinct even in Domesday.
Ebermund, a Neustrian Frank of Meerwing days, was founder of
Fontenoy Abbey, and was honoured as St. Evrémond, whence the
territorial surname familiar to readers of French memoirs.
St. Evre, who is frankly Latinized into Sanctus Aper, was the
seventh bishop of Toul, where the register of bishops presents a
curious succession of wild beasts, and some of the Ebbos and Affos
of Germany may be his rightful property, though they are now all
turned over to the charitable Eberhard of Einsiedlen. Eburbero, or
Boar-bear, seems to have been a German invention.
The bear does not enter into the legends of the Edda, but he enjoyed
immense regard in the North, and was looked on as a sort of ancestor,
to whom, when he was killed, polite apologies were always made, and
who is still called by the pet name of the Wise Man, rather than by
his own proper term. Even in France he was mysteriously alluded
to as le vieux or le grand père; and probably the Swiss veneration
for the bears of Berne partly originated in the general devotion to the
deliberate and almost human-looking plantigrade.
339The Anglo-Saxons made Beorn the great-grandson of Wuotan, and
the ancestor of the kings of Beornland; in Latin Bernicia, or Beornia,
afterwards the earldom that gave title to Richard, son of William I.
Legend again declared that the stout old Earl Siward Bìorn was
actually the offspring of a bear, and that the ears of his parent might
have been found concealed beneath his matted locks.
Norway and Iceland are, as in duty bound, the land of bears, but
the Pyrenees had their share likewise; and if the North has Bjornulf,
the same bear-wolf reigned over Gothic Spain in the form of Vernulfo;
and in the Asturias and Navarre, the bear’s mood was dreaded as
Bermudo, or Vermudo, and his protecting hand sought as Veremundo.
In the Pyrenees, too, flourished the bear-spear, the same with the
northern Bjorngjer, though southern tongues made Berenger and
Berengario, in which forms it was owned by many a mountain king
of Navarre and count of Roussillon, Barcelona, or Toulouse. There,
too, it formed the feminine Berenguela, and this, as princesses' names
always do, travelled farther; for Berenguela was queen of Castille,
and mother of St. Fernando; another Berenguela, or Berangère, as
French tongues called her, is familiar to us under that most incorrect
historical title of Berengaria, the bride of Richard Cœur de Lion.
Another Berenguela, who from Portugal married the king of
Denmark, so misconducted herself that Bjorngard or Berngard, the
Danish version of her name, stands for an abandoned woman.
Biorn of the fiery eyes was appropriately named by Fouqué; for
the Landnama-bok shows forty-two Biorns, and the name is still
common in Norway and Iceland, where also are found still, as man’s
names, Bersi and Besse, also titles of the bear, and Bera by way of
feminine. Bjornhedinn is also northern, and there are numerous
varieties of compounds, one of them rather of late date being Bjornstern,
bear-star, probably in reference to the Pole-star. One of the
present authors in Norway bears the fierce name of Bjornsternja
Bjornsen.
The most famous of all the bears is, however, of Frank growth.
Some have tried to resolve it into Bairn-heart, child-hearted; but
though barn is of most ancient lineage, found even in Ulfilas’s Gospels,
all analogy is against the interpretation; and there can be no doubt
that when the first historical Biornhard was named, his parents would
much have preferred his having the resolution of a bear rather than
the heart of a child.
That first was an uncle of Charlemagne, and from him it was that
the mountain, erst of Jupiter, was termed of Bernard, even before a
second Bernard, surnamed De Menthon, fled from his home for love
of a monastic life, and erected his noble hospice for the reception of
travellers. Then came further glory to the name through the
Cistercian monk, whose pure character was revered by all in the
thirteenth century, until his became a universal name throughout
Europe; in Ireland absorbing the native Brian. In Spain, too, Bernardo
del Carpio is a great legendary champion, nephew to king
Alfonso II. of Leon, and who, in the battle of Roncevalles, was said
340to have squeezed Roland the paladin to death in his arms. Bernal
Diaz is the simple-hearted chronicler of Cortes.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| Bernard |
Bernard |
Bernardo |
Bernardo |
| Barnard |
Bernadin |
Bernadino |
Bernal |
| Portuguese. |
Wallachian |
German. |
Dutch. |
| Bernaldo |
Bernardu |
Bernhard |
Bernhart |
| Bernadim |
|
Berend |
Barend |
| |
|
Benno |
Barndt |
| Frisian. |
Lusatian. |
Lettish. |
Esth. |
| Bernd |
Bernat |
Berents |
Pero |
| Slovak. |
Hungarian. |
Berns |
Perent |
| Bernardek |
Bernät |
|
|
It has the German feminine Bernhardine. The Irish Bryan adopts
Bernard as his English synonym.
Other less celebrated German forms are Bernwald; the French,
Berault; and Italian, Bernaldo. Berwart, abbot of Hildesheim;
Bernclo, the Bavarian bear’s claw; Berner, and many others where
bern or pern ends the word.
Bahrend, Berndt, Behr, Behring, all are surnames from the bear in
Germany, and the last very appropriately named Behring’s Straits. It
is the same that came to England as Baring.[123]
No sacred animal was in more request than the horse. The gods
had their wonderful horses. Sleipner (the Slider) was the eight-footed
steed of Odin; Gullfaxi, or gold mane, belonged to the giant
Hrimgrim; and the shining-maned and hoary-maned coursers of day
and night have been already mentioned.
The eastern origin of the Teutons was never more shown than by
their homage to horses. Beautiful and choice white steeds were
reserved for the gods, drawing the waggons that conveyed the images,
when the army went out to battle, or a colony migrated; and omens
were derived from their neighings when alive, and from their heads
when killed in sacrifice. Great sacrifices of horses were made on
solemn occasions, and feasts were made upon their flesh as a religious
rite, so that the abstaining from horse-flesh became absolutely a test
of Christianity.
The horse was the national emblem of the Saxons; and Henghist
and Horsa are both old Teuton names for the animal, the first surviving
in the German hengst and northern hest, the last in our ordinary
341word horse: while the High German hross has fallen into the
modern ross. White horses cut out in the chalky hill-sides of southern
England from time immemorial, attest the antiquity of the symbol
still claimed by the county of Kent, and by the Anglian-Continental
kingdom of Hanover.
In the old poem of Beowulf, however, Hengist is a Dane, invading
and oppressing Finn of Friesland, and afterwards slain. It is possible,
then, that Hengist may after all be a mere mythic name erected into
an ancestor by the Kentish monarchs. Some have tried to derive hross
from horen, to hear or obey, in honour of the noble creature’s obedience;
but it is in fact only another form of the ashva of India, to which
ἵππος, equus, and the Keltic each have been traced; and it is curious
to find that Brittany preserves the word ronse, as does Spain ronzin,
the term that Don Quixote magnified into the magnificent designation
of Rosinante.
The nation that sat round their cauldrons and feasted solemnly
on horse-flesh might well call their sons Rossketyl, or Rosskjell.
Three are to be found in the Landnama-bok, and Roskil is not extinct
in Denmark. The agreeable title of Hrossbiorn, or horse-bear, is
there to be found likewise, and Saxo-Grammaticus dignifies as Rostiophus,
a gentleman who was properly called by the term of
Hrossthiof, or horse-thief.
Hrossbert formed into Rospert, Hroshelm into Roselm, Hrosmod
into Rosmund, Hrosswald, or horse-power, into Roswal, who was
the hero of a Scottish poem called Roswal and Lilian. He is the
disinherited heir of Naples; and, after a series of troubles, fights his
way back to honour and the hand of Lilian, the fair princess of Bealn.
The feminines Hrossmund, Hroswith, Hroshild, Hrosa, have by
general consent been changed from horses to roses, giving up the
old idea of the Valkyr on her tall shadowy horse, weaving her web
of victory, and have been treated of under the head of Latin flowers.
Hengst seems to have been used for the male, horse for the female;
but jor in the North, ehu in Old German, ehvus in Gothic, meant
both horse and mare; and this jor, or sometimes only the jo, is not
uncommon in Norsk names, as Jogeir, Jofred, Jogrim, Jostein, or
flower of chivalry, Johar or Joar, horse warrior, Joketyll, or Jokell.
The women were, Jora, Jodis, Jofrid, Joreid, Jorunna, all, be it
remembered, being pronounced as with a y.
Afterwards Justin devoured Jostein, and George probably consumed
some of the others; indeed, some of the early specimens of Jordan
among the Normans, probably accommodated their names to the river
in their crusading fervour; but, en revanche, the great Gothic historian,
Jornandes, is supposed to have been so called by corruption
from his state name of Jordanes.
Jorund, which looks very like one of this race, is referable to another
source.
Probably in honour of Thor’s he-goats we find the goat figuring
in names, as Geitwald, Geithilt, and the wife of Robert Guiscard,
Sichelgaita.[124]
342
‘There is an eagle sitting on the ash Yggdrasil who knows many
things.’
He is, in the North, aar, in Germany ar, in Scotland erne: though
we and the modern Germans use, in eagle and adler, mere contractions
of the Latin aquila. Places named from the king of birds are found
wherever there are mountains.
His influence on nomenclature was exercised from the Dovrefeld
and from the Alps, for the eagle-names are chiefly either Scandinavian
or High German; we do not seem to have any native English ones.
The most noted of these southern ones are Arnwald, eagle power,
and Arnulf, or eagle-wolf, and it is very difficult to distinguish their
derivatives from one another. The saint of the Roman calendar was
certainly Arnulf, a prince of the long-haired line, who in 614 retired
into a convent at Metz, and became its bishop, when alive, and its
patron, when dead. Another previous Arnulf, after whom he was
probably christened, for their day is the same, was martyred by the
heathen Franks, about the time of the conversion of Clovis; and a
subsequent one was bishop of Soissons, under Pope Hildebrand.
Arnoul was common as a name among the Burgundian kings, and
was known in Italy as Arnolfo; but it has been swallowed up by
Arnwald, or Arnvalldr, as he is in the North, perhaps because this
latter was made famous in Provence by Arnaldo di Maraviglia, the
troubadour; in Italy by the unfortunate Arnoldo of Brescia, and
later in Switzerland by the patriot Arnold von Melchthal, and thus
it has become popular enough to have the feminines Arnolde and
Arnoldine.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| Arnold |
Arnaud |
Arnoldo |
Arnoldo |
| |
Arnaut |
|
|
| German. |
Dutch. |
North. |
|
| Arnold |
Arnoldus |
Arnvalld |
|
| Arno |
Arnoud |
Arnalldr |
|
| Ahrent |
Arend |
|
|
| Ahrens |
|
|
|
| Arold |
|
|
|
The Arnolds and Arnoldines keep their feast upon St. Arnulf’s
day, thus confessing that they have no patron of their own. Ernulf
is an old form found in Domesday Book, and not yet quite extinct.
The northern eagles are much confused by arin, a hearth, the same
which is found at the end of Thorarin. It contracts into arn at the
343beginning of a word, so that, except when we meet with it in full,
as in the case of the brave old sea-king, Arinbiorn, the hearth-bear,
it is difficult to tell to which to send the owner, to the eyrie or the
fire-side. And further, arn and arin both contract indiscriminately
into ar and an, so that the list of Northern names is given rather
in the dark. They are both masculine and feminine, for Arna was
both used standing alone and as a termination.
Arnridur or Arneidur, eagle haste, one of these eagle ladies, had
a curious history told in the Landnama-bok. She was the daughter
of Asbiorn, a jarl in the Hebrides, and was taken captive by Holmfast
Vedormson, who sold her to an Icelander named Ketell Thrymr.
He was so much smitten with her as to pay for her twice the sum
demanded by old Vedorm; but before the departure for Iceland, she
found a quantity of silver beneath the roots of a tree, sufficient for
her ransom. Instead of claiming it, her new master generously gave
her the choice of purchasing her freedom or remaining his wife; she
chose the latter alternative, and stands as honourable women do in
the Landnama-bok, as the mother of a house in Iceland.
Arnthor, and his feminine Arnthora, contract into Arnor and
Arnora, and this latter explains Annora, to be found in Norman
pedigrees. Annora was wife of Bernard de St. Valery; and was
carried into the family of Braose by king John’s victim, Maude de
St. Valery, who called one of her daughters Annora. It is also said
that Anora is only the contraction of Eleanora.
Ari was an adventurer who sailed to Greenland in fourteen days,
fifteen years before the preaching of Christianity in Iceland.
The other old Icelandic and Norsk forms are:—
- Arnbiorg, eagle defence;
- Arndis, eagle sprite;
- Arnfinn, white eagle;
- Arnfridur, eagle fair one;
- Arngeir, eagle war;
- Arngrimm,
Arngrimur, } or Angrim,
eagle mask;
- Arnkatla,
Arnkjell, } eagle cauldron;
- Arnlaug, eagle liquor;
- Arnleif, eagle relic;
- Arnliotr, eagle wanderer;
- Arnmodur
or Armodr, } eagle wrath;
- Arnstein, eagle stone;
- Arnthrudr, eagle maiden.
This Ari, be he eagle or hearth, seems to conduct us to the source
of the first syllable of Arabella. The first lady so called, whom I
can detect, was Arabella, the granddaughter of William the Lion, of
Scotland, who married Robert de Quinci. Another Arabella, with
her husband John de Montpynçon, held the manor of Magdalen
Laver in the thirty-ninth of Henry III., and thus it was evidently a
Norman name. The Normans made wild work with all that did not
sound like French, and their Latin secretaries made the matter worse,
so that I am much tempted to believe that both Arabella and that
other perplexing name, Annabella, may once have been Arnhilda,
cut down into Arbell, or Anable, and then amplified. “My Lady
Arbell” was certainly what the lady was called, in her own time,
344whose misfortunes are so well known to us, under the name of Arabella
Stuart, and from whom Arabella has been adopted in various
families, and is usually contracted by Belle. Some have made it
Arabella, or fair altar, others the diminutive of Arab, both equally
improbable.
The most common form of Arn at present used in Scandinavia is
Arnvid, the eagle of the wood, often contracted into Arve.
With much doubt I question whether the name of Ernest should
not be added to this catalogue. It is obvious to take its native German
form, Ernst, from ernst, earnest, grave, or serious, but this is quite
unlike the usual analogy of such names. Arnust was the older
German form of the name, and some even think that this was the
proper name of Ariovistus, the German chief who fought with Cæsar,
though others consider this to be Cæsar’s version of Heerfurst, or
general, and others think they detect the universal root ar, husbandry.
The more certain form of the name begins in Lombardy, where
Ernesto, lord of Este, was killed in battle by kinFg Astolfo, in 752.
Is not Ernesto just what Italy would make of Arnstein, after fancying
that Arnstino was a diminutive? Then, over the mountains, comes
Arnust I., duke of Swabia, in right of his wife, in 1012, and Arnust
the Strenuous, Markgraff of Austria, from whom Ernst spread all
over Germany, especially after the Reformation, when Ernst, Duke
of Brunswick, had striven so hard to spread Lutheranism among his
subjects that Protestants called him the Confessor.
This is now one of the most national of German names, and it is
working its way into England, though not yet with a naturalized
sound. Its German feminine, Ernestine, is one of the many contracted
by Stine and Tine, or by Erna. Bohemian has Arnostinka.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
German. |
| Ernest |
Erneste |
Ernesto |
Ernst |
| Dutch. |
Bohemian. |
Lettish. |
Hungarian. |
| Ernestus |
Arnost |
Ernests |
Erneszt |
One or two instances of Hauk occur. Hauk Habrok was a noted
pirate; and there are two Haukrs in the Landnama-bok. The bird
is now called hog in Denmark, and most of our families named Hogg
are supposed to rejoice in Hawk as an ancestor.
As to Folco and his kin, though it is often attributed to the falcon,
it has, as we shall see, quite another source.[125]
Ferocious and predatory nations love and admire even the raven
that scents slaughter from afar, and is the comrade and emblem of
345the battle-field. So as Oreb and Zeeb were among the Bedouin
desolators of Israel, Hraben and Ulf were among the wasters of
Christendom.
Two ravens, Mind and Memory, go forth throughout the world,
then returning and perching on Odin’s shoulders, reveal to him all
that passes on the earth.
The raven seems to have been the special mark of Odin, and sometimes
used for Thor; for amulets have been found in Sweden and
Denmark, where a raven flies before the mounted figure of Odin, and
again is seen in company with the hammer of Thor. And who does
not know the raven banner of the sons of Ragnar, denoting probably
their family dis, which flapped its wings before victory and drooped
them before defeat?
No wonder, then, that the raven has left traces in the nomenclature
of Teutonic Europe, though it is not always easy to distinguish its
progeny from those of ragn, judgment, and rand, a house.
The raven, in his harshest croak, entitled the Frank sovereign
Chramne, who is hard to recognize as the near kinsman of the sixteen
Rafns of the Landnama-bok, and Rabanus Maurus, the Latinism of
the learned archbishop of Mainz of the ninth century.
Hrafenhilldur, a suitable title for a Valkyr, and Hrafenkell also
figure in the Landnama-bok, and in Domesday stand Ravengar and
Ravenswar, showing the transition from the gjer, or spear, down to
our word war.
Rafnulf is northern, but has been mixed up with the derivatives of
Randolf. Rambert, successor of St. Ansgar, in Holstein, was a bright
raven, Rampold a raven prince, and the Italian form Ramusio may
be another variety; but in general the raven comes at the end of
words as in Wolfram, Valdraban, Bertram, &c.
The swan might well figure prominently in the northern mythology,
familiar as she was, as the fair creature of the autumn, when huge
squadrons of the whistling swan fly southwards, athwart the darkened
heavens and pine forests, making the air resound with the solemn
beat of their heavy wings, and their deep peculiar cry.
Two swans, parents of all those who dwell on earth, had their
home in the holy spring of Urd, beneath the world-tree, Yggdrasil;
and the power and fierceness of these magnificent, pure, calm-looking
birds connected them with the Valkyrer, who were supposed to have
swan wings, and to be able to change themselves into swans. When
the Valkyrier began to pass into mere magic ladies, they preserved
their power of changing into swans, and by-and-by had swan
garments, which they put off when they wished to assume human
shapes, and which were now and then captured by some happy
mortal, who thus won the owner for his bride. Swanhvit, or Swan
white, was thus the suitable name of one of the three Valkyrier who
married the sons of Vidja in the Vilkina Saga.
346The swan transformations appear again in the beautiful tale, common
to all Teutonic countries, of the twelve princes transformed into swans,
and of the faithful sister who redeemed them by the nettle shirts
that she wove, ever in silence, through every vicissitude of life even
to the verge of death.
Svana is an Icelandic name, also Svanlaug, a swan ocean, which
has contracted to Svallaug. Svanhild was used both by Norway and
Germany, being Swanahilda in the latter, and Svanaburg and Swangarde
were also there; but it is strange that so pretty a word for a
white-skinned maiden should not have been more frequent. The
Erse Gelges imitates the sense, but we have no English swan ladies,
for Swanhals was only the epithet of the often commemorated lady,
who is said to have discovered the corpse of Harold of Hastings.
For the most part, the swans were left to womankind; but the
Germans had a Swanbrecht and Swanahold.
Either from terror, or from a shadowy remembrance of the original
temptation, the implanted enmity between the serpent and man has
often resulted in a species of worship.
The North believed in the Jörmungandr, or Midgardsorm, the
serpent that encircled the world and was one of the monstrous
progeny of Loki.
And even till late in the seventh century the Lombards had a
golden image of an enormous viper to which they sacrificed, until
St. Barbatus recovered them from the heathenism into which they
had relapsed.
One species of ship among the Northmen was called serpent. It
was long and low, with the gilded head of a dragon at the prow, a
long tail raised and curling over the stern, while with coloured shields
ranged along the sides, and thirty oars on either side propelling
it, besides the winged sails, it must have been more like a water-dragon
than any creature that has ploughed the waves since the
Plesiosaurus, and this probably accounts for the prevalence of the
name of Orm among the northern nations.
Twenty-two Ormrs appear in the Landnama-bok; Orm and Ormar
(Ger. Wurmhar) are both in Domesday. Orm was the founder of
the Scottish house of Abernethy. Homer was considered, by the
Danes of the middle ages, as the translation into Latin of the name
of Ormr.
Ormilda is likewise a northern name, and it is not quite impossible
that Ophelia may have been a translation of one of these serpent-names
by the Greek ὄφις (ophis); at any rate the fair Ophelia shows
no precedents for her name, and no other derivation for it occurs.
The gentle maiden, with her most touching fate, is altogether an
invention of Shakespeare, for though a woman appears in the old
story of Amleth, she is of far other mould, and Ophelia may have
been merely devised by himself. If so it is curious that he should
347have placed her in the chief land of serpentine names. A few lovers
of its sound have used it in England and America.
Lind is another term for a serpent. The German dragons are
always called lindwurmer, and the word is, in fact, the same as that
which we still use as lithe, expressing supple grace; the adjective
linths becoming, on the one side lind, on the other lithe. The
Spaniards use lindo, linda, for pretty, with about the same difference
of sense, in the masculine or feminine, as we do when we speak of
a pretty woman, or a pretty man. Norse poetry considered it a
compliment to compare a gaily dressed lady to a glistening serpent,
and thus the idea seems to have passed from the reptile to the woman,
so that, though the German Lintrude is the only instance of a
commencing lind, the word is one of the most common of all terminations
among German and Italian names, and dropping its d, so as to
become linn, was made to serve as a favourite feminine diminutive,
its relation to the Spanish linda, fair, keeping up its reputation.
Thus we have Rosalind, or Rosaline, Ethelind, and many more
of the same kind.[126]
Among mythological objects the kettle or cauldron can hardly be
omitted; certainly the very quaintest of human names, but perhaps
referring originally to the cauldron of creation, and afterwards to the
sacrificial cauldrons that boiled the flesh of the victims at the great
blots or sacrifices.
In the North, the vessel is ketil; in old German, chezil; in English,
cytel; but the names from it seem to be almost entirely northern,
though the cauldron is certainly the olla, so common a bearing
in Spanish heraldry, and there at present regarded as the token of
a large following, beneficently fed, somewhat in the same spirit as
that in which the Janissaries used a camp kettle as their ensign.
Ketyl was the Norwegian conqueror of the Hebrides, and founder
of the line of Jarls, of the Western Isles; and the family of Ketyl
was very famous in Iceland, holding in honour an ancestor called
Ketyl Hæng, from hæng, a bull trout; because when his father asked
what he had been doing, he answered, “I am not going to make a
long story of every fish I see leap; but true it is, that I chopped
a bull trout asunder in the middle,” which trout turned out to be
a great dragon.
Katla was Ketyl’s feminine, and not uncommon. The Eyrbiggia
Saga tells wonderful stories of a sorceress so called, who, when her
son was in danger from his enemies, made him appear first like a
distaff, then like a tame kid, and, lastly, like a hog, but all in vain,
for her spells were disconcerted by a rival sorceress, and she herself
stoned to death.
Ketel does not often stand at the beginning of a word; but Ketelbiorn
and Ketelridur are both Iceland names, and both the masculine
348and feminine are very common terminations; the masculine being,
however, generally contracted into Kjel, and then into kill or kel.[127]
Weapons were so nearly divine, so full of the warlike temper of
their owners, and so often endowed with powers of their own, that
it seemed as if they themselves were living agents in the deeds
wrought with them.
The sword forged by supernatural smiths, the terrific helmet, the
heavenly shield, are dreams of every warlike nation, either endowing
the Deity with the symbols of protection or wrath or of might, or
carrying on the tradition of some weapon which, either its own intrinsic
superiority or the prowess of its owner, had made an object
of enthusiasm or of terror.
Some of these tales of magic weapons are perhaps, as Mr. Campbell
suggests, remnants of the days when the iron age was coming in, and
the mass of arms being of brass, one iron sword, “a sword of light,”
as Gaelic tales call it, would have given irresistible superiority to
its wielder, and even, perhaps, earned the worship that was paid by
Attila’s Huns to the naked sword.
It accords with this theory that Iron appears as a component part
of numerous names in Germany, and probably likewise in Scandinavia,
though there the similarity of the sound to Iis, ice, occasions a doubt
whether the word was intended for ice, or for iron. The North has,
indeed, the cold but not inappropriate Snæulf and Snæbiorn, Snæfrid,
snow peace, and even the uncomfortable Snælaug; and when their
language had dropped the form eisarn for the metal, and called it
jern, as we do iron, they probably transferred to ice the meaning of
the names that once meant iron.
Isa is an old German feminine. Isambart, or iron splendour, is
the best known of all the varieties, having been used in France as
Ysambar, and travelled to England as the suitable baptismal name of
the two engineers, to whom so much of our ‘iron splendour’ is due.
Its German contractions are Isabert and Isbert.
Nor. Isgeir; Ger. Isegar, Isgar—Iron spear
Nor. Isbrand; Ger. Isebrand—Iron sword
Ger. Isebald; Fr. Isambaus—Iron prince
Nor. Iarngard; Ger. Isengard—Iron defence
Ger. Isenhard—Iron strong
Nor. Isrid—Iron vehemence
Nor. Isulf—Iron wolf
Nor. Ising—Son of iron
349Steel or Staale, likewise had one name from it in the North, and,
perhaps, likewise named even the historical Stilicho of barbarous
birth, but the sole hope of Rome in her final fall.
But the stone of the elder age was not forgotten; the stone that at
all times is the readiest weapon, and often the mark of the place
honoured by conflict. To say nothing of the Seax, whether stone or
stone knife of our ancestral Seaxnot, we find the North using the
word Stein, both alone and as a prefix and suffix; while in England,
though it is not very frequent, we have it in the honoured names of
Athelstan and Wulstan.
- Stein
Sten(Dan.),}stone.
- Steinarna, stone eagle.
- Steinbjorn, stone bear.
- Steinfinn, white stone.
- Steingrimm, stone helmet.
- Steinhar
Steinar,}stone warrior.
- Steinthor
Steinar,}stone of Thor.
- Steinulf, stone wolf.
- Steinvar, stone prudence.
Another old word for stone is hall, much used in the North; and
in a few cases, such as that of the Scottish Halbert, or Hobbie, creeping
to our island with its Danish invaders; but except in this, and a
few surnames, unknown away from the North, save for the Hallar, or
stone warrior, of Germany.
The northern varieties, however, had much reputation in their own
country. Hallgerda is in the Njal Saga the haughty wife of Gunnar,
of Lithend, the dame whose virulence is the cause of all the vengeance
and counter-vengeance of the story.
- Hallbiorg, stone protection.
- Halldis, stone spirit.
- Hallfrid, stone fair.
- Hallgerd, stone fence.
- Hallgeir, stone spear.
- Hallgrim,
Hallgrima,}stone helmet.
- Hallkell,
Halkatla,}stone kettle.
- Hallmund, stone protection.
- Hallthor,
Haldor,
Haldora,}stone of
Thor.
- Hallvard,
Halvor,}stone guard.
Grjot, in German gries, is another word for a stone. It was not so
common as the others; but there was both a masculine and feminine
Grjotgard, who in Denmark were rendered, the one into Gregorius,
the other into Margarethe. The English lady, Græsia de Bruere
(temp. Henry III.), must have been named from gries, a stone.
So too was Gries-hilda—Stone battle maid. Griselda was the
perfectly patient wife whose tale was told by Boccaccio, and narrated
by Petrarch to Chaucer, who told it in his own way. The Scots seem
to have been peculiarly delighted with the lady Griselidis—and
Grizell or Grisell acquired fresh honour with Lady Grisell Baillie.
Grizzie or Girzie are the contractions, and there is a Grisley in
the register of Madran, Cornwall, dated 1662.
Though in general Borg, or Bjorg, is used to mean protection, yet
350Bergstein is most probably a mountain stone, and it curiously answers
to two names of noted ecclesiastics from Somersetshire, whose first
syllable Dun is a hill; the same with our present word down, and
the dunes on the other side of the Channel, where Dunkirk answers
to our Dunchurch. The word is probably the Keltic don, dark brown,
grey, or dun, used as the epithet of a hill, and lasting on like other
Keltic local titles in the dunum of the Romans and the dun of the
Teutons.
The two Somerset Duns are the hill-wolf, Dunulf, who is said by
one of the traditions that ought to be true, to have been the swineherd
whose cakes King Alfred burnt, and to have been afterwards
made by him bishop of Winchester, which a Dunulf certainly was.
The other was Dunstan, the mighty ascetic Abbot of Glastonbury
and Archbishop of Canterbury, whose career, between wisdom and
devotion, frenzy and sternness, is one of the least explicable studies
of history.
His place in the calendar has given this rugged mountain stone a
few namesakes.
There is a race of names, chiefly German, beginning with hun, that
it would seem natural to ascribe to the Huns of Attila; but the
original term for this race seems to have been in their own language
Hiognu, and was retained in the pronunciation by other nations
before writing and Latin had made the word Hun. In old Germanic
poems, the Huns figure as giants or Titans, so that some translate,
huni, or hiune, as a giant. The word hun, however, also means a
stake, and it is most according to the ordinary analogy of nomenclature
to suppose the names thus commencing were used in the
sense of a stake, meaning either the weapon or that the bearer was
strong and straight as a stake or a support, like the staff in Gustav.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
German. |
| Humfrey |
Onfroi |
Onufrio |
Humfrid |
| Humphrey |
|
Onofredo |
|
| Humps |
|
|
|
| Numps |
|
|
|
The names of this commencement are Huno, Hunnerich, latterly
lost in Heinrich, Hunold, the French Hunaud, Hunibert, which was
corrupted in France into Humbert, and belonged to various counts
of Savoy and dauphins of Auvergne, Hunigar, in Hungeir and
Hunifred, which the French much affected in the form of Onfroi,
which belonged to one of the short-lived kings of Jerusalem, and was
Latinized as Onuphrius. In the form of Humfrey it was much used
by the great house of Bohun; and through his mother, their heiress,
descended to the ill-fated son of Henry IV., who has left it an open
question whether dining with Duke Humfrey alludes to the report
that he was starved to death, or to the Elizabethan habit for poor
gentility to beguile the dinner-hour by a promenade near the tomb
of Duke Humfrey Stafford in old St. Paul’s. From being a noble and
351knightly name, Humphrey, as we barbarously spell it, came to be a
peasant’s appellation, and now is almost disused.
The northern Hundolf, or Hunnolf, and Hungerdur, are in some
doubt between the dog and the stake.
The helmet is the most popular piece of armour in Germany. It
comes from the word meaning to cover, the very same that furnished
hol, whole, hale, and holy. To heal a wound is to cover it, and health
is soundness. The Teutonic languages teem with derivatives from
hulyan and helan, of which all that shall be here mentioned are our
own; heel, the covered part of the foot, the hold of a ship, its hull,
and the provincial hulls (chaff), and hillier (a slater).
The Latin galea was nearly related to the helm of the German, and
may be from the same source. Indeed, it is, as has been said before,
doubtful whether Galeazzo Visconti was the offspring of a classical or
of a Gothic helmet. The only popular northern helmet is Hjalmar,
the helmed warrior, apparently in honour of one of the heroes of the
Orvarod Saga; but Germany has Helmar, Helmerich, in Friesland
Elmark, the helmed king, Helmund, or helmet protection, Helmbold,
Helmut, Helmich, Helmtac; besides numerous helms at the end of
words, of which Wilhelm is the most notable.
The sword figures in northern and German nomenclature as Brand;
but not from the verb to burn, but from brandr, an elastic staff, transferred
to the blade of a sword. It would also mean the staff of a
bow, and a short straight stripe of colour, whence a cow so marked
is brandet in the north, branded with us. The Brands are many,
with German and Frank commencements, such as Hildeprant, Liutprant,
&c., but seldom common; though Brand sometimes stands
alone in the North, and Brandolf, or sword wolf, is an old name.
Perhaps the Zetland Brenda may be the feminine.
Degen, a blade, is another sword name of rarer use, and exclusively
German. It also is compounded into Degenhard, then contracted
into Deinhard; but the primary meaning is the hero, as it comes
from the same word as tugend, virtue or valour.
Another very old term for a sword was hjøru, or hiru, in the
North; hairu, heru, in the Gothic; heoru, in Anglo-Saxon. Here
we see that the Heruli and Cheruschi, as the Romans called them,
were both sword men. Heoruvard, or Hereward the Saxon, was the
sword guardian; Heorugar answered to the northern Hjørgeir; there
was a Gothic Hairuwolf, or Heruwolf; in the North, Hiørulf, Hiørleif,
and Hiørdis also occur; but the syllable gets contracted into
Her, and the names are not easily distinguished from those beginning
with her, a warrior. Hjaraande is another northern form.
Boge, the bow, is sparsely found alone, and as Bauggisel in Iceland,
and now and then in Norway at the end of a name. Bogo was Old
German, and the surnames in Denmark Bugge, in England Bogue.
But its English fame rests upon a champion called Bogo, who was
supposed by our ancestors to have been Earl of Southampton at the
time of the Norman Conquest; to have fought a battle with the
invaders at Cardiff, and to have left his sword as a relic at Arundel
Castle. Whether this ever occurred or not, Boge was rendered by
352Norman tongues into Bevis, or Beavois, and was the subject of an old
metrical romance, where his great exploit is killing the tremendous
giant Ascapart, who had carried off his wife, the converted Saracen
princess Josyan. He lives to a good old age, sees his twin sons kings,
and dies happily on the same day as his wife and his good horse
Arundel, once doubtless Hirondelle, or the swallow.
His fame travelled to Italy, where Buovo d'Antona is accepted as
one of the heroes of romance, though he stands alone, not fitting into
any of the cycles. The etymologists of Elizabeth’s time were led by
the form Beavois, in which they spelt the word, to imagine that it
was Bellovisus, beautiful to behold. But if ‘Bevis of Hampton’ was
anybody, he was an Anglo-Danish ‘Bow,’ or Boge, a word which, like
bay, bough, and boughsome or buxom, comes from bygan, to bend.
The spear and the breastplate, Geir and Brune, will be mentioned
in the next chapter. The shield is now and then found in the North,
as Skialde, Skioldbjorn, Skiolulf, and Skioldvar, shield bear, wolf,
and, more appropriately, shield caution. The shield wolf is capable
of being contracted into Schelluf.
Saro, saru, searu, is the entire equipment or suit of armour; Sørle
is a Norwegian name for it, contracted into Solle; and among the
Normans was called Serlo, and considered to be the same with Saher.
If there were plenty of weapons, there was also balsam to heal their
wounds; that is, if the northern names beginning with Sölv are
rightly referred to salve, the same word in the North as with us.
The v has for the most part been left out by pronunciation, but the
dotted o remains to testify that Sölmund, or Saamund, has no connection
with Sol, the sun, as little as with Solomon, by which the
Danish bishops rendered it. Solveig, healing drink, is now Solva,
and Sölvar is Sölvi.[128]
Mind or thought amounts to a mythical character in northern
fancy. The word is hugr, the same with hu, still the Scandinavian
word for thought, as heuge is in Holland, all coming from old verbs
represented by the Mæso-Gothic gahugan, and Anglo-Saxon gehygan.
The two ravens who sat on Odin’s shoulders, and revealed to him
all that passed in the world, were Huginn and Munninn, thought
and memory; and when Thor made his famous visit to Utgard, it
was Hugi, or thought, alone that was swift enough to outstrip him
in the race. At Tours, the Northern Lights are le carrosse du roi
Hugues, perhaps originally from some connection with speed of
thought, though latterly mixed up with Hugues Capet.
The name has been much used by all the Teutons, and it was not
inappropriately chosen by Fouqué, as that of the old knight in the
Magic ring, whose character he has sacrificed for the sake of making
him the representative parent of all the chivalry of Europe, except
353the English, which he considers as independently typified by Richard
Cœur de Lion. This roving knight appears at home as Hugo; Hugur
in the North; Hugues, in France; Uguccione, in Italy; and even as
Hygies, in Greece, which last is, however, only a resemblance, not a
translation.
| English. |
Scottish. |
Gaelic. |
French. |
| Hugh |
Hugh |
Uisdean. |
Hugues |
| Hugo |
Hughie |
|
Hues |
| Hutchin |
Hutcheon |
|
Huon |
| |
|
|
Huet |
| |
|
|
Hugolin |
| |
|
|
Huguenin |
| |
|
|
Ugues |
| Provençal. |
Italian. |
German. |
Norwegian. |
| Oc |
Ugo |
Hugo |
Hugr |
| |
Ugolino |
|
Hugi |
| |
Ugone |
|
|
| |
Ugotto |
|
|
| |
Uguccione |
|
|
Part of the popularity of the name was, no doubt, owing to the
Cymric countries having adopted it as the nearest resemblance to the
mighty Hu Gadarn, from whom the national Hugh of Wales almost
certainly sprung. A Frank saint, Archbishop of Rouen, and one of
the many canonized cousins of Pepin, first made Hugo current among
his own race; but the only person who wore it on the throne was the
Gallican Count of Paris, who may have had it as a compromise
between the Cymric Hu and Frank Hugr; at any rate, it was long
spelt without the g in France, and declined as Hues, Huon. The
old Cambrai form was Huet, with the feminine Huette.
Hugo is very frequent in Domesday Book, and the name was
much more common in earlier times than at present. In Scotland
and Ireland it has been pressed into the service of Anglicizing the
native Aodh, or fire; but the Gaelic name Uisdean, pronounced
something like ocean, is most likely intended as a rendering of
Hutcheon, the form in which the Scots caught the Hugon of their
Anglo-Norman neighbours, who revered the name doubly for the
sake of the good bishop of Lincoln, and for another St. Hugh of
Lincoln, i.e. the child murdered by the Jews, as in the Prioress’s
Tale in Chaucer. St. Hugh of Lincoln is revered in the north of
Italy as well as at home; and Ugo is common there in all manner of
varieties, the most memorable, perhaps, being that of the terrible
Genoese, Ugolino de Gherardesca, whose fearful fate has been rendered
famous by Dante. In Dutch, it is Huig. Huig Groot was the home
name of the author whom the world hailed as Hugo Grotius, and the
Walloons use the contraction Hosch.
354Hyge was the Low German form, and Hygelac is the sea-king
of the Geats, the friend and lord in the poem of Beowulf. The
latter syllable lac is the northern leik, and Gothic laiks, signifying
both reward and sport, the same word that in some parts of England
has become lake, meaning to play or to be idle, and in slang, to lark.
It is rather a favourite termination, but only a commencement in the
Norse feminine Leikny, fresh sport.
Hygelac is thus the sport of thought, or it may be, the reward of
thought. Hugoleik was thus not an inappropriate name for an old
Frank chronicler, who has had the misfortune to descend to the
world by the horrible Latinism of Chochilaicus. Hugleik was current
in Norway, was transformed by the Danes into Hauleik and Hovleik,
and in Ireland seems to have turned into Ulic, a favourite name, but
latterly transmogrified into Ulysses.
Hugibert, or bright mind, belonged to the bishop of Liege, to
whom attached the Teutonic story of the hunter’s conversion by the
cross-bearing stag, making him the patron of hunters, and his name
very popular in France, Flanders, northern Italy, and probably once
in England, since it has left us the two surnames of Hubbard and
Hobart.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Portuguese. |
German. |
| Hubert |
Hubert |
Uberto |
Huberto |
Hucpraht |
| |
|
|
|
Hugibert |
| |
|
|
|
Hubert |
It used to be wrongly translated bright of hue.
Hugibald became the German Hugbold and the Italian Ubaldo,
the prince of thought; Hugihard, or firm in mind, is the French
Huard.
355
As the Greeks believed in the exploits of semi-divine heroes, a sort
of borderers between Olympus and the human race, so the Teutonic
race had its grand universal legends of beings rising above human
nature, and often embodying beliefs that once had attached to the
gods themselves.
The great Teutonic legend, holding the same place as the deeds of
Hercules, Theseus, and the Argonauts did in Greece, or those of
Fionn with the Gael, is the story of the Nibelung. How old it may
be is past computation, but it was apparently common to the whole
Gothic race, since names connected with it come from Spain, Lombardy,
and France: fragments of the story are traceable in England
and the Faroe Islands, and the whole is told at length in Germany,
Norway, and Denmark. Each of these three latter countries claim
vehemently to have originated the romance, but there is little doubt
that it was one of the original imaginations of the entire race, and
that each division moulded the framework their own way, though
with a general likeness.
Names of historical personages, probably called from its heroes,
have led many to suppose it exaggerated history; but each attempt
to fit it on to a real person has resulted in confusion, and led to the
perception that the actors are really mythical, and the localities,
which chiefly lie in Burgundian Germany, were only connected with
it by that general law which always finds a home for every heroic
adventure.
The tale is begun by the Norwegian Volsunga Saga, and, about
half way through, it is taken up by the Danish Vilkina and Niflung
Saga, and by the German Nibelungenlied, and it is finished by
numerous Danish ballads and German tales, songs, and poems,
with the sort of inconsistencies always to be found in popular
versions of ancient myths, but with the same main incidents.
Nifelheim, the supposed abode of these heroes, is interpreted to
be nebelwelt, the world of mist, or cloudland, and there can be little
doubt that the heroes said to be descended from the mythic Vili,
Vidga, and Velint, are, in fact, fallen deities. Germany, however,
turned Nifelheim into the Netherlands, and placed the realm of
Brynhild in Iceland, and the scene of Aldrian’s and Gunter’s court
at Wurms, the centre of the Burgundians.
356It is highly probable that the story is another form of the original
myth, with the same idea, carried through, of the early death of the
glorious victor, and of the revenge for his death, but only through a
universal slaughter in which all perish. But the whole has become
humanized, and the actors are men and not deities; and thus the
allegory is far less traceable.
The story, as it begins in the Volsunga Saga, relates that there
were three brothers, Fafner, Reginn, and Audvar, or Ottur, whose
name is from the same source as øg, awe, so that he may be another
form of Œgir. Transforming himself into the beast that bears his
name, for the convenience of catching himself a fish dinner, Ottur
was killed, in this shape, by Loki. The father and the other brothers
insisted that, by way of compensation, in the Teutonic fashion, Loki
should fill the dead otter’s skin with treasure, which he accomplished,
but laid the treasure under the curse, that it should do no good to
its owner. Accordingly, the amount excited the avarice of Fafner,
and after murdering his father, he transformed himself into a dragon,
and kept watch over the treasure, to prevent Reginn from obtaining it.[129]
Sig, or siga, means, in all Teutonic tongues, conquest; and the
Victor seems to have been a very old epithet for the Divinity. St.
Augustin speaks of a Gothic exclamation Sihora armen, which he
translates as Κύριε ἐλεήσον, and the first word of which evidently
answers to Ceadmon’s epithets for the Almighty, Sigorafrea, Sigorugod,
Sigoracyning.
Odin was called Sigfadir, or conquering father, and this accounts
for the later notion that the adventurer was called Sigge, and
assumed the divine appellation of Odin.
Thence the victorious god, conquering the serpent, yet afterwards
dying, whether he were originally meant for Odin himself, or for
another form of Baldur, sank into a human serpent-slayer, bearing
the name of victory—Sigward, perhaps originally, but varied into
Sigufrit, Siegfried, and Sigurd.
The main points in Siegfried’s story are that he was the son of
Siegmund the Volsung, and of Queen Sigelind; born, according to
the Book of Heroes, under the same circumstances as Perdita, in the
Winter’s Tale; put, by way of cradle, into a drinking-glass, and
accidentally thrown into the river, where he was picked up by the
smith Mimir, and educated by him. In the Book of Heroes he is so
strong that he caught the lions in the woods and hung them over
his castle wall by their tails. Reginn incited him to fight with
and slay the dragon, Fafner, and obtain the treasure, including the
tarn-cap of invisibility. Also, on roasting and eating the heart
of Fafner, he became able to understand the language of the birds.
And by a bath in the blood he was made invulnerable, except
357where a leaf had unfortunately adhered to his skin, between his
shoulders, and given him, like Achilles and Diarmaid, a mortal
spot. His first discovery from the song of a bird was that Reginn
meant to murder him at once; he therefore forestalled his intentions,
and took possession of the fatal gift, thus incurring the curse. The
Book of Heroes calls him Siegfried the horny, and introduces him at
the court of the German favourite, Theodoric, and the Nibelungenlied
separates the dragon from the treasure, and omits most of the marvellous
in the obtaining it.
His next exploit was the rescue and awakening of Brynhild; but
he fell into a magic state of oblivion as to all that had passed with
her, when he presented himself at the court of Wurms, and became
the husband of Gudrun, or Chriemhild, as a recompense for having,
by means of his tarn-cap, enabled Gunnar to overcome the resistance
of Brynhilda herself, and obliged her to become his submissive bride.
Revelations made by the two ladies, when in a passion, led to
vengeance being treacherously wreaked upon Siegfried, who was
pierced in his vulnerable spot while he was lying down on his face
to drink from a fountain during a hunting party in the forest. The
remainder of the history is the vengeance taken for his death; and
the North further holds that his child, Aslaug, was left the sole
survivor of the race, and finally married Ragner Lodbrog, whence
her descendants always trace their pedigree from Sigurdr Fafner’s
bane.
His namesakes are well-nigh innumerable. There are nineteen in
the Landnama-bok; and Sigurdr swarms in the earlier Scandinavian
royal lines, being, perhaps, most remarkable in the person of King
Sigurd the Crusader of Norway.
| English. |
French. |
German. |
Bavarian. |
| Sigefrid |
Sigefroi |
Sigefrid |
Sigl |
| Siward |
Siffroi |
Siegfrie |
Norwegian. |
| Seaward |
Italian. |
Sigfrid |
Sigvard |
| Seaforth |
Sigefredo |
Seifrid |
Sigurdhr |
| Seyferth |
Siffredo |
Sikko |
Siurd |
| |
|
Sicco |
Sjurd |
| |
|
Sigo |
Sjul |
| |
|
Polish. |
Syvert |
| |
|
Sygfryd |
Syver |
| |
|
|
Siewers |
At the instance of the king of Sweden, our Edred had sent a
missionary named Sigefried, who is esteemed the apostle of Sweden,
and gave a Christian sanction to the serpent-slayer’s name, whence it
has continued extremely common there. The stout old Danish Earl
Siward, the conqueror of Macbeth, the same who had the bear’s
ears and would only die upon his feet, is an English version of the
northern Sigurdr, and bore the name that is now Seaward. Indeed
358Sæward is found among the kings of Essex in 616, and, in fact, that
line have so many prefixes of Sige, that it is likely that they thought
themselves connected with Fafner’s bane. There is a Sigefugel, or
Sigewolf, in their descent from Odin, who may be another form of
Sigurd. Germany has made the feminine Sigfrida.
Some have considered the story to be chiefly Burgundian; and
Sigmund, conquering protection, the name of Sigurdr’s father, was
that of the first Catholic king of Burgundy, who was canonized both
for the recovery of his kingdom from Arianism, and for the severity
of his penance, after having killed his son, Sigeric, on a false stepdame’s
calumny. His relics were carried to Prague in the fourteenth
century, and the effect of the translation appeared at once in the
name of the Bohemian-born Emperor Sigismund, from whom this
became European, and formed the feminine Sigismunda. Gismonda
is thus an old Lombardic feminine.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
German. |
| Sigismund |
Sigismond |
Sigismondo |
Sigmund |
| Sæmund |
Portuguese. |
Sismondo |
Sigismund |
| |
Sigismundo |
|
|
| Norwegian. |
Polish. |
Illyrian. |
Hungarian. |
| Sigmund |
Zygmunt |
Sisman |
Zsigmond |
| Sæmund |
Bohemian |
|
Zsiga |
| |
Zikmund |
|
|
Some have imagined that the curious correspondence of names,
when Sigebert, the Frank, married Brynhild, the Goth, is a sign
that the Nibelung referred to the Austrasian court; but the Frank
Sigebert would have been a very poor serpent-slayer, and, no doubt,
only bore the name as a remembrance of him, as did our East Saxon
monarch Sæbert, and the Spanish bishop Siseberto. It has lasted on
in Germany and Friesland, to be called Sizo, Sitto, Sibert, and Sidde,
and is the English surname Sebright. Sigelind, conquering snake,
now and then used by German ladies, has the Eastern-looking
abbreviation Zelinde.
Sigridur, or conquering impulse, was a favourite among northern
ladies. Sigrid the haughty of Sweden, was wooed by King Olaf
Trygvesson, and had accepted him; but on her refusal to be baptized,
he struck her on the face with his glove, and said, ‘Why should I
have thee, an old faded jade, and a heathen to boot.’ She remembered
his discourtesy against him, and stirred up the war, which
ended in his fatal battle with Earl Sigvalddr. Sigrid is Sired in
Domesday; in the North, she is shortened into Sîri, and then Latinized
as Serena.
Sigvalldur, conquering power, curiously ran into Sjovald, from
359whence we take our surname Shovel, one of the many by which our
naval commanders are traceable to the vikings.
Sigeheri, Sigehere, Sighar, conquering warrior, is what on Norman
lips was Sagar, and then Saher, the hereditary name of the De
Quincys, and as a surname spelt Sayers.[130]
The other forms are,
| |
North. |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Sigbiorg
Siborg
Siber |
} Conguering protection |
Ger. Sigburg |
| German. |
English. |
Frisian. |
Italian. |
| Sigebald |
Sibbald |
Sibold
Sibel |
Sibaldo |
} |
Conquering
prince |
| North. Sigbiorn; Eng. Siborne—Conquering bear |
| German. |
Frisian. |
Spanish. |
|
|
|
| Sigbod |
Sibot
Sibo
Sibbe |
Sisebuto |
} Messenger of victory |
| Nor. |
German. |
Frisian. |
|
|
|
| Sigbrand |
Sigbrand |
Sibrant
Sibbern |
} |
Conquering sword |
| Nor. Sigfus—Conquering impetuosity |
| German. |
English. |
Frisian. |
French. |
Sighard
Siegert |
Sigehard |
Siard
Siade |
Sicard |
} |
Conquering
firmnesss |
| Ger. Sighelm—Conquering helmet |
| Nor. Sighvatr—Conquering swiftness |
| Nor. Sigmar; Ger. Sigmar—Conquering greatness |
| Nor. Signy—Conquering freshness |
| Ger. Sigrad—Conquering advice |
| Ger. Sigrich—Conquering ruler |
| Sigtrud—Conquering maid |
| Nor. Sigtrygge—Conquering security |
| Nor. Sigulf, Siulf; Eng. Sigewolf—Conquering wolf |
A thorough Valkyr was Brynhilda, the maiden whom Odin had
touched with his sleep-thorn, so that she lay in a deep slumber in
the midst of a circle of flame, through which Sigurd made his
way, aroused her, and won her for his own; but became utterly and
360magically oblivious of all that had passed as soon as he had returned
to common life. This is the northern version, the evident origin of
our fairy tale of the Sleeping Beauty, pricked not by the thorn of
Odin, but by the distaff, perhaps, of one of the Nornir. The Book of
Heroes reduces the circle of flame to a mere strong castle, with seven
gates; and the Nibelungenlied only takes up the story at the time of
Sigfried’s appearance at the court of Burgundy, and courtship of
Brynhild’s rival, Chriemhild.
Brynhild had retained her matchless strength, and, like the Greek
Atalanta, was only to be won by a champion who could excel her
in games of strength, and her conquered suitors were all put to death.
Gunther, the brother of Chriemhild, being willing to obtain her on
these conditions, Siegfried, by means of his tarn-cap, invisibly vanquished
the Valkyr, while Gunther appeared to be her conqueror;
and when she thus had been compelled to give her hand, it was
Siegfried who, again unseen, broke down her violent resistance, and
compelled her to become a submissive wife, on which she lost all
her supernatural strength. Siegfried was rewarded by the hand of
Chriemhild, Gunther’s sister.
By-and-by the two sisters-in-law had a desperate quarrel about
precedence; in the old northern version, which should wade farthest
into the Rhine when bathing; in the half-civilized German song,
which should first enter the cathedral of Wurms; and in the course
of it Brynhild was roundly informed that she had not given way to
her husband, but to Siegfried. Valkyr nature could not stand such
an affront, so Brynhild set on Hagen to assassinate Siegfried. The
northern story makes her slay herself, and be burnt with his corpse
on a funeral pile, in Suttee fashion; the German tames her into being
merely brought to repentance too late by the death of her husband.
No doubt Brynhild was commemorated by the name of the Gothic
princess, daughter of King Athanagild, who, for her misfortune, was
married to the Frank Sigebert, and through the whole of her long life
continued a fierce and dauntless resistance to her savage rival
Fredegund, until, when both were aged women, Brenhilda fell into
her rival’s power, and was implacably sentenced to be dragged to
death by wild horses. French historians aver that her name was at
first only Bruna, and that hilda was added to make it royal; but
this is very unlikely, since Spanish historians call her Brenhilda.
The Latinism is Brunechildis, in French Brunehault, but the name
has not been followed, except by the northern race, whose existence
was hardly developed at the time of the misfortunes of the Austrasian
queen, and who therefore take it from her original. Among these it
has been contracted to Brunilla and Brynil.
The meaning is the Valkyr of the Breastplate, the byrni of old
Scottish, bryne of the North, bruniga of the German, broigne in Old
French, bronha in Provençal. A near connection of this name is the
northern Bryngerd, placing the gentle Gerda in this cuirass; and the
North has likewise Brynjar, properly hari, the Cuirassier, and
Brynjolfr, which wolf in a breastplate was a great Icelandic ancestor,
and has been cut short into Brynjuv and Brynjo.
361The Chriemhild, or Helmet Valkyr of the Nibelung, is the Gudrun
of the northern version; and Gudrun, as before said, would be either
good wisdom, or, far more probably, war wisdom. In the Nibelungenlied,
the action of the story begins with Chriemhild telling her
mother her dream of her favourite falcon being torn to pieces by two
eagles; and when it is explained to mean her future husband, vowing
that she will never marry. However, Siegfried’s arrival, and his
successful exertions in winning Brunhild for Gunther, overcame all
the lady’s scruples.
She had lived happily ten years in the Netherlands with Siegfried
before, on a visit to Wurms, she was so ill-advised as to reproach
Brynhild with his victory over her; and afterwards was deluded
into sewing a mark upon his garments to show where was his vulnerable
spot. After his death, she found out the murderer by the ordeal
of touch, and treasured up a deadly and enduring spirit of revenge;
perhaps the most terrible of all the many forms in which legend has
proclaimed the old rule of blood for blood.
She was left the heiress of all Siegfried’s treasure, as well as of his
Nibelungen or Netherlandian troops, but it was taken from her by her
husband’s murderer, and sunk beneath the Rhine. After thirteen years
of widowhood, she was induced to marry Etzel, or Atli, king of the
Huns, by the promise that he would avenge all her injuries; but still
she bided her time for thirteen more years, at the end of which space
she invited her brothers and all their champions to visit her in
Hungary at Etzelenburg. They had not long been there before she
stirred up a most tremendous battle, in which mutual destruction took
place, as is minutely related in the ancient lays. Finally her brother
Gunther was captured and slain at her savage command, and she
herself slew the murderer Hagen with Siegfried’s own sword. Immediately
after, however, she was put to death as an act of justice by
old Sir Hildebrand; at least so says the Nibelungenlied; but in
the Kœmpe Viser there is a still further revenge, for the secret of
the deposit of the treasure is left with the son of Hagen, who beguiles
Grimhild into the cave with the hope of its restoration, and there
locks her in and starves her to death.
The historical Attila is really said to have had a German wife
named Kremheilch. The Gudrun of the North is a far more amiable
personage. She forgives her brother, and is with difficulty persuaded
to marry Atli, who is, in this version, Brynhild’s brother, and lays
the plot against Gunther, in order to avenge his sister’s death. She
does all in her power to warn them, but in vain; and when all had
been slain, her senses failed her, and in her frenzy she slew her
two children by Atli, and made him drink their blood; he died of
horror, and she cast herself into the sea, but was carried alive to the
land of King Jonakr, whom she married, and then underwent other
misfortunes which extinguished the last remains of her family. Her
name of Gudrun has already been treated of.[131]
362
Gunth (Goth.), guth (A.G.S.), gunnr (North), gond or gonz (High
German), all meant war or battle, and have an immense number of
derivative names, inextricably mixed up with those from God and
Gut; and it is even thought that there may be a close connection
between them, so much did the Teutons believe their deities to be
gods of battle, and goodness to be courage. The word gunth has
lived on even in Lombardy in the Gonfalon, the war banner, solemnly
carried out to battle in a car as the images of the gods had formerly
been, in charge of the official known as the gonfaloniere in the
republics of northern Italy. Gundahari, warrior, was really an
old name among the kings of Burgundy, who were, no doubt, called
in honour of Gunther or Gunnar, the eldest brother of Kriemhild,
and husband of Brynhild. He seems to have been brave but weak,
led first by Sigurd, then by Hagen, but at last fighting with great
spirit.
Gunthar, or Gunnar, at full length Gundahari, continued in favour
with the Burgundians; and an abbot in Brittany being canonized,
left Gonthier to France, and Gontiere to Italy.
This masculine Gunnar was very common in the North, and so
was likewise the feminine Gunnr, war, or Gundvar, war prudence,
both confounded in Gunnar, which historians generally render as
Gunnora.
Gunnhildur was in high favour in the North. One most celebrated
owner was the wicked queen of Eric Blodaxe. She was said
to be a native of the Orkneys, and to have filled Scandinavia with
her crimes, upon the details of which, however, Norse and Danish
histories are not quite agreed.
Gunhild again was the Danish princess whose murder on St. Brice’s
night brought her brother Sweyn down in fury upon England;
and her nephew Knud likewise had a daughter so called, but who
was Anglicized into Æthelthryth; and each generation of the Godwine
family records a lady Gunhild. After the Conquest, however, Gunhild
died away in England; but it has never been discarded in the North,
where it is now called Gunnilda, or Gunula.
That daughter of William the Conqueror, or sister of Gherbod
the Fleming, whichever she was, who was the ancestress of the
Warrennes, and is buried at Lewes, has a name so much disguised
as to be as doubtful as her birth. It maybe Gunatrud, a Valkyr
title, or Gundridur, war haste, or Gundrada, war council, the same
as the Spanish Gontrado; at any rate it has had few followers.
Gunnr and Göndol were both Valkyr titles, and the Valkyr
Göndol’s most noted namesake was a maiden of the Karling race,
who was bred up by St. Gertrude, at Nivelle; and on her return
to her father’s castle at Morzelle, used to go to her early devotions
at a church half a league distant from home. On winter mornings
363she was lighted by a lantern, which the legend avers to have been
blown out by the wind, but rekindled by her prayers. Thence comes
the name of St. Gundula’s lamp, applied to the Tremella, an orange-coloured
jelly-like fungus that grows on dead branches of trees in
the winter. She is the patroness of Brussels, where the church of
St. Gudule is the place used for coronations; but her common title
in Flanders is Ste. Goëlan, while the convent built in her honour
at Morzelle, in Brabant, is Ste. Goule.
War could not fail to have her wolf, the Gundulf of Norman
England, the Gunnolfr of Iceland, the Gundolf of Germany, and,
far more notable than either, the Gonsalvo or Gonzalo of Spain,
always frequent among the Visigothic families, and becoming especially
glorious in the person of the great captain, the brave and
honourable conqueror of Naples, and the trainer of the infantry
that gave the predominance to Spain for a hundred years, until
they fell as one man at Rocroy.
| French. |
Provençal. |
Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
Italian. |
| Gonsalve |
Guossalvo |
Gonzalo |
Gonçalo |
Consalvo |
| Gonzalve |
|
|
|
|
The war raven, Gunthram, figures in French history as Gontran,
and the war serpent is the German Gundlin, or Gondoline, when a
lady; when a man, the terrible Guthorm, whom, as King Alfred’s
foe, godson, and tributary, our histories call Guthrum. In Denmark,
the name was very early contracted into Gorm; but it has been so
often spelt Gudthorm, that a doubt has arisen whether the latter half
of the word may not be thorm or thyrma.
It is very difficult to distinguish between the derivatives of God
and Gund, both being very apt to eliminate the distinctive letters.
On the whole, however, it seems as if these warlike names had been
some of the most universal throughout the continent, though in
England they were very scarce, and do not occur in royal pedigree,
nor in hagiology, except in the case of St. Guthlac, the first founder
of the original Croyland Abbey, whose name in the North would
be Gudleik or Gulleik, war sport.
Hosts of northern Frankish and Visigothic names thus commence,
and many feminines end with this word. The other varieties thus
beginning are:—
| Nor. Gunbjorg; Ger. Gondaberge; Goth. Sp.—War protection |
| Nor. Gunbjorn—War bear |
| |
German. |
French. |
|
|
| |
Gondebert |
Gondobert |
} |
|
| |
Gondeberta |
Gombert |
} |
War splendour |
| |
Gumpert |
Jombert |
} |
|
| Ger. Gondebald; Fr. Gondebaud; Sp. Gondebaldo—War prince |
| Nor. Gudbrand, Guldbrand, Gulbrand—War sword |
| Ger. Gundekar—War spear |
| Nor. Gunlaug, Gullaug—War liquor |
| Nor. Gunleif, (Eng. Cunliffe)—War love |
| Nor. |
German. |
Spanish. |
|
|
Gudmar
Gulmar |
Gundemar
Gutmar |
Gondomiro
Gondomar |
} |
War Greatness |
| |
Nor. |
German. |
|
|
| |
Gudmund
Gulmund |
Gundemund
Gunimund |
} |
War hand |
| Ger. Gunderich; Fr. Gonderic; Sp. Gonderico—War ruler |
| Sp. Gondesinda—War strength |
| Nor. Gunnstein—War jewel |
Gunthe was the old German feminine contraction for any of these
warlike damsels, and being further endeared into Jutte, or Jutta, was
probably the source, under the hands of chroniclers, of the Judiths,
who made their appearance among the Franks so long before the
days of Scripture or saintly names.[132]
Haghen, Hagano, or Hogni, may be considered as the villain of the
Nibelungen. In the Danish version he is the half-brother of Grimhild
and Gunther, with an elf-father; in the German, he is their
wise and far-travelled uncle, who first related the adventures of the
newly-arrived stranger, Siegfried, but always seems to have disliked
him, and readily undertook to revenge Brynhild’s injuries upon him.
As Loki deceived Frigga, he persuaded his niece to mark where was
the mortal spot on her husband’s skin, and contrived that no wine
should be taken into the forest, so that Siegfried might be reduced to
lie down to drink at the stream, and thus expose the fatal place.
The body bled at his touch, and he was the chief object of Chriemhilt’s
vengeance, more especially after he had taken the treasure
away from her, placed it in a cave beneath the Rhine, and jealously
guarded the secret of the spot. When she invited the brothers to
Hungary he was much averse to the journey, till he found that his
disclination was imputed to fear, when he became vehemently set upon
going, in spite of the omens against it. Taunts and injuries passed
between him and Chriemhilt, and the next day the fierce and furious
battle began, which raged till Gunther and Haghen alone were left.
After Gunther had been killed, Chriemhilt offered Haghen his life,
364on condition that he would disclose the place where the treasure was,
but he refused, and died by her hand.
There is a curious poem, called the Duke of Aquitaine, which is
evidently another version of the same notion of Haghen. Hagano,
a descendant of the Trojans, is there sent to deprecate the invasion of
Attila, and afterwards assists the Burgundian king Gunther of Wurms
in an attack on Duke Walther of Aquitaine, and Hildegunna, sister
to Gunther, in order to recover a treasure that they had carried off
from Attila’s court, where they had been hostages. This version of
the great central story of Europe named Hagen, Count of Aquitaine,
the uncle of Charles the Bald; but the North has used it more, in the
form of Hogen.
The name is either from hagr, deft or handy, or else from hagi, a
hook; most probably the latter, perhaps in connection with the other
meaning, a thorn or prickle, so that here we may find a personification
of the thorn destroying the victor. The word hag is seldom found
in names, and is probably imitated from Hagen, without much regard
to the meaning. It occurs only in the Danish, as Hagbrand, Hagbart,
contracted as Habaar, or Habor; Hagthor, which is incorrectly modernized
as Hector; and Hagny. The more usual form in Denmark is
Hogne, probably from the German Hagano.
But there has been a confusion between this Hagan, or Hogni,
and Haagan, properly Haakvin, from haa, high, and kyn, meaning of
high kin, the well-known Norwegian and Danish name of many a
fierce viking; sometimes Latinized as Haquinus, Frenchified as
Haquin, and called in the North Haaken, or Hakon. Domesday
has it as Kaco, Hacon, Hacun, and Hakena; and Hacon still lingers
among the fishermen of the Orkneys. Other northern names, with
the same opening, haa (pronounced ho), are Haamund, no doubt the
parent of our Hammond, and Haavard, whence our Hayward, both
alike meaning high protection.[133]
Ghiseler is one of the brothers of Gunther, an inoffensive personage,
and the only one of the party of whom Chriemhild took any civil
notice, when she had decoyed them to her court to their destruction.
Nevertheless he did not escape, but died in combat with Wolfhart, of
Bern, when the champions of Dietrich could not be withheld from
the fray.
His name is tolerably clear—Giselhar, the pledged warrior. The
first syllable is from gildan, geldan, keltan, to owe, or to pay what was
due. The terms ran through all the Gothic tongues, and caused the
Anglo-Saxons to call all the offerings due to the gods gield and
ghëlstar.
A pledge of mutual obligation was, in Anglo-Saxon, gisel, and is
still gidsel in the North; in the German, geissel. Thence, far more
365probably than from the older word geisli, a beam, or nimbus, was
derived the Frank Gisel, as a maiden’s name. A daughter of Pepin,
so called, was offered to Leo X. of Constantinople; and afterwards the
daughter of Charles the Simple, who became the pledge of amity
between the Karlingen and Northmen, by her marriage with Rollo.
She was called by the French Gisèle, by the Normans Gisla, in which
same form it has lived on in Friesland and in Norway. The commencement
is not, however, a very common one in the North, though
Giselher is repeated in Gissur Isleifson, Bishop of Iceland, in the
eleventh century. Gislaug, the pledge drink, is likewise northern,
but though gils is an extremely common termination, almost all the
names where it is a commencement are Frankish, or German, and
thus probably Giselfrid came to the North as Gisrod.
Giselhilda, and Giselberge, were German, also Gisalhart, and Giselof;
and Gisalrico is found among the Spanish Goths. Geltfried and
Giltimir are also German forms, and the latter explains Gelimer, the
Vandal king in Africa, conquered by Belisarius.
Gils is a common Norwegian name, and no doubt contributed to
the English Giles, French Gilles, and Spanish Gil, though all these
look to the Greek hermit in France, Aigidios, as their patron. In the
North, Ægidius is rendered by Ilian, Yljan, Yrjan, Orjan, but not by
Giles: and it would seem as if Julius had been confounded with the
name, as well as, perhaps, Giolla, a servant.
Giolla Brigde, or Bridget’s disciple, is thought to have contributed
the Scottish examples of Gilbert, which is incorrectly explained by
some as Gelb-bert, or yellow bright; but is clearly traceable to the
old Frank Giselbert. There were four saints so called, namely, an
abbot of Fontenelle, a great friend of William the Conqueror, an
Auvergnat knight in the second Crusade, the English founder of the
order of Gilbertine monks, and a bishop of Caithness; and it has been
a prevalent name in England, Scotland, and the Low Countries, with
many contractions, especially in the latter.[134]
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
German. |
| Gilbert |
Guilbert |
Gilberto |
Giselbert |
| Gilpin |
Gisebert |
Dutch. |
Gilbert |
| Gil |
Gileber |
Gysbert |
Gisbert |
| Gibbon |
Gilbert |
Gysbert |
Gispert |
| Gipp |
Ghiliber |
Flemish. |
Giseprecht |
| |
|
Gilli |
|
366
Ghernot was Gunther’s second brother, who was free from the guilt
of the murder of Siegfried, and greatly displeased with Haghen for
depriving Chriemhilt of the treasure; but he shared the fate of his
brothers, being killed early in the encounter by the Markgraf Rudiger.Rudiger.
Perhaps, necessity of war, or spear compulsion, would be the best
sounding translations of this remarkable name.
Ghere, the same as the northern Gejr and German Kero, is the
messenger sent to invite Siegfried and Chriemhild to Wurms, when
they paid the visit that had such fatal consequences; and gher or
gjer is one of the most frequent of the component parts of names.
Its right and original meaning is a spear, the same as that of the
Latin quiris and Keltic coir. Thence the Anglo-Saxons called all
other weapons waren, and the battle war, a word we still use, just
as the French do guerre, and the Spaniards guerra.
Gar is quite in modern German, and gher has dropped out of the
language, and thus most of the German names commencing with
it have been misinterpreted to mean all, but it is impossible to
compare them with their northern cousins without tracing the same
spear in both.
The chief favourite amongst these spear titles seems to have been
once a Valkyr name Gêrdrûd, or Geirthrud, the spear maid; for,
alas! the pretty interpretation that has caused so many damsels
of late to bear it, as meaning all truth, is utterly untenable, unless
they will regard themselves as allegorically constant battle-maids,
armed with the spear of Ithuriel.
The ancient popularity of this name was owing to a daughter of
one of the great Pepins, in their maire du palais days. She founded
the abbey of Nivelle, and was intensely revered by the Franks and
Germans, chiefly on account of the miracles imputed to her. At
old heathen feasts, the cups quaffed in honour of gods or demi-gods
were prefaced by the words “Wuotansminne, Thorsminne,” meaning
in Woden’s or Thor’s memory; but the Christian teachers changed
these toasts to be in the memory of the saints, such as Michelsminne
for the guardian angel. Johannisminne was the special favourite,
and was supposed to be a charm against poison, because the Evangelist
was thought to have experienced the fulfilment of the promise,
“If ye drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt you,” as typified by
the dragon in his cup. The royal nun, Gertrude, was almost as great
a favourite as the Apostle with the Germans, and the regular toasts
at their banquets came to be Johannisminne and Gerdrutsminne, till
drinking to St. John and St. Gertrude were almost a proverb for
revelry.
Let us observe, en passant, that minne, lately in honour of Minna
Troil erected into a lady’s name, is from the Gothic munan, to remember,
from the Saxon form of which we take our mind. Minnie has
lately become a favourite name, and must be referred to this source.
367A second St. Gertrude, of noble blood in Saxony, was abbess
of Heldelfs, had an exceedingly high reputation for sanctity, and died
in 1334, leaving her name doubly popular.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Portuguese. |
| Gertrude |
Gertrude |
Gertrude |
Gertrudes |
| Gatty |
|
Geltruda |
|
| German. |
Bavarian. |
Netherlands. |
Danish. |
| Gertraud |
Traudl |
Drutje |
Gertrud |
| Trudchen |
Traul |
Trudje |
Jartrud |
| |
|
Trudel |
|
| Slovak. |
Lettish. |
Esth. |
Polish. |
| Jera |
Gêrde |
Kert |
Giertruda |
| Jerica |
Gerte |
Truto |
Lithuanian. |
| Jedert |
Gedde |
Truta |
Trude |
| Jra |
|
|
Hungarian. |
| |
|
|
Gertrud |
There is great confusion between Gerwald and Gerhard; the one
meaning spear power, the other firm spear.
Though gar was not a common English prefix, the first Saint
Gerhold was Anglo-Saxon. He migrated to Ireland, received the
cowl in the monastery of Mayo, founded that of Tempul Gerald, died
in 732, and became the subject of one of the Irish legends of saints.
It declared that the wife of Caomhan, king of Connaught, turned him
out of the fort of Cathair Mhor, with his 300 saints, who thereupon
joined him in one of the peculiar prayers of Irish saints, that there never
should be another king of the same race for ever. However, he afterwards
relented, and only cut off from the throne the offspring of the
lady herself, while to those of the king’s former wife he granted the
right of sitting first in the drinking house and of arraying the battle.
The Irish call him Garalt, and have confused his name with the
Keltic Gareth, one of the knights of the Round Table, so that Garrett
and Gerald are regarded as identical.
The great prevalence of the name in Ireland is, however, chiefly
owing to the Normans. There had been two Frank saints thus
called in the twelfth century, Gerard of Toul, and Girroald of Fontenelle;
but it was also a Lombardic name, and the old Florentine
family of the Gherardi claims the parentage of one of the many
Gerolds who accompanied William the Conqueror, the same whose
descendantdescendant, Maurice Fitzgerald, was one of the companions of Earl
Strongbow, the parent of the Fitzgeralds, or Geraldins, of Kildare,
the turbulent race, who disputed with the Butlers of Ormond the
supremacy of the island. Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, a daughter of
368this house, was the lady who, in imitation of Beatrice and of Laura,
was erected by Surrey into the heroine of his poetry, under the title
of the Fair Geraldine, thus leading to the adoption of this latter as
one of the class of romantic Christian names. Gerald Barry, the Welsh
chronicler who Latinizes himself as Giraldus Cambrensis, may have
been rightly Gareth, and the provincial form Jarrett, still common in
the North, is probably rather a remnant of the Gareth of Strathclyde,
than a version of the Norman Gerald.
Another St. Gerald, bishop of Namur, left his name to be very
common in the Low Countries, where we have already shown how
curiously the transformation was effected of Gerhard Gerhardson into
Desiderius Erasmus. Lastly, a St. Gerhard went on a mission to
convert the Hungarians, and the name, or rather the two names, for
there is no distinguishing between them, have become universal.
| English. |
French. |
Provençal. |
Italian. |
| Gerard |
Gerard |
Girart |
Gherardo |
| Garrett |
Giraud |
Guerart |
Gerardo |
| Jarett |
Girairs |
|
|
| German. |
Netherlands. |
Dutch. |
Frisian. |
| Gerhard |
Gerard |
Gerhardus |
Geerd |
| |
Gerrit |
Gerrit |
|
| |
Geert |
|
|
| Danish. |
Polish. |
Lettish. |
Hungarian. |
| Gerhard |
Gieraud |
Gerkis |
Geller |
| Geert |
|
Gêrts |
|
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
German. |
Frisian. |
| Gerald |
Giraud |
Giraldo |
Gerold |
Gerold |
| |
Guirauld |
|
|
Gerelt |
| |
Girault |
|
|
Gerel |
Gerhardine in German, and Giralda in Italian, are the feminines,
besides our own Geraldine. Possibly Giralda may once have been
the Valkyr name Geirhilda, which has survived in the North in the
form of Jerilla, jer being the northern corruption of geir. Jerlau is
thus Geirlaug, and Jeruf, or Jerul, Geirolf.
In like manner, though with different pronunciation, we make
Jervis out of the old Norman Gervais, which was probably Geirfuss,
or warlike eagerness. It used to be explained as gerfast, all firm,
but this is, of course, wrong; though, as I have not found Geirfuss
in the roll of northern names, and it would have been Gerfuns
in Germany, where Gerwas is common, as is Gervais in France, and
Gervaso in Italy, this must be doubtful.
The Gerberge of French history, the queen of Louis l'Outremer,
was the same as the Geirbjorg of the North: Gerwin, or spear friend,
369made the Guarin of France, whence the Waryn of a few English
families, and Guarino of Italy.
The old Spanish-Gothic feminine Garsendis was certainly Garswinth,
or spear strength, and the equally ancient Garsias, or Garcia,
so common in Galicia and Navarre, must have its commencement from
the same source, though the last syllable has lost its individuality on
the soft Spanish tongues. It was long a royal name, but was dropped
about the thirteenth century, and makes its last public appearance
in the person of the Peruvian prince and author Garcilasso de la
Vega.
The spear raven, Gerramn, is the old English Jerram, that has
become lost in Jerome; and the spear prince, Gerbold, has furnished
the family name of Garibaldi. Gar is very rare in native Anglo-Saxon
names, whether as a beginning or end, but most frequent in all
the other branches of the Teuton stock; and its other form, gais, is
the most reasonable explanation of the beginning of the name of
Geisserich, the king of the Vandals, who has been made into Genserich,
and then translated into the Gander king! The remaining forms
are:—
| Ger. Gerbert; It. Gerberto—Bright spear |
| Ger. Gerfrid—Spear peace |
| |
| Nor. |
German. |
Neth. |
Frisian. |
|
| Gierlac |
Gerlach
Gerlib |
Garlef
Garlaf |
Garleff |
Spear sport
Spear relic |
| |
| Nor. Geirmund, Garmund—Spear hand |
| Nor. Geirny—Spear fresh; Gierrandur—Spear house |
| Nor. Geirridur—Spear impulse; Gierstein—Spear stone |
| Nor. Geirthiofr—Spear thief; Geirvör—Spear prudence |
| Nor. Geirvart; Fris. Gerber—Spear guard |
Of all the champions of Burgundy, none is more full of gallantry
and bonhommie than Folker, the mighty fiddler of Alsace, a true
knight, always equally ready for music or for fighting. If the
Nibelungenlied be really another form of the Eddaic myth, Folker
may answer to Bragi, the god of poetry, but he has his own individual
character of blithe undaunted courage. Even when the terrible battle
has begun, and the heroes find themselves hemmed in by Chriemhild’s
warriors, Folker fiddles on, until he dies by the hand of Hildebram.
Folker’s name is from our own word folk, the near relation of the
Latin vulgus, whose progeny are found all over Europe in vulgar,
vulgo, foule, &c. Most likely Folkvard is really the right version,
and would mean people’s guard, and Folker is rather its corruption
than independently the people’s warrior, and the same with Folko;
they are, therefore, all thrown together in the following table.
| 370 |
| English. |
German. |
Frisian. |
Nor. |
| Fulk |
Volquard |
Folkert |
Folkvard |
| French. |
Volkvart |
Foke |
Folke |
| Fulcher |
Folkward |
Fokko |
Fokke |
| Feuquiers |
Folquhard |
|
|
| Foulques |
Folkhard |
|
|
| Fouques |
Folker |
|
|
| |
Folko |
|
|
| |
Fulko |
|
|
In the Foulques stage, this name was home, alternately with
Geoffroi, by the counts of Anjou, and with the strange soubriquets of
Nerra and Réchin. One of these counts, the grandfather of our
Henry II., became king of Jerusalem; but our English Angevins
did not perpetuate the name; and though six Fulcos are recorded in
Domesday, Fulk never took root in England, and is chiefly remembered
because it belonged to Fulk Greville, the friend of Sydney. It was,
in fact, with all its varieties, chiefly Burgundian.
Germany shows a few other forms: Folkwin, or Volquin, which
exactly answers to Demophilos, or Publicola; Folkrad, Folkrich, and
Folkmar; also Folkbert, which some prefer to Wilibert, as the origin
of the Savoyard Filiberto, and our Fulbert.[135]
In the Nibelungenlied the father of Chriemhilt, who dwelt at
Wurms, was ‘hight Dankrat,’ and the marshal at the court was
Dankwart the swift, Hagen’s brother. Innocent as he was of a share
in his brother’s crime, he was the first to be assailed while he was
dining with Etzel’s knights, and he had to fight his way through
Chriemhild’s warriors before he could return to his comrades in the
hall, when he kept the door until, like all the rest, he perished in the
massacre.
The first syllable of the name is the same as our word thank, and
the name means thankful or grateful. The father of Chriemhild was
thus Thank-rede, or grateful speech, and from him the Northmen
seem to have taken their Thakraad, which in Normandy became
Tancred, the knight of Hauteville, whose twelve gallant sons chased
the Saracens from Apulia, and were the founders of the only brave
dynasty that ever ruled in the enervating realms of the Two Sicilies.
The son of one of these gallant knights, Tancredi di Puglia, was the
foremost in the first crusade, and the favourite hero of Tasso, in whose
epic he is a Christian Achilles; and Tancredi again was the last
Sicilian king of the true Norman line, the same whose bickerings
with Cœur de Lion make so unpleasant an episode in the third
Crusade.
371Dankwart, thankful guardian, lingered in Germany; and in 1668,
a Yorkshire register records the baptism of Tankard, the son of a
‘Turkey merchant,’ who had probably learnt the name from some of
his foreign connections. Dankheri, thankful warrior, was in Normandy
Tancar. Dankker is the German surname, and has even come
to Tanzen; so that our surname Dance may have the same origin.
Thangbrand was the German priest whom King Olaf Tryggvesen of
Norway sent to convert Iceland, but whose severity led to his expulsion;
and Germany also mentions Dankmar; but the prefix is almost
exclusively German.[136]
Theodoric of Bern is hardly a genuine hero of the Nibelung, being
really the main figure in a cycle of Germanic romances of his own;
but as he, under the abbreviation Dietrich, is brought in to play a
considerable part in the final action of the tale, this seems the fittest
place for treating of him and the names in connection with him.
He seems to have been brought into the Nibelungenlied because
the Germanic mind could conceive of nothing considerable passing
without him. He is represented as one of the four-and-twenty
princes in King Etzel’s train, and as anxious to prevent mischief to
the visitors from Burgundy, warning them of Chriemhilt’s enmity,
and refusing to attack them at her request. When the great slaughter
began, it was Dietrich who conveyed the king and queen safely out
of the mêlée, and withheld his men from engaging in it, until almost
at the end, when they could no longer be restrained, and rushing into
the fray were all slain except old Sir Hildebrand, though on the other
hand, Gunther and Haghen alone remained alive of the Burgundians.
Dietrich then armed himself, and after a fierce combat, made them
both prisoners, and delivered them up to Chriemhilt, fully intending
that she should spare their lives; but when her relentless fury had
fallen on them, he assisted King Etzel to bury the dead, and to return
the horses and armour of their fallen champions to their respective
countries.
Other German romances, however, elevate this prince to a much
higher rank. The Book of Heroes, written by Wolfram of Eschenbach
and Heinrich of Ofterdingen, makes Dietrich of Bern, in
Lombardy, son of King Dietmar. Hearing of Chriemhilt’s rose
garden, which measured seven miles round, and was guarded by
twelve champions, he was seized with a desire to do battle with them,
for love of battle, not of ladies, though the victor was to receive a
chaplet of roses and a kiss from the young lady. The wise old Sir
Hildebrand, of the Wolfing line, conducted him and his eleven
companion champions to Wurms, where the single combats took place.
Dietrich’s knights were successful, and for the most part took the
Chaplets, but refused the kisses, because they disdained Chriemhild as
a faithless maiden.
372A Danish ballad describes ‘Kong Tidrich’s’ tremendous battle
with a Lindwurm, the progeny of one that had escaped his great-grandfather
Wolfdietrich. He was led to enter on the battle by
entreaties for help from a lion whom the dragon had seized; but at
first he came by the worst, for his sword broke, and
‘The Lindwurm took him on her back,
His steed beneath her tongue,
Bore them into the hollow hill
To her eleven young.’
She bade them eat the horse to pass away the time while she
rested, promising that on her awakening they should devour the
knight. In the cave, however, Tidrich found the magic sword of
Siegfried and two knives; and in spite of the threats of the young
dragons, and the promises of the old one, he killed them all; but the
old worm fell so as to choke the mouth of the cave, whereupon the
friendly lion dug him out, and supplied the place of the slain steed
by carrying him to Bern on his back.
So much for romance. History mentions a real Theodoric, son of
Theudemir, and king of the Ostrogoths in Italy, from 475 to 527.
He had been sent as a hostage to Constantinople, and there educated;
and though he could not write his name, and had a stamp perforated
with the letters Theod to enable him to sign his edicts, he was
exceeding able, wise, and skilful, and Arian as he was, conciliated the
love of the Catholics. Verona was his chief city, and is evidently the
Bern of the romances. He lived too late for the historical Attila, who
had died in 453; and though there is a report of a previous Theodoric,
who meddled in a dissension between Attila’s sons, and took part in
a great slaughter that lasted fifteen days, it is most likely that the
original Theuderik was a mythical personage, after whom these
historical princes were called, and who afterwards received the credit
of some of their deeds, and was localized in the places of their
dominion. It is in favour of this notion that Dietrich of Berne
is one of the many titles of the wild huntsman, though the Lusatians
corrupt him into Dietrich Bernhard, and the Low Countries into
Dirk-mit-den-Beer, or with the beard. Indeed, Dirk, the Dutch form
of Theodoric, was a half-mythical king of Holland.
It was a most universal name, Anglo-Saxon and Visigothic, as well
as Frank and German; and two saints made it everywhere popular
in the middle ages, though the Dutch at present chiefly use it.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Span. and Port. |
| Theodric |
Theodoric |
Teodorico |
Theodorico |
| Theodoric |
Thierry |
Dieterico |
|
| Derrick |
Thian |
|
|
| Terry |
Thean |
|
|
| Tedric |
|
|
|
| (Domesday) |
|
|
|
| 373German. |
Bavarian. |
Frisian. |
Danish. |
| Diotrich |
Dietl |
Tiaderik |
Tjodrckr |
| Dietrich |
Dutch. |
Tiarik |
Didhrikr |
| Diez |
Diederik |
Tiark |
Theodrckr |
| Diether |
Dierk |
Tiado |
Tidrich |
| |
Dirk |
Tiaddo |
Didrik |
| |
|
Todo |
Slovak. |
| |
|
Tade |
Todorik |
| |
|
Tido |
|
| |
|
Tide |
|
| |
|
Dudde |
|
| Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Lettish. |
Hungarian. |
| Dytrych |
Detrich |
Diriks |
|
| |
|
Didschis |
Ditrik |
| |
|
Tiz |
|
The name of Dietmar, the father of Theodoric, is to be found in
many forms; in Theudemir, a Frank, who faithfully served Constantius;
in an Ostrogothic Theodomir; Spanish, Theodomiro; and the
modern Frisian, Thiadmar, Tiedmer, Tyeddemer, Tidmer. It means
people’s greatness.
Dietleib, his friend, is rightly Ditlev; and in the North, Thjodleif,
the people’s relic, or what is left to them. He, too, survives in constant
Friesland, as Teallef, Taedlef, Tiadelef.
The chief favourite of this class is, however, the people’s prince,
occurring both among the Frank and early Anglian kings, and belonging
to two French hermits and one English archbishop. It took
firm root in Provence, and has an aroma of crusades and courts of love
surrounding it; and though it is not in Domesday, it and its contractions
survive as English surnames; and in a Gloucestershire parish
register of the eighteenth century, the feminine form occurs frequently
in every variety of spelling; Tibelda, Tiballa, Tibotta, Tybal.
| English. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
| Theodebald |
Theudobald |
Theudebaldo |
Theobaldo |
| Theobald |
Thiebault |
|
|
| Tybalt |
Thiebaud |
|
|
| Tibble |
Tibaut |
|
|
| Dibble |
|
|
|
| Italian. |
German. |
Dutch. |
Netherlands. |
| Teobaldo |
Dietbold |
Tibout |
Dippolt |
| Tebaldo |
Diephold |
|
|
The people’s wolf was canonized as a Frank hermit, who gets called
St. Thiou. Our friend Theodolf, the Icelander, as Fouqué calls him,
would have been in his own land Thjodolf, and the contraction is
374there Kjold, or Kjol, as Kjoil, or Kjoille, is for Thjodhild, the same
as the Diuthilt of the Germans, and Theudhilda, a nun-sister of
Clovis. St. Audard has undergone a still greater change; he was
once archbishop of Narbonne, and called Theodhard, or ward, the
Tiard of Friesland, and Thjodvar, or Kjovar, in the North.
The remaining forms are,
| Ger. Dietbert; Frank. Theudebert—People’s brightness |
| Ger. Dietbrand—People’s sword |
| Ger. Dietburg—People’s protection |
| |
| |
Nor. |
|
German. |
Frank. |
|
| |
Thjodgjer
Toger
Kiogjeir
Kygeir
Kyer |
 |
Dietgar |
Theodokar—People’s spear |
| |
| Ger. Diether—People’s warrior |
| Nor. Thjodhjalm; Ger. Diethelm—People’s helmet |
| Ger. Dietlind; Lomb. Theudelinda—People’s snake |
| Ger. Dietman—People’s man |
| Ger. Diutrat; Frank. Theodorada—People’s council |
| Ger. Dietram—People’s raven |
| Nor. Thjodvald, Kjodvald, Kjoval—People’s power.[137] |
Frau Uote was the mother of Kriemhild, who interpreted her
dream and predicted the early death of her bridegroom. Ortwin, of
Metz, was truchsess, or carver, and was the nephew of Hagan and
Dankwart, sharing, of course, their fate.
They are not very interesting personages, but it is curious that they
bear the only names, among all the Nibelungen, which have any
genuine Anglo-Saxon likenesses; that is, if Uote is, indeed, from the
word in Anglo-Saxon, ead, in the North aud, in Mæso-Gothic audr,
in High German od, everywhere meaning wealth. Some ascribe it to
the same root as good and as Woden, including them with adel,
noble; but its derivatives are more easy to follow than its forefathers.
In the North, odel is the term for property to which an entire
family retains an equal right, all-od, or allodial property. But when
the warriors made incursions on their neighbours, they obtained, in
addition, their share of spoil, originally cattle, feh, or feo, i. e., their
fee. So feh-od came to be the word for possessions gained by the
individual by personal service to his lord, and thus passed from cattle
to land itself, when held of the chief on condition of following him
375in war; and thus we have the feudal system, with its feoffs and, too
often, its feuds.
The feminine of this word probably named Uta. It was popular
everywhere. Audur-diupaudga, or Audur the deeply rich, was a
female viking, one of the first Icelandic settlers, who called a promontory
Kambness, because she dropped her comb upon it; nor has
her name passed from her own country, while, in Norman-England,
it appears first as Auda and then as Alda, answering to Alda the
wife of Orlando the Paladin, and Alda queen of Italy in 926, also to
another Alda, a lady of the house of Este, in 1393. These are from
the Gothic and Scandinavian aud; but the High German form was
also represented by Oda and the Low German by the old Saxon Ead,
which was soon translated into Ide, the most common of all the
early feminines in the Cambrai register, together with its diminutive
Idette. Ida was the name of King Stephen’s granddaughter, the
Countess of Boulogne, was always used in Germany, and has of late
been revived in England, from its sounding like the title of a poetical
mountain of the Troad.
It is not quite clear whether Othilie, the Alsatian virgin of the
seventh century, who was said to have been born blind, but to have
obtained sight at her baptism, is a form of Odel, noble, or a diminutive
of Oda, or whether she is Otthild, answering to our Eadhild, one of
the many sisters of Æthelstane: and there is the same doubt with
Odilo and Odilon, the masculines.
The masculine form of aud was extremely common. We had it in
the person of Ida, king of Bernicia; the North owned many an
Audr; the Germans used Odde, Orto, and Otto, and when the gallant
Saxon counts won the imperial crown, they took the old Latin Otho
for the rendering of their name. France, meantime, had called her
Burgundian prince Eudon, but when a relay of Norman Audrs
appeared, they were Odons; and in the needlework with which
Queen Matilda adorned Bayeux cathedral, her husband’s doughty
episcopal half-brother is always labelled ‘Odo Eps.’ But though we
had previously had a grim Danish archbishop Odo, and though
Domesday shows plenty of Eudos and Odos, neither form took root,
and both are entirely continental.
| French. |
Provençal. |
Italian. |
German. |
Nor. |
| Odon |
Orzil |
Otto |
Odo |
Audr |
| Eudon |
Lettish. |
Ottone |
Otto |
Odo |
| Eudes |
Atte |
Ottorino |
Orto |
Oddr |
| Othes |
Attinsch |
|
Otho |
|
Ortvin the truchsess, had his namesake in the Lombard Audoin
father to Alboin, also, in the Frank Audwine, blessed by St. Columbanus,
beloved by St. Eligius, and bishop of Rouen, whose loveliest
church is that of St. Audoenus, now transformed by French lips into
St. Ouen. And, at home, we hail the same ‘rich friend’ in Eadwine,
376the first Christian king of Northumbria, whose conversion is the most
striking portion of Bede’s history. His dominion extended over the
Lothians, and he disputes with Aodh and the Ædui the naming of
Edinburgh. Beloved as he was, his name of Edwin never entirely
died away, and became in modern times diffused by the popularity
of Goldsmith’s ballad, and of Beattie’s Minstrel. It is just known
upon the Continent. Ortwin, or Audoenius, is very possibly the
Don Ordoño of the early Spanish kingdoms; but Germany has chiefly
dealt in the independent Odvin. Edwin, in spite of Mr. Taylor’s
tragedy of Edwin the Fair, is not the same as Edwy, namely Eadwig,
rich war, a name well remembered for the unhappy fate of the owner.
Odoacer, as the Romans called him, who was put to death by
Theodoric, was properly Audvakr, treasure watcher; not quite the
same as the Germanic Ottokar, or Ortgar, happy spear, which is
identical with our familiar Eadgar, or Edgar. This name, after being
laid to rest with the Anglo-Saxon monarchy, came to life again with
the taste for antiques; and Edgar Ravenswood, in his operatic
character, has brought Edgar and Edgardo.
Eadmund, or happy protection, is one of our most English names,
belonging to the king of East Anglia, who, as the first victim of the
Danes, became the patron saint of Bury St. Edmund’s, and the
subject of various legends. The sudden deaths of Sweyn, and afterwards
of Eustace de Blois, when engaged in ravaging his shrine,
made him be regarded as an efficient protector; and Henry III.,
when he had the good taste to make his sons Englishmen, christened
the second after this national saint, so that Edmunds were always
to be found in the House of Plantagenet, and thence among the
nobility and the whole nation. The Irish called it Emmon, the
Danes adopted it as Jatmund, in addition to their own Oddmund,
the French occasionally use it as Edmond, and Italy knows it as
Edmondo.
The most really noted of all our own genuine appellations is,
however, Eadvard, the rich guardian. It comes to light in our royal
line with the son of Alfred, and won the popular love for the sake of
the young king whom St. Dunstan and the English called the
martyr, in their pity for his untimely fate. And again, little as ‘the
Confessor’Confessor’ had been loved in his feeble lifetime, enthusiastic affection
attached to him as the last native sovereign; while, on the one hand,
it was the policy of the Norman kings to regard him as their natural
predecessor, and of the barons to appeal to the laws that had prevailed
in his time. All parties thus were ready to elect St. Edward to be
the patron saint of England, and, in the ardour of embellishing his
foundation of Westminster Abbey, it was natural to give his name
to the heir of the crown, afterwards ‘the greatest of the Plantagenets.’
The deaths of his three children bearing Norman or Spanish
names confirmed this as the royal name, and the third king so called
spread it far and wide. It was carried by his granddaughter to
Portugal, and there had its honour so well sustained by her noble
son, as there to find another home; and with us it has recurred
continually in every rank.
377The contraction Neddy, common to all of these, is one of the titles
of a donkey.
| English. |
Welsh. |
French. |
Italian. |
| Edward |
Jorwarth |
Edouard |
Odoardo |
| Neddy |
Irish. |
|
|
| Teddy |
Eudbaird |
|
|
| Portuguese. |
German. |
Nor. |
Netherlands. |
| Duarte |
Eduard |
Jaward |
Ede |
| |
Oddward |
Audvard |
|
The other less celebrated parallel varieties are:—
| Eng. Eadbald—Rich Prince |
| Eng. Eadburh—Rich pledge |
| Eng. Eadburge; Nor. Oddbjorg; Ger. Edburge—Rich protection |
| Eng. Eadbryht—Rich splendour |
| Eng. Eadfrith; Ger. Otfrid; Prov. Audafrei—Rich peace |
| Eng. Eadfled; Fr. Audofled—Rich increase |
| |
| |
Nor. |
German. |
|
|
| |
Oddgrim
Audgrim |
Ortgrim |
} |
Rich helmet |
| |
| Nor. Odgisl—Rich pledge |
| |
| Nor. |
German. |
French. |
|
|
Audgunnr
Ougunna
Augunna |
Oddgund |
Augen |
} |
Rich war |
| |
| Nor. Odkel, Odkatla—RichRich kettle |
| Fr. Authaire—Rich warrior |
| Oddlaug—Rich liquor |
| Nor. Oddleif; Ger. Ortleip, Ortleib—Rich relic |
| Eng. Eadmar; Nor. Odmar; Ger. Otmar—Rich greatness |
| Nor. Oddny—Rich freshness |
| Eng. Eadred—Rich council |
| Eng. Eadric, Edric; Ital. Odorico—Rich king |
| |
| English. |
Nor. |
German. |
|
|
| Eadulf |
Odulf
Oulf |
Oddulf
Ortwulf |
} |
Rich wolf |
| |
| |
English. |
German. |
|
|
| |
Eadwald
Edwald |
Edvald
Odvald |
} |
Rich power. |
378Eadswith, Eadgifu, and Eadgyth, all once separate names, together
with Adelgifu and Ælfgifu, seem to have been all mixed up together
by the Normans. Eadgyth was undoubtedly the name of Earl
Godwin’s daughter, of whom Ingulf said, ‘Sicut spina rosam, genuit
Godwinus Egitham;’ but in the roll of her lands in Domesday, she
is Eddeva, Eddid, and Edeva, and for some little time Edeva seems
to have been used among the Normans, though the queen of Henry
I. was not allowed to retain anything so Saxon. Aline and Edith
were used in a few families, but Edith survived the others.
Giav or give is not a very common commencement; but in the
Vilkina Saga, King Gjuko is the father of Gunnar and Gudrun, and
the whole family are called Giukungr. In German, in the Book of
Heroes, he is Gibicho, and there was really a historical Burgundian
King Gibica, mentioned as a law-giver; but in the Nibelungen-nôt,
Gibich is only a vassal king of Etzel’s. The North had Gjaflaug,
liquor giver, no doubt the Hebe of the Norse banquets, Gjavvald, in
German, Gevald, and perhaps Gabilo and Gavele, the Gebelius of
Latinists. Germany had likewise Gebahard, a firm or perhaps a
strong giver, which still survives under the unpromising sound of
Gebhard.
Gyda, or Gytha, that most difficult name, sometimes sounds like
Gith, the contraction of Eadgyth; but it was evidently northern,
having belonged to the proud damsel of Hordaland, who refused to
marry Harald Harfagre, unless he was sole king of all Norway.
Afterwards it was borne by the semi-Danish ladies of Earl Godwin’s
family, and melted into Gjutha, then became confounded with Jutta,
which was considered as short for Juditha.
Sindolt was the schenke, or butler, at the court of Wurms, in the
NiebelungenliedNiebelungenlied; and in the Vilkina Saga, Sintram is one of the heroes
of Thidrek’s following. The derivation of the first syllable is
uncertain. Michaelis takes it from the old High German sinths, a
journey. Professor Munch refers Sindre to a word meaning
sparkling or spark, and mentions a mythological dwarf who was a
famous smith, and was yclept Sindre; also a poet in Harald
Harfagre’s time, whose appellation was Guthorm Sindre, or the
sparkling. Sundre or Sondre is, the same authority tells us, more
used in the Thellmarken in Norway than elsewhere; and another
possible derivation for it is from ‘sondra,’ to sunder. The forms
Sunrir and Sunris are there found; and Germany had a few others,
such as Sindwald, or Sindolt, Sindbald, the Sinibaldo of Italy,
Sindbert, Sindolf, and the above-mentioned Sindhram, chiefly
interesting to us as chosen by Fouqué for the name of his masterpiece,
the wonderful allegory spun out of Albert Durer’s more
wonderful engraving.
379
The elf king Elberich here brings in his own fairy kindred. In
the Nibelung, he is watching over the fatal treasure when Siegfried
comes to claim it, and, dwarf as he is, does such fierce battle over it
that Siegfried was ‘in bitter jeopardy;’ but he is at length overcome
sworn to Siegfried’s service, and brought by him to Wurms, where
he has no more to do but to lament when Haghen makes away with
the treasure.
He is called very ancient, and well he may be, for he had appeared
in the Book of Heroes long before the time of even Hughdietrich, when
King Otnit of Lombardy had set forth to win the daughter of the
king of Syria, and Elberich showed himself under a linden tree in
the guise of a beautiful child. Otnit was about to pick him up, but
received from him a tremendous blow, and after a sharp fight came to
terms, and thenceforth he assisted him in his enterprise, gave him
magic armour, and assisted him to gain the lady. Much of this story
is repeated in the French romance of Huon de Bourdeaux, where
Auberon, as he is there called, gives the knight an ivory horn wherewith
to summon him to his aid in an emergency, and thus arose the
English Oberon, the elf-rik or king, the graceful but petulant fairy
whom Drayton marries to the Irish Mab, and Shakespeare to the
Greek Titania. He had his human namesakes, too; Alberich was in
fashion as a Frank name, as Ælfric was as a Saxon; and the
Domesday Book shows that while we had plenty of the latter native
form, Edward the Confessor had already imported two specimens of
‘Albericus comes,’ and these or their sons contracted into Aubrey,
which was known to fame as almost hereditary among the De Veres,
earls of Oxford. France, too, had her Aubri; and Alberico was used
in Lombardy, where likewise the notable and terrible monarch
Alboin, whose name as Alboino is still common among the peasantry,
bore the name that Anglo-Saxons called Ælfwine, or elf-friend, perhaps
likewise an allusion to the aid and friendship of ‘Oberon the faëry,’
whose first protégé was a Lombard. Alwine is the feminine used in
Germany, and perhaps may be our Albinia.
The elf of England and Germany, the alfr of the North, was a
being dear to the imagination of the people. His name means the
white, the same word already mentioned as forming the Latin albus, and
designating the Elbe and the Alps, as well as appearing in the Elphin
of Cymric legend. The elves, or white spirits, were supposed to be
beautiful shadowy gifted beings, often strangely influencing the life
of mortals, so that in old Germany the Alfr were the genii of man’s
life, like the Disir of the North; and Elberich probably originally
attended Otnit in this capacity. Christianity did not destroy the
faith in the elf-world, but the existence of these beings was accounted
for by supposing them children of Eve, whom she had hidden from
the face of her Maker, and He had therefore condemned to be hidden
from the face of man. They were thought to mourn for their exclusion
from Redemption, and to seek baptism for their infants; but
380in process of time their higher attributes dropped off from them, and
they were mixed up with the malicious black dwarfs. They took to
stealing young maidens, as the Scottish Burd Ellen, and to exchanging
infants in the cradle; and Scotland created an Elfinland, which
was a striking element of worldly vanity. In England, the traditions
of the Keltic spirits, pucks and pixies, were mixed up with
them, and our Elizabethan poets treated them as the males of the
French fairies; and what comes to us so recommended, surely we
must accept.
These elves, in their more dignified days, played a considerable
part in our native nomenclature; nay, the most honoured of all our
English sovereigns wrote himself upon his jewel Ælfred, i.e., Elf in
council, wise as a supernatural being. Some have tried to read the
word Alfried, all peace; but there is no doubt that the Elf is the
right prefix. The English loved to continue his name, but it was
Latinized as Aluredus, and thus Alured is the form in which it is
borne by many persons recorded in Domesday, and is still kept up
and regarded as a separate name, though Alfred has been within the
last century resumed in England; it is much used about the good
king’s birth-place at Wantage in Berkshire, and has of late been
adopted in France and Germany.
Ælfhæg was as high as an elf; whether given to a very small
infant, or supposed to refer to a being of unearthly stature, does not
appear. It was the very inappropriate name of the archbishop who,
under Ethelred the Unready, was pelted to death at a Danish banquet
because he would not oppress his flock to obtain a ransom. The
offence given by Lanfranc in refusing to regard him as a true martyr
may be judged by the large numbers called after him in Domesday.
In Sussex they are set down as Ælfech; in Hants as Ælfec; in
Nottingham as Ælfag; and thanks to the Latinism of Alphegius,
our calendar calls him Alphege.
Ælfgifu, or the elf gift, was the unfortunate Elgiva of history, a
not unsuitable name for one whose beauty was like a fatal fairy
gift, bringing ruin on her and on her husband; but it was also
used to translate into Saxon that of the Norman Emma, which was
regarded as too foreign for the Saxons. Knut’s first wife, Ælfwine
(elf darling), the daughter of Ælfhelm, Earl of Southampton, is
recorded by Dugdale as Ailive; and Aileve, Ælveva, or Alveva, is
very common in Domesday. Aileve indeed continued in use for
many years.
In fact, it was England that made by far the most use of elf names.
The North was perhaps the next in the use of them, having an
immense number of instances of Alfr in the Landnama-bok, but
there the elf at the end of a word has such an unfortunate tendency
to transform himself into a wolf, that it is impossible to tell which
was the original, the same person being sometimes written Thoralf,
and sometimes Thorulf. There are few instances preserved from the
other Teutonic branches, except as we have seen the two Lombardic
names, that seem direct from Elberich.
English names in Æthel often contract into El, and when followed
381by an f, appear to be elves; but they must be pursued to their original
form before being so rendered.
Nor. Alfdis—Household fairy
Nor. Alfgejr; Eng. Ælfgar—Elf spear
Nor. Alfgerdur—Elf woman
Nor. Alfheidur, Alfeidur—Elf cheerfulness
Eng. Ælfhelm—Elf helmet
Nor. Alfhild—Elf battle maid
Nor. Alfliotr—Elf terror
Eng. Ælfric—Elf king
Eng. Ælfthryth, Elfrida—Threatening elf
Eng. Ælfwold—Elf power
Alvaro and Elvira are the Spanish forms of these elf names.
A bishop of Lichfield, whose name was Ælfwine, was always called
Ælla, and thus there is reason to suppose that elves named both the
Ælle of Deira, whose name caused Gregory the Great to say that
Alleluja should be sung in those regions, and also the later Ælla,
who put Ragnar Lodbrog to death. Otherwise these would be referred
to the word in Gothic, aljan, meaning battle, found in the Old
German Ellanheri and Ellanperaht.
Some of our commencing els are no doubt from the fairy source;
but there are others very difficult to account for, beginning in Anglo-Saxon
with ealh, which is either a hall, or without the final h, the
adjective all, by which in fact they are generally translated. The
most noted of them is Ealhwine, the tutor of Charlemagne’s sons,
generally called Alcuin, though his name has remained at home as
Aylwin. Some Aylwins, are, however, certainly from Ægilwine, or
awful friend; Ealhfrith, Ealhmund, and Ealhred, are also found,
and one of these must have formed the modern Eldred. Among
ladies are Ealhfled, and Ealhswyth, or Alswitha. On the whole it
seems to us that the hall is the more probable derivation; the h so
carefully used in the Saxon Chronicle is unlike a contraction.[138]
382
Another remarkable cycle of romantic fable connected itself with
a prince, not lost in the dim light of heroic legend, but described by
a contemporary chronicler, and revealed in the full light of history.
However, in reality, the records of Eginhard were, no doubt, as unread
and unknown as if they had never existed, and with the notion
that a magnificent prince had reigned over half Europe, there was
ample scope for tradition to connect with him and his followers all
the floating adventures that Teutonic, Keltic, or Latin invention had
framed; and, by-and-by, literature recorded them, using them as her
own world of beauty and of wonder, until nothing but the names
were left in common with their originals.
France, Germany, Lombardy, and Spain, all looked back to the
same emperor, and hung their traditions around him, with a far more
national sentiment than it was possible for them to possess for the
British Arthur. In the Charles who bore the surname of the Great,
all the legends centred. He was at once emperor, and, like his
grandfather, champion of Europe against the Saracens, with whom
in popular fancy, both his own Saxons and his grandson’s Northmen
were fused together; he was besieged, like his grandson, in Paris,
and lost all his best followers in the pass of Roncesvalles, by the
treachery of the Navarrese.
These were the materials that fancy had to work upon. The existing
feudal system supplied the machinery, and not with utter incorrectness,
since it had actually then existed in its infancy, and the
chiefs of the Frank court were veritably obliged to pay martial service
to their head for the lands that they had received from him on the
conquest of the country. Pfalz, the same word which we now call
palace, the central court, furnished the title for the feudatories
employed at the court; Pfalzen, a word that continued in use in its
proper region, Germany, naming the Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, whence
we have learnt to speak of the Count Palatine and the Palatinate.
Pfalzen, then, on French tongues, became Paladins, and Paladins
were supposed to have been not so much political as military, so that
we regard the term as meaning a champion of high prowess. There
was an idea likewise of a council of these Paladins as the twelve peers
of France in the golden age of her constitution; and the Docipairs,
as the Douzepairs were sometimes run together, stood on a level in
383romantic imaginations with the Seven Champions of Christendom,
or the Knights of the Round Table.
Spanish ballads, German lays, and Provençal songs, had been
working up the stories of the Paladins, when somewhere about the
year 1100, there came forth a French translation of the supposed
chronicle of Turpin, who had really been archbishop of Rheims in
the reign of Charlemagne. The chronicle was confirmed in 1122 by
the infallible authority of the Pope, and was translated again and
again, amplified and referred to by every one who wrote or sung of
the Paladins, for the events they celebrated, whether it contained
them or not.
The influence of the Karlingen upon our subject has been great.
First, some of the genuine historical characters left hereditary Christian
names; next, several were adopted in romantic and chivalrous
families, and in the poetical ages of literary Italy, they became
absolutely frequent.
Paladins, however, connect themselves with hardly any genuine
female names of the same period. The Ossianic Fenians have their
wives and beloved maidens, the knights of the Round Table are
united with ladies of Cymric title, like their own, and evidently as
traditionary as themselves; the dames of the Nibelungenlied are intimately
connected with the whole structure of the legend; but the
knights of Charlemagne have brought with them few genuine ladye
loves. Orlando once had a wife, the Alda, or Belinda, of the old
traditions; but even the Clarice of Renaud in the Quatre Fils Aymon,
betrays a late French, or rather Romanesque, influence; and far more
do the Doña Clara, Belerma, and Sebilla of the Spanish ballads, show
how late they must have arisen; whilst Angelica, Marfisa, Bradamante,
Fiordespina, and Fiordiligi, and the like, are absolute Italian
inventions.
The Frankish ladies seem, in fact, to have been held in little estimation.
Chivalry had not blossomed into respect for womanhood,
and they had probably been left behind by their lords in the march
of civilization. The female names from time to time cast up in the
surging tide of affairs seldom appear except for disgrace or misfortune,
so that we come to the conclusion that womanhood in the Frank
empire was seldom happy or honourable except in the cloister. Thus,
no traditional names of woman came down with the Paladins; and
when love became an essential part of the machinery of the Italian
poets, they had to invent, and entitle, the heroines for themselves.
Most heroes gain by becoming the subjects of romance, but this has
been by no means the case with the great Karl of the Franks, for
though ‘il Rè Carlo’ be three rolled into one, he has lost the heroism
of him of the hammer, and the large-minded statesmanship of the
first emperor, obtaining instead the dulness and weak credulity of
him who was called the Bald.
384The three Charleses are matter of history, and the Carlo Magno of
romance and ballad is little more than a lay figure, always persuaded
to believe traitorous stories of his best friends, and meeting with
undignified adventures, as in the case of the enchanted ring that
bound his affections to lady, bishop, and lake. We therefore pass on
at once to this name, which a foolish old story thus accounts for. As
an infant he was put out to nurse, and when brought home, much
grown, his mother exclaimed, ‘What great carle is this?’ whence he
continued to be so called, instead of by his baptismal name of David.
This tale may have been suggested by the fact, that the veritable
Charles the Great, when laying aside his state he became a scholar in
his palace hall, under the teaching of the English Alcuin, assumed
the appropriate title of David.
Karl was in fact, as we have shown in the chapter on ancestral
names, the regular family name of the line, used in regular alternation
from its first appearance with the grandfather of the hammering
Charles, who perhaps took his soubriquet from Thor, and gradually
acquiring more and more ignominious epithets till it sunk into
obscurity in Lorraine, whence it only emerged again when the
Karlings intermarried with Philippe Auguste, and brought the old
imperial name into the French royal family, where five more kings
bore it. They sent it to Naples with Charles of Anjou; and his son,
Charles Robert, or Caroberto, being elected to Hungary, had so many
namesakes that Camden was led to suppose that all Hungarian kings
were called Carl. It went to Germany when the son of the blind
king of Bohemia received it from his father’s connection with the
French court, and afterwards reigned as the 4th Karl of Germany,
taking up his reckoning from the old Karlingen. Again, the second
ducal house of Burgundy was an off-shoot from the line of Valois,
and it was from Charles the Bold that the name was transmitted to
his great grandson of Ghent, soon known to Europe as Carlos I. of
Spain, Karl V. of Germany, Carolus Quintus of the Holy Roman
Empire. He was the real name spreader from whom this became
national in Spain, Denmark, and even in Britain, for his renown
impressed James I. with the idea that this must be a fortunate name;
when, in the hope of averting the unhappy doom that had pursued
five James Stuarts in succession, he called his sons Henry and
Charles. The destiny of the Stuart was not averted, but the fate of
the ‘royal martyr’ made Charles the most popular of all appellations
among the loyalists, and afterwards with the Jacobites, in both England
and Scotland, so that rare as it formerly was, it now disputes the
ground with John, George, and William, as the most common of
English names.
Another namesake of Charlemagne must not be forgotten, namely,
the son of St. Olaf, of Norway, whom his followers, intending an
agreeable surprise to the father, baptized after the great emperor by
the name of Magnus, whence the very frequent Magnus, of Scandinavia,
and Manus of Ireland.
| English. |
Keltic. |
French. |
Span. and Port. |
| Charles |
GAEL. |
Charles |
Carlos |
| Charlie |
Tearlach |
Charlot |
German. |
| |
ERSE. |
|
Karl |
| |
Searlus |
|
|
| Italian. |
Swedish. |
Danish. |
Dutch. |
| Carlo |
Karl |
Karl |
Carolus |
| Carolo |
Kalle |
Karel |
Carel |
| |
|
|
Karel |
| Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Illyrian. |
Lusatian. |
| Karol |
Karel |
Karlo |
Karlo |
| Karolek |
Slovak. |
Karlica |
Karlko |
| |
Karol |
Karlic |
|
| Lettish. |
Esthonian. |
Hungarian. |
Dantzig. |
| Karls |
Karl |
Karoly |
Kasch |
| |
Karel |
|
|
The two feminines are of late invention. The first I have been
able to find was Carlota or Charlotte, of Savoy, who married Louis
385XI., and thus introduced this form to French royalty. Charlotte
d'Albret had the misfortune to be given in marriage to Cesare Borgia,
and had one daughter, who married into the house of La Tremouille,
whence the brave Lady Derby carried it into England, and our
registers of the seventeenth century first acknowledge Charlet. The
Huguenotism of the house of La Tremouille connected it with that
of Bouillon, where the heiress Carola, or Charlotte, was married in
1588. The house of Orange probably thence derived it, and it
became known in Germany, whence it was brought to us in full
popularity by the good queen of George III. A sentimental fame
was also bestowed on it, as the name of Göthe’s heroine in Werther.
386Carolina, the other form, seems to have been at first Italian, and
thence to have spread to Southern Germany, and all over that
country, whence we received it with the wife of George II., by whom
it was much spread among the nobility, and is now very common
among the peasantry.
| English. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Italian |
| Charlotte |
Charlotte |
Carlota |
Carlotta |
| Lotty |
Lolotte |
Lola |
Carlota |
| Chatty |
Caroline |
|
Carolina |
| Caroline |
|
|
|
| Carry |
|
|
|
| German. |
Swedish. |
Slovak. |
Lettish. |
| Charlotte |
Lotta |
Karolina |
Latte |
| Lottchen |
|
Karolinka |
Dantzig. |
| Caroline |
|
Karla |
Linuschca |
| Lina |
|
|
|
Ceorl was the name of an early king of Mercia, and of a thane of
Alfred’s, who defeated the Danes, and Carloman was almost as
common as Carl in the old Karling family.[139]
When the army of Charles the Great was marching back from
Spain, the Gascons, Navarrese, and Goths, who were afraid of being
swallowed up by his empire, if they exchanged his protection for that
of the Arabs, plotted together, fell on the rear of his columns as they
were passing through the defile of Roncesvalles, close to the little
town of Fuente Arabia, and slaughtered the whole division that were
guarding the baggage. ‘There was slain Rotlandus, prefect of the
Armorican border.’
So says Eginhard, the contemporary chronicler, and as he mentions
only two other nobles as having been killed, it is natural to conclude
that this Rotlandus was a man of mark. Who was he? Certainly
Warden of the Marches of Brittany, but was he a Frank Hruodland
(the country’s glory), the repressor of the Kelts, or was he a Breton
in the Frankish service? The Cymry have laid claim to him; they
say that the rolling word is intended to render Tallwch, a rolling or
overwhelming torrent, the name of the father of Tristrem; and in
the later romances, this knight has actually been turned into
Rowland, which thus has become a favourite national Welsh name.
It is far more likely that ‘Rotlandus’ was Frank, but the next
question is, what were the deeds that made his birth worth contending
for, and the war song of Rou be the chant of the gallant minstrel
Taillefer, to cheer the Normans on to their victory at Hastings?
Eginhard is utterly silent. Turpin tells us that Rolandus was the
emperor’s nephew, the son of his sister Bertha, and of Milo de Anglars.
With Turpin, the expedition to Spain is the prominent feature of the
reign, and he gives us an account of a mingled battle and controversy
between Roland and Ferragus, a giant of the race of Goliath, and only
vulnerable in one point, where, however, Roland managed to pierce
him. Very soon after follows the ambush of Roncesvalles, the enemy
being Saracens, not Christians, but conducted by the traitor Ganelon.
After a terrible battle, Roland, sorely wounded, lay down under a tree,
and apostrophizing his good sword Durenda, in the most tender
manner, thrice struck it upon a block of marble, and shattered it in
twain, lest it should fall into the Saracen hands. Then he blew upon
his horn, which had such wondrous tones that all other horns split at
the sound, and this blast was with such effort that he burst all the
387veins in his neck, and the sound reached the king, eight miles off!
He then commended his soul to heaven, and made a most pious and
beautiful end.
That block of marble is magnified by popular fame into the mountain
itself, and la Brèche de Roland is supposed to be the cleft made
by his sword! The Northern Lights, too, are said to be King Charles
riding by, and Roland bearing the banner. The Spaniards, so far as
they were Christians and Teutons, felt with the Franks; so far as
they were Celtiberians, against them, and the result was a collection
of admirable popular ballads, all prime authorities with Don Quixote,
in which il rey Carlos and his peers are treated as national heroes.
Nevertheless they are proud of his defeat at Roncesvalles, declare
that the emperor broke his word to Don Alfonso of Leon, and that
the attack was therefore made in which Don Alfonso’s nephew,
Bernardo de Carpio, was leader, and demolished the invulnerable
Conde Roldan, by squeezing him to death in his arms.
It is the Spaniards alone who have transferred to Roldan the
invulnerability of Achilles, Siegfried, and Diarmaid; the French and
Italians bestow it only on Ferragus, who is, as already mentioned, an
evident Keltic importation through the Breton poets, being either the
Irish Fergus, or the Welsh Vreichfras, though he has since become a
Moorish giant.
The English, having their own Arthur to engage their attention,
did little more than versify Turpin, but allowed Roland’s sword to
be carried away by his friend Sir Baldwin, and took vengeance for
his death.
But it was the Italians who did the most for their Orlando. Some
floating Valkyr notion had attached itself in German fancy to his
mother, who was at first Bertha the goose-footed, and then the large-footed,
and romance further related that she was the emperor’s sister,
who had secretly married the knight Milone di Anglante, and therefore
was driven out of the court, and forced to take refuge in a cave,
where the hero was born, and was called Rotolando, from his rolling
himself on the ground. His father went to the wars, and Berta became
the diligent spinner before alluded to, but she was still so poor
that his young companions each gave her boy a square of cloth to
cover him, two white, and two red, whence he always bore those colours
quartered on his shield. Afterwards he was taken into favour, and
became the chief Paladin.
Here Luigi Pulci took him up, and made him the hero of a poem
called the Morgante Maggiore, from a giant whom Orlando converted,
and who followed him faithfully about through all his adventures.
Orlando is here a high-spirited Christian knight, brave, pious, and
faithfully attached to his wife Alda. When slain at Roncesvalles, he
mentions her in his last and very beautiful prayer, and his sorrow
for his comrades, and parting with his horse and sword, are very
touching.
It was Bojardo who deprived Orlando of his old traditional character
of the high-minded champion, that crusading days had dwelt
upon. Led, perhaps, by the idea of the frenzy of Amadis de Gaul, he
388made Orlando fall desperately in love with the fair and false Angelica,
princess of Catay, and leave the court and all his duties just as the
Saracen king Gradasso was invading France, to obtain possession of
Durindana, Orlando’s sword. The action of the poem is taken up
with the adventures imposed upon Orlando by the mischievous
beauty, and the pursuit of him by the other Paladins, and finally it
leaves off with the whole chivalry of Charlemagne besieged in Paris
by the Saracens.
Orlando was only innamorato according to Bojardo; Ariosto took
him up and made him furioso. Continuing the poem where it had
dropped from Bojardo’s hands, Ariosto made Angelica fall in love with
an obscure youth, and marry him, whereupon Orlando, after the
example of Amadis de Gaul, went into the state of frenzy that Don
Quixote tried to imitate; and the Christians suffered as much as the
Greeks did without Achilles, till the champion’s senses were brought
back from the moon; when he returned to his duty, restored fortune
to the Christians, and saved France from becoming tributary to the
infidel.
Charles VIII. of France, in his romantic youth, named one of his
short-lived children, Charles Roland, by the way of union of the two
heroes.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| Roland |
Roland |
Orlando |
Roldan |
| Rowland |
|
|
|
| Portuguese. |
German. |
Netherlands. |
|
| Rolando |
Roland |
Roeland |
|
| Roldao |
Ruland |
|
|
| |
Rudland |
|
|
The derivation of the first syllable is the word hruod in Frank,
hrothr in the North, and in modern German ruhm, meaning fame or
glory.
Hruod is a most prolific word. As Hruodgar, famous spear, it figures
in the Nibelungenlied, where the Markgraf Rudiger is the special
friend of Dietrich, and for a long time, like him, refrains from the
fray, though at last he plunges into it and is killed.
There seems to have been a veritable Hruodgar living in the time of
Pepin, who married a lady whose father’s name was Hector, whence
it was taken for granted that she descended from Hector of Troy.
Therefore the House of Este bore the white eagle in their coat of
arms, because it was said he of Troy had a shield azure with a silver
eagle! Roger, Olivier, and Roland are mentioned together as subjects
of minstrel songs. In the old romances there is a Ruggieri de Risa,
or Reggio, who marries an Amazon, called Galaciella, but is soon
after murdered, and she is carried off by sea by her enemies, whom,
however, she manages to overpower and destroy on the voyage, but
389only to be driven to a desert island, where she dies at the birth of her
twins, Ruggiero and Marfisa. This Ruggiero is the prime favourite
of the Italian poets. Bojardo tells how he was bred up on lion’s
marrow by the enchanter Atlante, in Africa, and when his education
was finished, was sent to France with the wonderful hippogriff, or
winged horse. And Ariosto, probably in compliment to the House
of Este, made his adventures the main plot of the Orlando Furioso,
and completed it by converting him to Christianity, and marrying
him to the brave and amiable Amazon, Bradamante.
Bojardo probably adopted Ruggiero because his country was Reggio,
a country with which the name had become connected, when Roger
de Hauteville had founded the kingdom of Sicily, and Ruggero, the
son of his elder brother, Robert Guiscard, had been count of Apulia.
These were both, of course, direct from the northern Hruodgeir, as
was the turbulent Roger de Montgomery, who gave so much trouble
in Normandy. It was once a famous knightly name, but is now too
much discarded. Roger must once have been very frequent in England,
since Hodge is still proverbial for a rustic,—whereas as a rule he is
never so called, though the Registrar-General noted an extraordinary
number of Roger Tichbornes in the year of the claimant’s trial!
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
German. |
| Roger |
Roger |
Ruggiero |
Rogerio |
Rüdiger |
| Hodge |
|
Rogero |
|
Roger |
| Nor. |
Netherlands. |
Russian. |
Polish. |
Lettish. |
| Hrodgjer |
Rogier |
Rozer |
Rydygier |
Rekkerts |
| Raadgjer |
Rutger |
|
|
|
Hrothgar was also a famed name among the Angles. It appears in
Beowulf, as the chief of the Scyldings, the son of Healfdane. There,
too, are found Hrothmund and Hrothwulf; and the northern names
of Hroar and Hrolfr are contractions of these, though the characters
they belong to are not the same as those in Beowulf. Hrolf Krake
was the subject of a northern Saga; and the father of our Norman
kings, whom we are wont to call by his Latinism of Rollo, formed
from the French stammer of Rou, was in fact Hrolf Gangr, or at full
length, Hrothulf, Fame-Wolf. A name of fame and terror it was,
when the mighty man, too weighty for steed to carry him, was
expelled from his own land, and fought for a home, not for plunder,
among the fertile orchards of Neustria, when his followers' rude
homage overthrew the degenerate Karling, and ‘the grisly old proselyte,’
in his baptism, assumed, without perhaps knowing of the
similarity, the French Robert. This change prevented his original
name from being very prevalent among the Normans; and the
German form, Rudolf, is chiefly from a sainted Karling prince, who
was bishop of Bourges, and from whom Rudolf of Hapsburg must
have derived it. From him it became imperial, and other countries
received it, without knowing it for their old friend.
| 390 |
| English. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
| Rodolph |
Rodolphe |
Rodulfo |
Rodolfo |
| Rolf |
Raoul |
Portuguese. |
|
| |
Roul |
Rodolpho |
|
| |
Rou |
|
|
| German. |
Bavarian. |
Frisian. |
Swiss. |
| Rudolf |
Ruedolf |
Rulef |
Ruedi |
| |
|
Rulves |
Ruedeli |
| |
|
Rotholf |
Rudi |
| |
| Swedish. |
Nor. |
Lettish. |
Hungarian. |
| Rudolf |
Hruodulf |
Rohlops |
Rudolf |
| Rolf |
Hrolfr |
|
|
Robert, the name assumed by Rolf Gauge at his baptism was Frank,
rather than Northern, inasmuch as bjart is an uncommon conclusion
among his native race. Hruadperaht, or bright fame, was the original
form, the property of a bishop, who somewhere about the year 700
founded the first Christian church at Wurms. Honoured alike in
France and Germany, he became Ruprecht in the latter, and Robert
in the former. Like St. Nicolas, he is in Germany supposed to
exercise a secret supervision over children; in some places Knecht
Ruprecht dispenses Christmas gifts, but he more often keeps watch
over naughty children, and thus answers to the English Robin Goodfellow,
or Hob Goblin. Red was long supposed to be the origin of
the name, which some made Redbert, or bright speech, others
Redbeard! The German form, however, disproves both of these, and
Ruprecht continued in honour in its own country, naming in especial
that wise Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, who in 346 founded the university
of Heidelberg; and on the deposition of the crazy Bohemian Kaisar
Wenzel, was elected Emperor of Germany, and reigned for nine years
with great success and glory. It was after him that the infant, born
at Prague, during the brief greatness of the Winter King, received
that name of Rupert, which was so terrible to the Roundheads, but
which for the most part they translated by their native Robert—native,
because thoroughly Anglicized, for it was of French growth,
had belonged to two or three saints, and to the hymn-writing and
much persecuted king called the pious, the second of the Capet or
Parisian dynasty; but after the son of St. Louis carried it off to the
House of Bourbon, it scantily appeared among the royal family.
Normandy, however, cultivated it after it had been chosen at the
baptism of her first duke, and sent it to Apulia with the astute
Robert Guiscard, whence Roberto became national in the Neapolitan
realms, and was adopted by the Angevin line, among others by the
king who patronized Petrarch. The next Duke of Normandy who
bore it was that wild pilgrim, whose soubriquet varies between the
Devil and the Magnificent. The disinheritance of his equally wild,
391but more unfortunate grandson, Robert Courthose, diverted it from
the English throne, but a flood of knights and nobles had poured in
and established it so completely, that in a few generations more Hob
was one of the established peasant names in England. Robin was its
more gracious contraction—let our dearly beloved archer be who he
will—either as ballad tells, the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon, or as
late critics would have us believe, only another manifestation of
Robin Goodfellow, or of the wild huntsman. Robin was the epithet
by which Queen Elizabeth was wont to address the two earls, step-father
and stepson, who so long sunned themselves in her favour;
and though it has now acquired a homely sound, and the popularity
of the full name has somewhat waned, it is still frequent. To Scotland
it was brought by the Anglo-Norman barons, and when the
English Bruces had made their distant drop of Royal Scottish blood
float them to the throne, Robert the Bruce became a passionately
beloved national hero, and his name one of the most favoured in the
Lowlands. In Ireland it is called Roibin, a gentleman called in
English Robin Lawless being in Irish, Roibin Laighleis.
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
Italian. |
| Robert |
Robert |
Robert |
Roberto |
| Robin |
Robin |
Robers |
Ruberto |
| Hob |
Robbie |
Robi |
Ruperto |
| Bob |
Rab |
Robinet |
|
| Rupert |
|
Rupert |
|
| |
| German. |
Bavarian. |
Slovak. |
Lusatian. |
| Hruodebert |
Ruprecht |
Ruprat |
Huprecht |
| Ruprecht |
Prechtl |
|
|
| Rupert |
|
|
|
| Rudbert |
|
|
|
| Robert |
|
|
|
Not behindhand in glory is the northern Hrothrekr, or Germanic
Hruoderich, famous ruler. In Gothic Spain, it was indeed Rodrigo,
who lost his country to the Moors, but became in his people’s minds
the centre for pity as much as for blame, and the subject of the
beautiful legends that Southey has embodied in the finest of his
poems. And it was Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar,‘Ruy mi Cid Campeador,’
in whom ballad lore delighted. This became one of the most frequent
of all the grand-sounding names prefaced by Don, and Rodriguez and
Ruiz to be very common surnames.
The northern Hrothrekr was not long in being shortened to
Hrorekr, and thence came the name of that Norseman, who, according
to Russian historians, was invited by the Slaves to be their
protector, and founded the Norman dynasty of Ruric, which continued
on the throne during the troubled days of Tatar supremacy.
Roric and Godwald were the first Northmen to obtain fiefs in France.
392In Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, Roderick has a sort of false honour,
being adopted as the equivalent of the native Keltic names, the Welsh
Rhydderc, and the Gadhaelic Ruadh; for Roy and Rorie, though
rightly and traditionally so called by their friends, would now all
make Teutons of themselves, and use the signature of Roderick.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| Roderick |
Rodrigue |
Rodrigo |
Rodrigo |
| German. |
Nor. |
Russian. |
|
| Roderich |
Rothrekr |
Rurik |
|
| |
Hrorek |
|
|
There are numerous other forms from this prolific source. Rother,
who figures in Lombardic history, is the German Hruodhari, or
famous warrior, and in the North divides with Hrothgar the property
of the strange abbreviation, Roar, and in the harsh old Latinisms of
Frank names is Crotcharius.
There too is found Chrodovaldus, which in German was once
Hrodowald, and afterwards Rudold, perhaps, too, the Danish and
Scottish Ribolt, and in the North Roald, and in Italian Roaldo, the
founder of an order of monks. Nay, Romeo de' Montecchi himself,
the Montague of Shakespeare, bore a common Lombardic name,
softened down from the Chrodomarus of Frankish Latin, as in
Germany Hruotmar is Rudmar and Romar. Hromund, or Romund,
must not be confused with the derivatives of Ragin, though it is most
likely that the Irish Redmond is a Danish legacy from this source.
Nor. Hrodbern—Famous bear
Frank. Chrodogang—Famous progress
Nor. Hrothild; Ger. Hrodhilde; Frank. Chrodehilda—Famous
heroine
Ger. Hrodfrid—Famous peace
Ger. Hrodhard—Famous strength
Ger. Hrudo; Frank. Chrodo; Nor. Hroi—Fame
Nor. Hrodny—Famous freshness
Nor. Hrollaug—Famous liquor
Nor. Hrolleif—Relic of fame
Nor. Hrodsind; Frank. Chrodoswintha—Famous strength
Ger. Hrodstein—Famous stone.
Ruod must have been evolved from the word meaning speech,
razda in Gothic, rœdo in Anglo-Saxon, whence advice became rede in
Old English and Scottish, and rath in modern German.
Rad is chiefly a Frankish prefix, though we had one king Redwald.
Radegond, or war council, was a Frankish queen who became a nun
393at Poitiers, and left a name still used by French girls in that
neighbourhood. King Ordoño of Gallicia married, about the year
910, a lady recorded as Radegonda, or Arragonda, or Urraca, so that
the perplexing Urraca may possibly be a contraction of this name.
In the Spanish vernacular a magpie is called urraca, but probably
from the likeness of the word to the note of the bird.
Radegist or Radelchis, and Radegar, were princes of Beneventum.
Radbad, the Frisian Rabbo, and Radbert, seem to be Old German
forms, but it is a word liable to be confused with hramn, and with
rand, and though a common masculine termination in England, in
the North it is only a corruption of fred, peace.
To the French, Renaud de Montauban was a far more popular and
national hero than even Roland.
His name, Raginwald, was common among the Franks, and his
origin is suspected to be an Aquitanian Rainaldus, who in 843 was
killed in fighting with the Bretons, when in the miserable days of
Charles the Bald, they invaded France under Nominoë, and were
joined by the traitorous Count Lambert.
Charles the Bald, as has been said, seems to have sat for the picture
of his grandfather, the Bretons turned into the Saracens, Count
Lambert’s treachery went to swell the account of Gano, and Rinaldus
could fall at Roncevaux quite as well as at Mans!
He is just mentioned by Turpin as among the knights who accompanied
Charlemagne, and were killed at Roncesvalles; and the
Spanish ballads dwelt much upon the exploits of Don Reynaldos;
indeed it appears that he enjoyed Don Quixote’s special admiration
for having carried off, in spite of forty Moors, a golden image of
Mahomet, which he wanted to melt up for the payment of his men!
Such an exploit was decidedly in the line of the French hero
Renaud, or Regnault, who is in romance a sort of prince of freebooters.
He and his three brothers go by the title of the Quatre Fils
Aymon, and he is a sort of chivalrous Robin Hood to the French
mind, insomuch that country inns may still be found with the sign
of the Quatre Fils Aymon. In the old French tale, the outlawry of
Renaud is accounted for by his having been insulted by the emperor’s
nephew Berthelot, while playing at chess, and replying with a blow
of the golden board that struck out the offender’s brains. He and his
brothers then were banished, lived a freebooting life, built the castle
of Montalban in Gascony, the king of which country bestowed on
him in marriage his daughter Clarice, and finally went on pilgrimage,
made his peace with the emperor, turned his hand to the building
of Cologne Cathedral, and was killed there by his jealous fellow-workmen.
In Italy Rinaldo became a wild, high-spirited Paladin, always
fighting and falling in love, and retaining little in common with his
French original, except the possession of his matchless horse Bayard,
394or Bajardo, which fought as well as his master, and on his loss ran
wild in the woods. In the Morgante, Rinaldo mistrusts Gano, and
avoids the ambush of Roncesvalles, but is afterwards carried with his
brother Ricciardetto by two devils, to revenge the slaughter, which
they do most effectually.
In the Orlando Innamorato, Rinaldo is at first ensnared by
Angelica’s beauty, but is cured by drinking unwittingly of the
fountain of hate, while she drank of the fountain of love, and was
enamoured of him. He is carried off by Malagigi to an enchanted
island of delight, but returns during the great siege of Paris, takes
a counter-draught of the fountain of love, fights in single combat with
Ferrau, but is interrupted by Bajardo straying into a wood, whither
he pursues the animal, and is there deserted by Boiardo, to be taken
up by Ariosto, and after many adventures brought to relieve the
Christian army in the utmost danger, and to give his sister Bradamante
in marriage to Ruggiero.
Some have thought that Tasso’s one fictitious hero, Rinaldo, was
partly borrowed from the Paladin, going as he does to the enchanted
gardens of Armida, and being only brought back when the crusading
host was in the utmost jeopardy. The chief mission of this latter
Rinaldo was, however, it may be suspected, to be a compliment to
the House of Este.
Some even think Roland himself only another version of Ragenwald,
but the one Paladin is undoubtedly traceable to Hruoland,
as is the other to Ragenwald, though I am inclined to think
that the Rolandsaulen, that accompany the Irminsaulen at the gates
of old cities, may perhaps be rightly from Raginwald, judgment-power.
The Normans received this name from two sources, the French
Regnault or Renaud, generally from the Paladin, and from their own
northern Ragnwold or Rognwald. So Domesday has it in various
forms, as Ragenald, Reynald, and Rainald, the latter fourteen times
after the Conquest; and amongst them all we have derived our
Christian name of Reginald, and the surname of Reynolds. The
Scots took their form from the northern Rognvald, belonging to a
great Jarl of the Orkneys, a noted skald, and thus obtained Ronald,
which is in Gaelic Raonmill.
Ragn, or judgment, the leading word in this class of names, is
connected with the Latin rego, to rule, and as rectus sprang from the
one, so the Gothic raihts and our right arose from the Teutonic forms,
as well as to wreak, and the German rache, vengeance, both from the
old idea of justice. Ragn, though primarily meaning justice, is also
used, as judgment is, in the sense of wisdom. Reginald Pole was in
his own time known as Reynold. We get the longer name from his
Latinism as Reginaldus.
Some of Renaud’s freebooting fame may have come from a person
whose name so closely resembles his own, that it is by no means easy
to distinguish their progeny; namely, Raginhard, or firm judge. A
nobleman of this name was Count of the Palace, or Pfalzgraf, to Louis
de Debonnaire, and engaged in a conspiracy against him, with
395Bernard, king of Italy. They were made prisoners, and condemned;
the emperor commuted the sentence to the loss of their sight; but
his wife, who wanted Bernard’s inheritance, took care that so savage
a person was sent to perform the operation that they both died in
consequence.
| English. |
Scottish. |
Gaelic. |
Italian. |
| Reginald |
Ronald |
Raonmill |
Rinaldo |
| Reynold |
Ranald |
|
|
| Rex |
|
|
|
| Spanish. |
French. |
German. |
Polish. |
| Reynaldos |
Regnauld |
Reinwald |
Raynold |
| |
Renaud |
Reinald |
|
| |
Regnault |
|
|
| Esthonian. |
Lettish. |
Frisian. |
|
| Rein |
Reinis |
Reinold |
|
| Reino |
|
Rennold |
|
Another Reginard is said by Le Grand to have been a cunning
politician, who lived in Austrasia in the ninth century, and much
troubled his lord by sometimes taking part with the Germans, sometimes
with the French, by which means he became so much detested
that he was the subject of many songs in which he was called the
Little Fox. At any rate, in the great animal epic, the fox has taken
the name of Reinart, or Reinecke Fuchs, and as early as 1313, when
the sons of the wily Philippe le Bel were knighted, the edifying
spectacle was represented before them of the life of Renard the Fox,
who became successively physician, clerk, bishop, archbishop, and
pope, eating however hens and chickens all the while, much after the
fashion of their father’s unhappy tool at Avignon. Renard has thus
become the absolute name of the animal in France, to the entire
exclusion of the ancient golpe, and in England Reynard is his universal
epithet. It was not however confined to the creature, but was
once prevalent among the human kind.
| English. |
French. |
Provençal. |
Italian. |
| Reynard |
Regnard |
Rainart |
Rainardo |
| |
Renart |
|
|
| German. |
Frisian. |
Polish. |
Hungarian. |
| Raginhart |
Renert |
Raynard |
Reinhard |
| Reinhard |
Rinnert |
Raynard |
Reinhard |
| Reineke |
Rennart |
|
|
| Renke |
Rienit |
|
|
| Renz |
|
|
|
396Another old Frankish form is Raginmund, much in use in southern
France, where there was a long line of counts of Toulouse, called
Raymond, one of whom was celebrated by Tasso in the first Crusade
as a gallant knight, but the last of whom, Raymond Berenger, one of
the earliest examples of double names, went down before the sword
of the first Simon de Montford, as a supporter of the Albigenses.
The counts of Barcelona, in Spain, bore the like name, and the old
Romanesque territories are still its usual home.
| English. |
Provençal. |
Italian. |
German. |
| Raymond |
Raimons |
Raimondo |
Reinmund |
| French. |
Spanish. |
|
|
| Raimond |
Ramon |
|
|
Terrible to us, but glorious to Denmark, was the name of Ragnar.
Once we had it peacefully in East Anglia, as Raginhere, the warrior
of judgment, but in that same East Anglia it was to have a deadly
fame. The historical Ragnar seems to have been decorated with a
few mythical exploits of some more ancient hero, for he is one of the
dragon killers. His first wife, Thyra, had her bower encircled by a
deadly poisonous serpent, the ravager of the whole country, until he
won her hand by the slaughter of the serpent, having guarded himself
from its venom by a suit of hairy garments covered with pitch,
whence he obtained the soubriquet of Lodbrog. Afterwards he
married a poor but beautiful maiden called Krake, who, after she
had borne him four sons, disclosed that she was the last of the
Wolsungen, the daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild. Nay, Icelandic
families connect themselves through her with the heroes of Wurms!
And after this it is strange to find Jarl Ragnar sailing up the Seine,
and ravaging Paris, in the days of Charles the Bald, being in fact the
Agramante of the poets. Again he was the cause of bitter woe to
England, falling into the hands of King Ælle of Northumbria, and
being put to death by being thrown into a pit filled with vipers,
where, till his last breath, he chanted the grand death song that is
worthy to stand beside the dirge of King Eric Blödaxe. It was
revenge for his death that brought his fierce sons with that dire
armament which ravaged England—the invasion that was fatal to
Edmund of East Anglia, ruined the great abbeys of the fens, and
though finally mastered by Alfred, made the North of England
Danish. This name of dread was brought to Normandy by his kindred,
and figures in Domesday as Raynar, a frequent surname in
England. In France it was cut down to René, a name that crept
into the House of Anjou, and was bestowed on the prince—too much
of a troubadour and knight-errant for a king—who vainly tried on
so many crowns, and was hated in England because ‘Suffolk gave
two dukedoms for his daughter.’ Why the feminine of this name,
Renée, was chosen for the younger daughter of Louis XII., does not
397appear, but when she married into the House of Este, it was translated
into Renata, and the Italians, in their revived classicalism,
seem to have fancied it had some connection with regeneration.
Renira is the Dutch feminine form.
| English. |
French. |
Provençal. |
German. |
| Rayner |
Reignier |
Raynier |
Reiner |
| Rainer |
Renier |
Italian. |
Nor. |
| |
René |
Renato |
Ragnar |
| |
|
Ranieri |
|
Raginmar, great judgment, still exists in Germany, as Reinmar,
or Reimar, and is the most probable origin of the Ramiro, so
frequent among the early kings of the small struggling Pyrenean
realms.
Ragnhild, a favourite with old Norwegian dames, has become in
Lapp, Ranna.
The German contraction rein has been often translated into pure,
but this is an error, as these names can almost uniformly be traced
back to ragn.
The remaining forms are—
| German. |
English. |
|
|
Ragnfrid, M.
Ragnfrida, F. |
Renfred, M.
Ragnfrida, F. |
 |
Judgment of peace |
| |
|
|
|
| |
Nor. |
|
|
| |
Ragnfrid, F.
Ragnrid, F.
Randid, F.
Randi, F. |
 |
Fair judgment |
| |
|
|
|
| Ger. |
Prov. |
|
|
Raginbald
Reinbold
Renbold
Rembald |
Rambauld |
|
Prince of judgment |
| |
|
|
|
| Ger. Reginbrecht, Reinbert—Splendour of judgment |
| Nor. Ragenheid—Wise impulse |
| Ger. Reinger—Spear of judgment |
| Nor. Reginleif—Relic of judgment |
| |
|
|
|
| German. |
Frisian. |
|
|
Raginward
Reinward |
Remward
Renward
Remma |
|
Guardian of judgment |
And lastly Regina, called in Bavaria Reigl and Regl, was originally
398less the Latin queen than the feminine of ragn. Nor in effect is the
meaning far apart.[140]
Richard, or Richardet, was one of the Quatre Filz d'Aymon, who,
according to one version, was the person who gave the fatal blow with
the chess-board, instead of Renaud. He is not a very interesting
personage, being rather the attendant knight than the prime hero,
the rescued, not the rescuer; but under his Italian name of Ricciardetto,
he has a whole poem to himself, a mere scurrilous satire upon
friars, and was the lowest depth to which romantic poetry fell.
It was not to this Paladin that his name owed its frequency, but to
Ricehard, or stern king, an Anglo-Saxon monarch of Kent, who left
his throne to become a monk at Lucca, and was there said to have
wrought many miracles. The third Norman duke bore the name, and
transmitted it to two successors, whence we obtained as many as
twenty Richards at the Conquest, and have used it as a favourite
national name ever since. Two more saints bore it, the excellent
bishop of Chichester, and a hermit, who was made bishop of Andria,
in Apulia. Three times has it been on the throne, though finally
discarded by royalty after the enormities imputed to the last Plantagenet;
and latterly it has lost a little of its popularity, though it
has never been entirely disused.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Netherlands. |
| Richard |
Richard |
Riccardo |
Rijkert |
| Ritchie (Scot.) |
|
Ricciardo |
Riikard |
| Diccon |
Portuguese. |
Ricciardetto |
Riik |
| Dick |
Ricardo |
|
|
| |
Polish. |
|
|
| |
Ryszard |
|
|
The leading syllable is from the same source as ragn; it is he who
executes judgment, the ruler or king, the same word as the Indian
rajah, and the Latin rex. It was reiks in Gothic, rich in old German,
ryce in Anglo-Saxon; and its derivative reich was the origin of the
Neustria and Austrasia, the oster reich and ne oster reich, eastern and
not eastern, realms, of the Franks, and of the present Austria or
eastern kingdom. Reich is the home term for the German empire at
the present day. Our adjective rich is its sordid offspring, and in
France a wealthy peasant is un richart.
Rik is more in vogue as a Gothic and Frank commencement than
399among most of the other Teutons, though all use it as a conclusion.
Richard is its only universal name; but among the first foes of the
Romans, we find among the Suevi, Rechiarius, who is the same with
the German Richer, or kingly warrior, and the French saint, Riquier.
Ricimar, the name of the terrible Goth who for a short time held
Rome, is the great king, and was the maker and dethroner of the four
last Augusti; and his namesakes, Ricimer and Rechimiro, appear in
Spain, and may, perhaps, be the right source of Ramiro. Recared,
Richila, Riciburga, are also Gothic.
The Franks show Rigonthe, or royal war, a daughter of Fredegonda;
Rictrude, a saint, as well as Richilde, also a queenly name,
which continued for some time in use, and is better than the Richenza
and Richarda, sometimes used in England as the feminines of Richard.
Richolf endures in Friesland as Rycolf, Ryklof, or Rickel, and
Germany once had Ricbert.
One great name of this derivation is the northern Eirik. The first
syllable is that which we call aye to the present day, the word that
lies at the root of the Latin œvum, the German ewig, and our own
ever. Ei-rik is thus Ever King. An ancient Erik was said to have
been admitted among the gods, and Earic was the second name of
Æsc, the son of Henghist; but it was the northern people who really
used Eirik, which comes over and over in the line of succession of all
the Northern sovereignties, figures in their ballads, and, in the person
of King Eirik Blödaxe, is connected with their finest poetry. In the
present day it is scarcely less popular than in old times, and has the
feminine Eirika.
| English. |
French. |
German. |
Nor. |
Swedish. |
| EricEric |
Eric |
Erich |
Eirik |
Erik |
| Polish. |
Slovak. |
Lettish. |
Esth. |
Lapp. |
| Eryk |
Erih |
Erik |
Erik |
Keira |
| |
Areh |
|
Eers |
|
Two other names of the North have the same commencement,
Eimund, ever protecting, or eternal guard, commonly called Emund,
and Eilif, the ever-living, answering to the Greek Ambrosios. Eilif
is also written Eiliv, Elliv, Ellef, and even Elof, and Latinized in
Elavus.[141]
Astolfo is to the Paladins what Conan is to the Feen, the butt or
grazioso. In his full-blown perfection he is first cousin to Orlando,
being the son of Milone’s brother Ottone, and was also related to
Rinaldo, according to the quaint genealogies of the chivalrous heroes
that exact heraldry loved to draw up. He joined the four sons of
400Aymon, when they left the court after the quarrel at chess, and
shared in their wild exploits; but apparently permitted no meaner
interlopers in the trade, for when he caught a party of robbers, he
insisted on some unfortunate hermits being their executioners, declaring
such an office was quite as pleasing to Heaven, ‘che dire il Pater
nostro,’ and finally pummelling them into compliance. In Bojardo,
Astolfo gained possession of a magic lance, brought by Angelica from
Catay, which unhorsed all its antagonists, and secure in its aid,
refused when he was required to deliver up to Gradasso, Bajardo and
Durindana, which had been left in his charge while their masters
were wandering after Angelica, but challenged Gradasso to single
combat, defeated him, and then went in search of his cousins. Ariosto
conducts him into the enchanted palace, where every one was pursuing
something lost; Rinaldo, his horse, Bradamante, Ruggero, Ruggero,
Bradamante.
One blast of Astolfo’s horn, also magical, destroyed the enchantment,
and he became possessed for the time of the Hippogriff, upon
whom he soared to the terrestrial paradise, and was conducted by St.
John to the moon, where he obtained possession of Orlando’s senses,
and restored them to him. The later writers, who added to the
burlesque element and diminished the chivalrous, made more and
more of Astolfo’s boastfulness, till he is quite the buffoon of their
poems. He was finally killed at Roncesvalles; and the Spaniards
call him Don Estolfo.
The person killed at the same time as Rotlandus is called, by
Eginhard, Anselmus, and he, no doubt, contributed in the idea of the
Astolfus, Count of Champagne, whose burial after the battle is recorded
by Archbishop Turpin. But the real bearer of the name of
Astolfo was one of the enemies of the Karlings, namely, Astolfo, king
of the Lombards, who held his court at Pavia, and whose encroachments
on the Roman territory were the first cause of the interference
of the Franks in Italy. He was besieged by Pepin at Pavia in 755,
and forced to come to terms; but he was evidently a very considerable
sovereign; and Ernesto, Marchese d'Este, was killed in battle with
him in 745. His promotion to be a Paladin is accounted for by his
having been a Christian, and the character he bears, by the possibility
of there having been satirical songs and poems upon him, especially
at the time when Charlemagne ill-treated his granddaughter, Desirata.
Astolfo is still a current name in Lombardy, though we do not find
it anywhere else, and its congeners only in Scandinavia.
The meaning of the last syllable is, of course, wolf; the first is
aast or ast, love or wishes, or if the sense of hot impetuosity be
allowed, Astolf is the swift wolf. Aasta was rather a favourite name
with the maidens of the North, and Asta is not disused, though too
often treated as the short for Augusta.
Astridur is from hridhur, an impulse, and thus would mean swift
impulse, or the impulse of love. It was greatly used by the royal
ladies of the North, among whom may be specified the mother of St.
Olaf, and a daughter of Knut, called by Danish pronunciation,
Estridh, but transmuted into Margaret.
401The diminutive of Ast, under various mispronunciations, named
that most terrible of vikings, Hasting, whose ravages, though kept
from England by the policy originated by Alfred, were fearful all
along the French coast, and even extended to Italy. It is he who is
said to have many times submitted to baptism, and then returned to
his fury again; and there is a curious report, that Rollo’s Normans
found him settled in France, and reproached him with the tameness
of his old age, so that he dashed away again, and returned to his ships
and his piracy. Hastinc occurs in Domesday, and Warren Hastings'
family claimed descent from the old Sea King.[142]
One of the Paladins was, undoubtedly, the legacy of a much more
ancient myth, namely, Ogier le Danois. He does not play a very
prominent part in the poems of the Italians, but as Ogier the Dacian
he is one of Turpin’s catalogue of knights, and a ballad especially
dear to Don Quixote thus commences:—
‘De Mantua sale el Marques,
Danes Urgel el leal.’
It proceeds to tell how he found Valdovinos, his nephew, dying under
a tree, having been assassinated by the emperor’s son, Carloto. The
ballad further relates how the Marques proceeds to court, gets Carloto
tried by his peers and doomed to death, and though el Rey Carlo
banishes them all for uttering the condemnation, the sentence is
carried out.
This Italian marquis is an exceedingly droll development of the old
Teutonic hero, Holger Danske. In Italy he is Oggieri, Oggero, or
Uggieri il Danese; in French, Ogier le Danois; and, at times, le
damné, or il dannato, which title is further accounted for by the story
that he was a Saracen who became a Christian, and that his friends
wrote from home ‘tu es damné,’ whence he chose to be thus christened.
In the Reali de Francia, Charlemagne cuts off, with his own hand, the
head of an unfortunate Oldrigi, whose blood was too noble to be shed
by any one else. Now this Oggier was without doubt a contribution
from the stores of Norman tradition; for Holger, or Olger, Danske is
the grandest national hero of Denmark. There is a ballad, given by
Weber, where he and Tidrek the Strong have a tremendous battle,
and he comes off victor. Moreover, he has eaten of the fruit of the
trees of the sun and moon, and has become immortal, and there he
sits with his fellows in the vaults of the Castle of Kronberg, near
which are two ponds, called his spectacles. A peasant, with a plough-share
on his shoulders, once lost his way, and wandered in; he found
a circle of tall old men in armour, all asleep round a stone table, with
their heads resting on their crossed arms. Holger Danske, who sat
at the head of the table, raised his head and the stone broke asunder,
402for his beard had grown into the stone. He asked his guest some
questions about the upper world and dismissed him, offering his hand.
The peasant, dreading the gigantic grip of the old champion, gave his
ploughshare. ‘Ha! ha!’ said Holger, as he felt its firmness, ‘it is
well. There are still men in Denmark. Tell them that we shall
come back when there are no more men left than can stand round
one tun!’ But the ploughshare had been twisted round by his
fingers. Can this return of Holger be the Roger Bon Temps of the
French peasantry?
But Holger, though I have placed him among the Paladins, might
have gone even farther back than the days of Dietrich. He is a
mythical king, well nigh a god, originally called Haaloge, and owing,
as his sacred island, Haalogaland, or Heligoland.
His name itself is holy, our very word holy—the halig of the Anglo-Saxons,
the hellig of the North, the heilig of Germany, and these
words sprang from those denoting health; as the Latin salve, hail,
salvus, safe, and salvatio, safety, are all related to soundness.
Leaving this, as not belonging to our main subject, we find that
Helgi, the Norse form of the word for this holy old mythic king, was
exceedingly popular in the North. Helgi has a poem to himself in
the elder Edda. A son of Burnt Njal was called Helgi, and forty-two
cases are found of the name in the Landnama-bok, and thirty-four
of its feminine, Helga. In Domesday there are five called Helgi,
besides fourteen Algars, very possibly meant for Holger; and it may
be suspected that the Helie of the early Norman barons may have
been as much due to the Helgi of their forefathers as to the prophet
whom they learnt to know on Mount Carmel. Perhaps, too, Helga was
the source of Ala, or Ela, by which name a good many Norman ladies
are recorded, the best known of whom was Ela, heiress of Salisbury,
the wife of one William Longsword and mother of the other, one of
the founders of Salisbury Cathedral, and the witness of a vision of
her son’s death in Egypt.
Helgi’s descendants towards the East are far more certain matters.
Helgi, called Oleg by the Russian historians, was the son of Rurik,
the first Norman grand prince of Kief, and his daughter, Olga, visited
Constantinople, and was there baptized by the name of Helena, which
makes the Russians suppose her two names to translate one another;
but they have fortunately not discarded either Oleg or Olga, which
thus remain mementoes of the northern dynasty among the very
scanty number of Russian names that are neither Greek nor Slavonic.
In its own country Helgi gets contracted into Helle, and Helga
into Hæge.[143]
With the throne of the Franks, the Karlingen took their favourite
prefix of the old Salic line, hlod.
This word, the same in root as the Sanscrit çru, Greek κλύω (kluo),
Latin cluo, Anglo-Saxon hlowan, may possibly have been originated
403by the cow, to whose voice, in our own language, the verb to low is
now restricted. All mean to make a noise; and the dignity of that
noise increased, for κλυτός (klutos) was Greek for renowned, κλέος,
fame, as we saw when dealing with Cleomenes, Cleopatra, &c.; and
in Latin, clueo, was to be famous, clientes or callers beset the honoured
man, and laus was praise or fame; and so not only have we loud in
English, lyde in the North, for the ordinary adjective, but hlod or
hlud was the old German term for renown, and los for which French
knights afterwards fought and bled, and a score of other words, less
relevant to our purpose, will easily suggest themselves as current in
every European tongue, first cousin words from laus or from hlod.
The rough aspirate at the beginning was once an essential portion
of the word, and among the Franks it must have been especially
harsh, since their contemporary Latinists always render it by ch.
Chlodio, as they call him, is numbered as the second of the long-haired
Salians, the father of ‘Meroveus,’ and leader of the incursions
of the Franks about 428. His grandson married the Burgundian
maiden, called by the Valkyr title of Hlodhild, or Chlodechilda, as
the Latin civilization of her day called her, when it hailed her with
delight as the converter of her husband to Christianity. Although
canonized, her name was not in great use for a good many generations,
and to this she probably owes it that, when it was revived as belonging
to a royal saint, for the benefit of the daughter of the good dauphin,
son of Louis XV., it had not been shorn of its aspirate like all the
cognate ones. It has since become a favourite with French ladies.
| French. |
Italian. |
German. |
| Clotilde |
Clotilda |
Klothilde |
The husband of Clotilda was known to his own fierce Franks as
Hluodowig, or famous war, or consecration; but when his success
after his prayer to the God of Hluodhild had brought him to abjure
his Teuton gods, and receive baptism from St. Remi, the pope
accepted the only orthodox sovereign of Europe as most Christian
king and eldest son of the Church by the appellation of Chlodovisus,
or Clovis, the retranslation into French.
Among his successors was found many a fainéant who had nothing
of him but his prefix and his long hair, and one who is counted as
Clovis II. When these had passed away, Charles the Great gave the
name of the great founder of the former line to one of his younger
sons, the only one who lived to succeed him.
What Hlodwig Haman’s War was called in his own day may be seen
by the curious barbaric Latin poem sung by his soldiers in honour of
their exploit in setting him at liberty, when he had been treacherously
made prisoner by Adelgis, Duke of Beneventum, a song that shows
Latin in its first step towards the tongues of southern Europe.
‘Audite omnes fines terre errore cum tristitia,
Quale scelas fuit factum in civitas Beneventum
Lluduicum comprenderunt, sancto pio Augusto.’
404‘Lluduicus’ is now known to the French as Louis le Debonnaire,
a title that some ascribe to his piety, others to his weakness. The
Germans took him as Ludwig, and thenceforth these two varieties
held a double course, while the softer Provençals made him Aloys,
which is now regarded, owing to a saint of its own, as a separate name.
Three monarchs of the Karling line bore this favourite name, and
the fifth descendant of Hugh Capet brought it in again, to come to its
especial honour with the saintly Crusader, ninth king so called, from
whom it became so essentially connected with French royalty, that
after the succession of the Bourbons, no member of the royal family
was christened without it. Indeed, hardly any one of rank or birth
failed to have it among their many names, till its once-beloved sound
became a peril to the owners' heads in the Revolution, and it has in
the present day arrived at sharing the unpopularity of François.
Elsewhere it is chiefly a French importation; the Welsh use Lewis
as an Anglicism of Llewellyn, and the Irish of Lachtna; and the
Scots make rather more use of it from their old alliances and connection
through the Scottish guard. The Scottish Lodowick is
probably taken from the northern form of the original word; just as
with the Italians, Luigi is the mere Italian version of Louis, Lodovico
the inheritance from the Lombards or Germans, and in this shape was
long current in northern Italy, belonging in particular to the unfortunate
Sforza, of Milan, who perished in the first shock between
France and Italy.
| English. |
Breton. |
Scottish. |
French. |
| Ludovick |
Loiz |
Lodowick |
Clovis |
| Lewis |
Loizik |
|
Louis |
| Louis |
|
|
Looys |
| Provençal. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
| Aloys |
Lodovico |
Clodoveo |
Luiz |
| Chlodobeu |
Luigi |
Luis |
|
| Lozoic |
Aloïsio |
|
|
| German. |
Swiss. |
Swedish. |
Dutch. |
| Ludwig |
Ludi |
Ludwig |
Lodewick |
| Luz |
Bavarian. |
|
Lood |
| Lotze |
Wickl |
|
|
| Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Slovak. |
Hungarian. |
| Ludvik |
Ludvik |
Ludvick |
Lajos |
| Ludvis |
|
Ljudevit |
|
The Provençal Aloys apparently was the first shape that threw out
a feminine, the Aloyse or Heloïse, whose correspondence with Abelard
405was the theme of so much sentiment, and whose fame, brought by the
archers to Scotland, no doubt was the origin of the numerous specimens
of Alison found in that romantic nation. According to Dugdale, the
wife of the Norman William Mallet was Hesilia or Helewise, no doubt
the same as Heloïse. Heloïse had nearly died away in France when
Rousseau’s romance of La Nouvelle Heloïse brought it as well as Julie
into fashion again.
The votaresses of St. Louis had, however, chosen to come much
nearer to his name, and by the end of the fifteenth century Louise
was in great vogue at the French court; it travelled everywhere with
French princesses, came to us with the House of Hanover, and has
now a thorough hold of all ranks.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
| Louisa |
Louise |
Luisa |
Luisa |
| Louie |
Lisette |
Eloïsa |
Portuguese. |
| Scotch. |
Loulou |
|
Luiza |
| Leot |
Heloise |
|
Luizinha |
| Alison |
Louison |
|
|
| Alison |
|
|
|
| German. |
Swedish. |
Polish. |
Lettish. |
| Ludowicke |
Ludovica |
Ludvika |
Lusche |
| Luise |
Lovisa |
Ludoisia |
Lasche |
| |
Lova |
Lodoiska |
|
The eldest son of the great Clovis was Hlodmir, or Clodomir, great
fame, made more euphonious in German as Ludomir, and furnishing
such surnames as Luttmer and Lummers.
All his sons were murdered by their uncles, except one, who was
shorn of his long locks to save his life, and was put into a convent,
where he became a holy man, was canonized, and his harsh name
of Hlodowald, or Clodvald, became the pleasant one of St. Cloud, best
known for the sake of the palace near Paris. Another St. Chlodvald,
of Metz, is commonly called St. Clou.
One of the uncles who killed the poor boys was Hlodhari, or
Chlotachari, famous warrior, a terrible savage, but the last survivor of
the brothers, and counted in the Frank history as Chlother, or
Clotaire. Others of his race likewise were so baptized, and when the
name passed to the Karlingen it was as Lothar. So was called the
son of Louis le Debonnaire, whose portion, known at first as
Lotharingen, came to be in Latin Lotharingia, and still remains
Lorraine. Lothar did not pass away from Germany; one emperor,
after the separation, was so called; and it fell into many forms of
surnames, in especial into Luther; and when Martin Luther had
rendered this almost saintly to his countrymen, they over-hastily
explained it by lother, pure; while the Bohemians found a similar
406word in their own tongue, meaning a swan. Oddly enough, Huss
signified a goose, and the saying arose that the Bohemian goose had
let fall a quill, which had been picked up by a swan of far more
distant flight.
Luther has a few namesakes in his own country on his own account,
but, in general, Chloter has died out of Christian nomenclature.
| English. |
French. |
German. |
Spanish. |
| Lothario |
Clotaire |
Lothar |
Clotario |
| Lowther |
Lothaire |
Luther |
Lettish. |
| |
|
Italian. |
Lutters |
| |
|
Lotario |
|
Chlodoswintha, or famous height, was a Frank princess, without
namesakes beyond her own race; in fact, the use of this prefix seems
to have been exclusively Frank.[144]
407
The names connected with any great cycle of interest have been
nearly exhausted, and only those remain that seem to have been
chosen more for sense than connection, though afterwards continued
for the sake of their owners. Several of our own truly English or
Anglo-Saxon names are among these, and in especial those with the
prefix meaning noble, Æthel, Athel, Adel, Edel, or in High German,
Adal. It is thought to come from the universal word atta, a father,
and thus to convey that the owner has forefathers, the essence of
nobility, as with the pater and patrician of Rome, and the hidalgo,
the son of something, of Spain. Adel, or Æthel, is a favourite prefix
in all the Teutonic branches except the Scandinavian, where it does
not occur at all. It is essentially Gothic,—witness Athalaric, the
formidable but gentle conqueror of Rome, who well deserved his
name of Noble-King. He is generally, however, called Alaric, and
his name has been deduced from al, all; but the right reading seems
to be that which identifiesidentifies his appellation with our own English
Æthelric, and the Uadalrich of Germany.
Udalrich, archbishop of Augsburg till the year 973, is notable as
the first person canonized by the pope according to the present forms,
which could not, however, have included the half-century of
posthumous probation, as he was placed in the calendar only twenty
years after his death. Contracting his name to Ulrich, Germany
made him a favourite national saint; and we find him and his
feminine spread throughout the countries influenced by the empire,
and the feminine particularly prevalent in Denmark, whither it was
carried by German queens. Though the ensuing table places all the
forms of Athalaric together, it should be kept in mind that the forms
beginning with A are the modern namesakes of the great Goth, those
with U and O the votaries of that saint, and Adelrich is considered as
a different name from Ulrich.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
German. |
| Æthelric |
Alaric |
Alarico |
Adelrich |
| Alaric |
Ulric |
Ulrico |
Alarich |
| Ulrick |
Olery |
|
Uadalrich |
| |
|
|
Ulrich |
| |
|
|
Alerk |
| |
|
|
Oelric |
| Bavarian. |
Swedish. |
Frisian. |
Swiss. |
| Rickel |
Alarik |
Ulrik |
Uoli |
| |
Ulrik |
Olrick |
Ueli |
| |
|
Ulerk |
Uerech |
| |
|
Ulk |
|
| |
|
Ucko |
|
| |
|
Ocko |
|
| Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Slovak. |
Lettish. |
| Ulryk |
Ulric |
Ureh |
Uldriks |
| |
Oldrich |
Ulrih |
|
| FEMININE. |
| German. |
French. |
Roman. |
Polish. |
| Ulrike |
Ulrique |
Ulrica |
Ulryka |
The successor of Alaric, who laid him in his river-grave, is known
to us as Ataulfus. In his own time he was Athaulf, the Noble-Wolf,
and his likeness stands in our own roll of English kings as the father
of Alfred, namely, Æthelwulf; but this good old name was dropped
in England, while its German cousin, in honour of a sainted bishop
of Metz, of the ninth century, became very common in the principalities
of the empire, and was imported with the house of Hanover in
408the barbarous Latin form of Adolphus. Its feminine, coined in
Germany, is Adolfine, usually called Dofine, and now extremely
common. This may possibly be the source of the Dolphine given
as the name of one of the daughters of Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria,
as the habit of making barbarous feminines was just beginning in her
time.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
German |
Finn. |
| Ethelwolf |
Adolphe |
Adolfo |
Adolf |
Ato |
| Adolphus |
|
Udolfo |
Odulf |
Atu |
| Dolph |
|
|
|
|
Athanagild, or Athalagild, Noble Pledge, was another of these early
Goths, and afterwards we meet the same meaning in Adelgis, or
Adelchis, the brave son of the last Lombardic king, whose noble
spirit, under his misfortunes, is the subject of a fine tragedy of
Manzoni. The duke of Beneventum, who made Louis le Debonnaire
prisoner, was Adelgis; but it is curious to find the soldiers in
the dog-latin poem above alluded to, terming him Adalfieri. Odelgis
was old High German.
Æthel was so much used by the royal families of Kent and Wessex,
409that the diminutive, Ætheling, was latterly applied to designate the
heir to the crown, and was thus continued even after the Conquest
to the son of Henry I., who perished in the white ship.
Æthelbryht, or Noble Splendour, named our first Christian king
of Kent, also a brother of King Alfred’s, and a missionary of the
royal blood of Northumbria, who preached in southern Germany,
and died about the year 700, at Egmond, where, as St. Adelbrecht, he
became patron. His name was taken at baptism by one who became
archbishop of Magdeburg, who, in his turn, bestowed it on his pupil,
the Bohemian Woyteich, Army-Help. This convert was afterwards
bishop of Prague, and was martyred near Dantzic while preaching
to the heathen Prussians in 997. Adelbrecht could not fail to
become national wherever the saint had set his foot; and when
shortened to Albrecht, was adopted by Italy, and thence sent to
Jerusalem with a Latin patriarch, who, being beatified, rendered
Alberto freshly popular in the South. Albrecht, and the feminines
Alberta and Albertine, were, however, almost entirely German, until
the late Prince Consort brought the name to England, where it bids
fair to become one of the most frequent of national names. Some
fancy it comes from Allbright; but the German saints, whence it was
taken, are evidently direct from our English Æthelbryht, though in
Germany Adelbert and Albrecht are now treated as two separate
names. Bela, which belonged to an excellent blind king of Hungary,
is believed to be the Magyar form of the name.
| English. |
French. |
Provençal. |
Italian. |
| Ethelbert |
Albert |
Azalbert |
Albert |
| Albert |
Aubert |
|
Albertino |
| |
Albret |
|
|
| |
Aubertin |
|
|
| German. |
Wallachian. |
Finn. |
Danish. |
| Adalbert |
Averkie |
|
Albert |
| Albrecht |
Polish. |
Alpu |
Bertel |
| Ulbricht |
Albert |
|
|
| |
Olbracht |
|
|
Æthelred, Noble-speech or counsel, the brother of Alfred, was
almost canonized by his subjects, and is sometimes called Ethered,
whence the Scottish Ethert. The nickname of our last Ethelred was
a play on his name “onreade,” not meaning so much tardy as without
counsel—Noble-rede the Un-reedy. Ethelred must not be confused
with Etheldred, the feminine name, properly Æthelthryth, meaning
in Anglo-Saxon the Noble-threatener, connected with the German
Ediltrud, or noble maiden. Most likely names ending in trut had
been brought to England, and as the Valkyr sense was forgotten, the
native meaning of threat was attached to the word, and the spelling
410adapted to it. St. Æthelthryth was a queen who must have been a
very uncomfortable wife, and who, finally, retired into a monastery,
getting canonized as St. Etheldreda, and revered as St. Audry. From
the gewgaws sold at her fairs some derive the term tawdry; and, at
any rate, Awdry has never been extinct as a name among the peasantry,
and has of late been revived, though with less popularity than
the other more modern contraction, Ethel, which is sometimes in
modern times set to stand alone as an independent name. Addy is
the common Devonian short for Audrey.
Germans do, however, seem to have used the word without another
syllable, for Adilo, or Odilo, was an old name, and Ado and Addo
are still current in Friesland, no doubt, the same as the Ade of the
Cambrian registers. Adela and Adèle, too, occur very early; indeed,
there is reason to think that just as in England the son was the
Ætheling, in Frankland the daughter was the Adalheit, or the
Adelchen. This word heit is translated as the root of the present
German heiter, cheerful, and thus would mean noble cheer; but I
suspect it is rather heid, condition, answering to the hood or head
at the end of our abstract nouns, e. g. hardihood, and that the princess
royal of each little Frankish duchy or county was thus the ‘Nobleness’
thereof.
All the feudal princes of the tenth and eleventh centuries seem to
have had an Adelheid to offer in marriage, and to have Latinized her
in all manner of ways, while practically they called her Alix (or
Alisa in Lombardy), a name that was naturalized in England, when
Alix la Belle married Henry I. Alice is our true English form,
though it has been twisted into Alicia, and then referred for derivation
to the Greek Alexios, so as often to appear in Latin documents
of the later middle ages in the form of Alexia; whereas in earlier
times, before its origin was forgotten, it is translated by Adelicia,
Adelisa, or Adelidis.
| English. |
French. |
Provençal. |
Italian. |
| Adelaide |
Adelaide |
Azalaïs |
Adelaïda |
| Adeline |
Adeline |
|
Alisa |
| Adeliza |
Adelais |
|
|
| Adela |
Adèle |
|
|
| Alice |
Alix |
|
|
| Alicia |
Aline |
|
|
| Elsie |
|
|
|
| German. |
Netherlands. |
Slovak. |
Lettish. |
| Adelheid |
Adelheid |
Adelajda |
Audule |
| Adeline |
Adelais |
|
Addala |
| Adele |
|
|
|
| Else |
|
|
|
| Ilse |
|
|
|
The French made great use of all the forms of the name; the
411Germans, in honour, perhaps, of the Italian Queen Adelaide—whose
adventures before her marriage with the Emperor Otho were so
curious—preferred that variety, and from them we received it again
with our good Queen Adelaide, from whom it is becoming frequent
amongst us. The German Alice is Else, a favourite old peasant word.
This same contraction is common in northern England, but gets confused
with Elizabeth, as in Scotland, with Alison; and in Ireland,
the prevalent Alicia is, perhaps, meant for Aileen, or Helen.
The Adeleve of early Norman times is probably meant for Æthelgifu,
Noble-gift, a frequent Saxon lady’s name, which we generally
call Ethelgiva.
Æthelwold, the Saxon historian of royal blood, is Noble-power.
Æthelheard, or noble resolution, answers to Adelhard, a cousin of
Charlemagne, and abbot of Corbie, whom his contemporaries glorified
as at once the Augustin, the Antony, and the Jeremiah of his day,
and who, being canonized, left Alard and Alert to Friesland, and
Aleardo, Alearda to Provence.
Æthelstan, the Noble-stone or jewel, was second only to Alfred in
ability and glory, and his name lived on to the Conquest, when it is
set down as Adestan and Adstan.
Adelhelm, the Noble-helmet, named the excellent and poetical
Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborn, from whom the headland on the Dorset
coast was once called St. Aldhelm’s head, but is now corrupted into
St. Alban’s head.
Adelgar, or Noble-spear, was chiefly continental, first figuring in
the beautiful Scottish ballad of Sir Aldingar, but better known in
Lombardy, where Allighero sprang from it, and gave his patronymic
to Dante Alighieri. Algarotti was another Italian derivative; and
in France, Augier and Augereau; in Germany, Oehlkar, show that it
once must have been much in use. It is not always easy, however,
to separate between the words from Adel and from Hilda. The
remaining varieties are—
| Ger. Adelar—Noble eagle |
span |
| Ger. Adelbar, Alpero—Noble bear |
| Ger. Adelbold; Eng. Æthelbald—Noble prince |
| |
|
|
|
| |
Ger. Odelburga
Eng. Æthelburg |
|
Noble defence |
| |
|
|
|
| Eng. Æthelburh—Noble pledge |
| |
|
|
|
| |
German. |
|
|
| |
Adelfrid
Adalfrid
Ulfrid
Ulfert
Olfert |
 |
Noble peace |
| |
| Eng. Æthelfledh—Noble increase |
| Ger. Adelgard—Noble protection |
| Ger. Adelgund; Fr. Adelgonde—Noble war |
| Ger. Adelhild—Noble heroine |
| Ger. Udalland, Uland—Noble land |
| Ger. Adelinde, Odelind; Eng. Ethelind (mod.)—Noble snake |
| Ger. Adelmann, Ullman—Noble man |
| Ger. Adelmund; Eng. Edelmund (Domes.)—Noble protection |
| Ger. Adelmar; Eng. Ethelmar; Fr. Ademar, Adhemar—Noble greatness |
| Ger. Adelschalk—Noble servant |
| |
|
|
|
| Ger. Adelswind—Noble strength |
| Ger. Adeltac—Noble day[145] |
The Gothic bidyan has resulted in our verb to bid, the German
baten, the Danish byde, besides bote, a messenger, and the budstick,
bidding-stick, or summons to the muster.
All these were in the sense of command; but from the same root
grew the race of entreating words, the Scandinavian bede, German
bitten, and English beg. When these entreaties were devotional, the
Germans made the verb beten, and our term for prayer, bede, passed
on to the mechanical appliance for counting beads—the beads of the
rosary, while the pensioner bound to pray for his benefactor was his
bedesman.
It is doubtful whether this, or the Welsh bedaws, life, gave his
name to the Venerable Bæda, but no doubt to himself and his contemporaries
it suggested the idea of prayer. There is no doubt, however,
in the case of Baudhildur, or Bathilda (the commanding
heroine), the daughter of king Nidudr, the lady whom Volundr
carried off with him when he fled from her mother’s cruelty. After
her was called Bathilda, an Anglo-Saxon slave, who was elevated to
be the wife of the second Hluodwig, and lived so holy a life, and
exerted herself so much to obtain the redemption of slaves, that she
was canonized, and, as la reine Bathilde, was greatly venerated in the
believing days of France. Denmark also used this name, having
probably taken it from England. There ‘Dronning Bothild,’ the
wife of king Ejegod, spread the name among the maidens, so that it
passed to Norway as Bodild, Bodil, and even to the contraction Boel.
Of English birth, too, was the Commanding-wolf—Bedvuolf, or
Bodvulf—who, with his brother, St. Adolf, went, about the end of
the sixth century, to seek religious instruction in Gallia-Belgica.
Adolf became bishop of Maestricht, and eponym to the Adolphuses.
Bodvulf came home, and founded the monastery of Ikano, where he
died in 655, and was canonized. The monastery was destroyed by
the Danes, and the situation forgotten, but the saint’s relics were
carried away by the fugitive monks, and dispersed into various
quarters, giving title to four churches in London, besides St. Botolf’s
412bridge, commonly called Bottlebridge, in Huntingdonshire, and St.
Botolf’s town, in Lincolnshire, usually known as Boston, whence was
called its American cousin Boston, with little relation to the saint.
The tower of the church of St. Botolf, looking forth over the Wash,
was a valued landmark, and thence the saint was apparently viewed
as a friend of travellers, and connected with the entrances to cities,
much as St. Christopher is elsewhere. Camden even supposed him
to be Boathulf, or boat helper, and his day, the 17th June, is a market
day in Christiania, under the term of Botolsok, or Botsok. In Jutland
there is a church of St. Botolv; and in the North the names of
Botol and Bottel are kept up; while, in England, there only remain
to us the surnames of Bottle and Biddulph. The Old German forms
of the two names above-mentioned are Botzhild, Botzulf; and Botzo,
or Boso, a Commander, was now and then used as a name with them,
as in the instance of the troublesome duke of Burgundy, whom
French historians generally call Boson, and who is apt to be translated
by böse, wicked.
Boto, Botho, Poto, are also found in Germany, and the very earliest
specimen of this class of name is to be found in Botheric, commanding
king, the name of the governor whose murder in the hippodrome
caused Theodosius to give his bitterly repented command for the
massacre of Thessalonica. Now and then bot occurs at the end of a
word, as in the Spanish prince Sisebuto, the messenger of victory, or
victorious commander.
These are not the same with some that look much like them,
derived from the Northern bød, German badu, A.G.S. beado, war.
Beadwig, in the Wodenic ancestry, is thus battle war, and the Gothic
king of Italy, Totila, is probably made by the Romans from Bødvhar,
battle pleader, a name still used in the North as Bødvar. Bødmod,
Bødulf, and Bødhild, or Bødvild, have also been in use.[146]
The root brâj furnished the Greek φλέγεεν, Latin flagrare, and
Gothic bairht, the Anglo-Saxon beohrt, or byrht, the Old German
percht, and Northern bjart.
It is a component of Frank, German, and Anglo-Saxon nomenclature,
but is rarely found in genuine Norsk; the only instance in the
Landnama-bok is Biartmar, who is noted as of Irish birth, so may
have brought an Anglo-Saxon name.
Bertha, the most obvious of all the progeny of biart, has been
treated of in her character as a personification of the bright Epiphany
night, mixed up with an old epithet of Frigga and with the spinning
Holda. So, in Swabia, these legends have formed a masculine,
Berchthold, who has become the wild huntsman in that quarter.
Berchtvold was really an English prince of the Heptarchy, and
413Brichtold is in Domesday. Perahtholt is a veritable Old German
name, making the modern Bartold—Niebuhr’s name,—the Italian
Bertaldo, and French Bertould. Bertalda is not so likely to be the
feminine of this word as to come from Berchthilda, like the name of
Bertille, a sainted abbess of Chelles.
It is not easy to discover whether the most popular of all thus
commencing should be regarded as a single corrupted name, or the
produce of two, of which one has the second syllable hramn, a raven,
the other rand, a house. The patron saint of all alike is Bertichramnus,
bishop of Mans till 623, and his Latinism leaves no doubt
that he was Bright-raven. It was chiefly popular in France, whence
we must have obtained it, although there is no instance of it in
Domesday, and it was especially glorious in the fourteenth century,
for the sake of gallant Constable du Guesclin, ‘the eagle of
Brittany,’ whom Spanish chroniclers, by a droll perversion of his
appellation, called ‘Mosen Beltran Claquin,’ when he came to fight
their battles.
| English. |
Scotch. |
French. |
Provençal. |
Italian. |
| Bertram |
Barthram |
Bertrand |
Bertran |
Bertrando |
| Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
German. |
Lusatian. |
Hungarian. |
| Beltran |
Bertrao |
Bertram |
Batram |
Bertok |
| |
|
Berdrand |
Batramusch |
|
The wolf was sure to accompany the raven; so Perahtolf, or
Bertulf, was canonized as an abbot in Artois, and left the German
Bertulf, and our own Bardolph, the flaming comrade of Falstaff.
Bertwine, or Bright friend, was the St. Bertin of France, and the
Bertuccio of Italy, often found in the old Lombardic towns.
Brihtric was the English earl who so gallantly died in defending
England from the Danes in the unhappy days of Ethelred the
Unready, and another Brihtric was the unsuccessful suitor of Matilda
of Flanders, on whom she wreaked an unworthy vengeance after the
Conquest. All the Brihts in Domesday seem to be of Saxon birth,
since they use the English instead of the Norman French commencement,
which was already Ber, as in the instance of Bertrade de
Montfort, Bright speech, the countess of Anjou, who deserted her
husband for Philippe I. of France. The remaining forms are—
| Ger. Bertar; Fr. Berthier—Bright warrior |
| Eng. |
 |
Brichteva—Bright gift
Bricfrid—Bright peace
Brichtmar—Bright fame
Brichsteg—Bright warrior
Britfleda—Bright increase
Brichstan—Bright stone
Bricsteg—Bright maid |
| Ger. Bertrud—Bright maid |
414Bert is one of the most indispensable conclusions among all the
German range of names, and is far more common there than as a
commencement.
Another word meaning bright, or glittering, is the Northern jar, jor,
jer, the German ir. Iring, or Irinc, is a semi-mythological person. Old
German tradition declared him to have been the counsellor of Irnvrit
of Thuringia, and that when both had been taken by the Franks, he
was deceived into slaying his sovereign, after which, in his rage, he
killed the victorious Frank, laid him under his master’s body, and
then cut his way through the enemy, and returned home.
He appears again in the Nibelungen-noth as the Markgraf Irinch of
Tenemarche, or Denmark, in company with Irnvrit of Düringen, i.e.
Thuringia: he wounds Hagen, but is slain by him, and lamented
over by Kriemhild. His name was sometimes subsequently used, and
is, perhaps, what French histories call Harenc.
Jørund is a northern name with a similar prefix, and means a
brilliant or glittering man; but it gets called Jøren, and mixed up
with Jorgen, or George.[147]
In Ulfilas' Bible, ‘the multitude of the heavenly host’ is translated
‘Haryis hunniakundis managei.’ In Anglo-Saxon, an army is here,
in old German heri, in the North her, all perhaps coming from the
ear, and to hear, as having been summoned, like the legion from
being chosen. Thence the leader was the English Heretoga, and
German Herzog, finally translated into the Latin dux, and becoming
political and territorial. The doings of the herr were expressed by
various old words, of which the Scottish to harry is the direct
descendant. Heerfurst, or army leader, may be the Ariovistus of
Cæsar.
The single warrior was har in the North, hari in Germany, and as
ar is often found at the end of names. Many German critics translate
the word by the army, instead of the warrior; but Professor
Munch considers that the warrior, hari, was the original meaning,
and that herjar, his plural, afterwards came to mean the army.
The oldest and most famous of all the family is introduced to us by
Tacitus as Chariovalda, a Batavian prince. It is the hardened sound
of Harivald, Warrior power, or ‘Army wielder,’ a name that the
Germans soon called Heriold, and the North Harald. This soon
became one of the most renowned northern names. Harald Harfagre,
or the fair-haired, was he who vowed never to trim his locks till he
was sole king of Norway, and thus sent Thorer the Silent to Iceland,
and Rolf-ganger to Normandy. Harald Krake, king of Sleswig, was
baptized in the presence of Louis le Debonnaire, and used the already
415mentioned vow to forsake Thunner, Scaxnot, and all their works. He
afterwards introduced St. Anschar to Denmark, but like all the first
Christian kings of Scandinavia, was himself expelled from his realm
by his subjects. Harald Hardrada, or the resolute, was the very crown
of the poetic sea-kings of Norway, meeting with romantic adventures
in Constantinople, singing the praises of his Russian bride all across
the sea, exchanging gallant messages with his namesake Harold Godwinson
at Stamford Bridge, and dying as poetically as he had lived
at the foot of his banner Landwaster. It was from the Danes that
Harold came to England with the son of Knut, and to the son of Earl
Godwin, the usurper, more than half a Dane in blood and temper,
who, because he died in battle with the Normans, is regarded by the
popular mind as an English patriot, and has in very modern times
had a good many namesakes. Harald, or, as the Frisians call it,
Herold, is only properly national in Scandinavia and the islands from
Iceland to Man.
Next in note is what the Franks called Charibert, when it belonged
to the king of Paris, whose daughter brought Christian doctrine to
Kent, and prepared the way for St. Augustine. St. Haribert was
archbishop of Cologne about the year 1000, and at that time the name
became extremely common among the French nobility. A Norman
settler had brought it to England even in the time of Edward the
Confessor; and one of the many Herberts founded a family in Wales,
which, in the time of Henry V., was one of the first to follow the
advice to use one patronymic instead of the whole pedigree of
names. It is probably owing to the honours in various kinds of the
branches of this family that Herbert has of late years become an
exceedingly prevalent Christian name in England. Except that the
Frisians call it Harber and Hero, and Italy puts an o at the end, it has
no variations. Herman is confused with Eormen; and the other forms
are—
Ger. Herberge—Warrior protection
Ger. Herbold—Warrior prince
Nor. Herbrand; Ger. Herbrand—Warrior sword
Nor. Herbjorn—Warrior bear
Ger. Herdegen—Warrior blade
Ger. Hertag—Warrior day
Nor. Hergils—Warrior pledge
Nor. Herlaug—Warrior drink
Nor. Herleik—Warrior sport
Nor. Herleif—Warrior relic
Ger. Herimar—Warrior greatness
Nor. Hermod; Ger. Hermund; Frank. Charimund—Warrior protection
Nor. Herjolf; Ger. Heriulf; Frank. Chariwulf—Warrior wolf
Ger. Heraric—Warrior king
The warrior names were of the fiercest order. Leid (if it do not
416mean a road) was the same with the word in modern German, meaning
hurt or mischief, and expressed spite or violence. The North had
Liedulf, afterw—ards contracted into Leiul, and no doubt the Scottish
Lyulf, and German Lethard, Lethild, Laidrad, Laidwald, Laidwig.
In the same spirit we have neid or nöt, meaning violence or
compulsion, though it has resulted in the German neid, envy, and our
need, want. We have it in the name of St. Neot, the relative and
rebuker of King Alfred in his haughty days, and the hero of a legend
of little fishes daily renewed for his food. Also Nidhard was a great
chronicler of Frank history, and left a name surviving as Nyddert,
in Friesland, and cut into Nitz, in Germany. There, too, were
Notburg and Notger, Nidbert in France, and in the North, Notulf,
afterwards written Notto. The terminal nôt is, however, more
common.
Wig or Vig is war itself, and is found in the genealogy of Odin.
Wægdæg, or War day, is an ancestor of the Deiran kings.
Vigleîk still subsists in the North, and so does Viglaf, relic of war,
the same as that of Wiglaf, the chronicler.
The other forms are—
| Ger. Wigbert; Fris. Wicbo—Bright war |
| Nor. Vigbrand—War sword |
| Ger. Wigbald—War prince |
| Ger. Wigburg—War protection |
| Nor. Vigfus—War eagerness |
| German. |
Frisian. |
Nor. |
|
|
Wighard
Wichhard
Weikard
Wigo
Wigi
Viga |
Wygard
Wiart
Wiert |
Vighard |
|
War firmness |
| Ger. |
 |
Wigher, Wicher—Warrior
Wighelm—War helmet
Wiglind—War serpent
Wigmann, Wichman—War man
Wigmar—War fame
Wigram—War raven |
These are almost all German. The terminations in wig are
often owing to German pronunciation of the word veh, or vieh,
consecration, and sometimes of the northern veig, liquor.
The strange northern name of Snorre, famous for the sake of that
Froissart of the North, Snorre Sturleson, comes from snerra, strife.
Styrke is the strong, the same word as that in which the old
chroniclers describe William the Conqueror, as ‘so very stark.’
Sterkulv and a few other forms have been found in the North.
Toke is a very curious old name. It seems to mean the mad or
417raging, and, growing into Tyke or Tyge in Denmark, was the name
that was Latinized into Tycho by the celebrated astronomer Brahe,
who did not leave his madness behind him with his name. The
famous Jomsburg sea-rover, a sort of northern Lycurgus of the tenth
century, was Palnatoke, supposed to be properly Toke, the son of
Palne. Palne is an unexplained name used by the Danes, and
perhaps borrowed from the Wends; but there are a few other
instances of it, among them the Anglicized Earl Pallig, the husband
of Sweyn’s sister Gunhild, who was killed by Ethelred the Unready.
Thiostr means hardness or harshness, and was in use in the North
as Triostulf, since contracted into Kjostol, Thiostvald, Thiostar;
and probably Tostig, the ungracious son of Godwine, who brought
Harald Hardrada to invade England, took his name from thence.
Bar—the word for strength—has been most fertile in produce.
Its progeny are far too numerous to describe; but the most notable
at present in use are the Berg, the strength of the hills, a mountain,
and Burg, a fortress.
The names derived from it are, in combination, the bjorg of the
North, in the masculine, meaning protector, and borg, the feminine,
meaning, perhaps, protection,—the berge of the Germans and burg
of the Anglo-Saxons answering to the same. The Anglo-Saxon ladies
also bear names ending with burh, also from the same root, and
meaning a pledge, the strength of an engagement, and the origin of
our verb, to borrow. Burrhed, king of Mercia, bore this name; but
instances of it are not very common.
Birger, Byrger, Birge, are the masculines much used in Scandinavia;
and the combinations were Biorgulv, Bergthor, Bergthora, the faithful
wife of Njal, and Bergliot, the daughter of Thorer the Silent,—the
same name that has been already mentioned as the northern one that
has been mixed with the Irish Brighid, and which would mean
protecting ugliness. Other forms are Bergswain, protecting youth,
Berghild, answering to our Mercian princess Burgenhild, and Borgny,
apt to be cut down to Borny.
This is the word to which the Burgundians owed their title, as
dwellers in burghs, instead of wanderers on the open plain.
Another large race of names comes from the Gothic warjan, Anglo-Saxon
warian,—the ‘ware’ of rustic shouts in England like the ‘gare’
of France, the latter syllable of beware and aware, and the wehrer of
Germany. The quality of precaution furnished the North with its
favourite terminations var and vara, indicating the possession of
the prudent virtue that makes a man wary. It does not begin
names, but it often ends them, both in the North and Germany, as
Geirvar, Hervar, Amalvara, Hildiwara, &c.
The inhabitant was the natural defender, and in Anglo-Saxon and
Norsk ware became synonymous with the dweller, as Cantwara, the
418defenders of Kent, for the Kentishmen; Burgwara, the burghers;
and in the North, Vikvarjar, bay defender. Ware, a defender, is thus
a commencement in the German Warimunt, Guarding protection,
the Vœrmund of the Mercian genealogy, and Vermund of the North,
while its surviving representatives in France are Guiremond and
Vermont.
Warenheri, or Protecting-warrior, is the Guarniero of Tasso, the
Garnier of France, whence this form came to England as a surname
after the Edict of Nantes, whilst Warner had been the legitimate
descendant of the native Vœrnhare.
Warand, the German participle name, may have assisted in forming
Guérin and Warren, unless there was a Warewine to account for it.
Warnfrid or Warno, Werinhold and Warnebold, are also German.
The defender was with us the Weard, guard-warden, and weardian
was to ward or guard; as in French garde and garder, in the North
vördhr, in Germany wart, warten. This is the favourite termination,
the ward of England passing the wart of Germany, the vard of the
North; but of rare appearance as a commencement, though there is
an instance of a German Wartgar, or guardian-spear.
These are extremely like the words taken from to gird, like gerda,
gaard, &c., but they are essentially different: watching is here the
idea of safety, as enclosure is there.
The termination mund, so common among all the Teuton nations,
has been a very great difficulty. Some regard it as the German mund
or munths, a mouth. The fact, however, appears to be that mund
means a hand in the elder languages, and from a hand was early
transferred to him who used his hand in protection.
All the best authorities agree in translating mund as protection;
but as mund, a hand, is a feminine noun, the derivation from this
source is a little doubtful, as the only lady’s name thus terminated is
Rosamond. It is never a prefix.
Names ending in mund, hand, are often confused with those
finishing in mod or muth, meaning courage or wrath, the mood of
England and muth of Germany. Even in very early times,
Thurismund, or Thurismod, would be indifferently written; but
mod is not very common, and is apt to shorten into mo, as Thormod,
Tormo.
The Germans used to imagine that all their names ending in hulf
meant help; but this pleasant faith was destroyed by the northern
wolf, and only one real help name is extant, the Helfrich of modern
Germany, and Hialfrek of the North, which own an ancient precedent
in the old Frank Hialperik or Chilperic.
The pronunciation of ward runs so naturally into hard, that many
names, which when traced to their roots, turn out to terminate with
ward, are spelt in German and French as if they were hard. The
word hard does, however, really enter into the composition of a few
names, chiefly German. There is, however, a semi-mythical northern
lady called by the amiable name of Harthgrepa, Firm-grip or Hard-claw;
and HartheKnad, or, as we call him, Hardicanute, seems to
have had this distinguishing epithet added to his father’s name. The
419most noted of the other forms was Hardwine, Firm friend, the
Hardouin of old French chroniclers, called in Italy Ardoino.
- Harding, firm
- Hartrich, firm king
- Hartwig, firm war
- Hartmund, firm protection
- Hartmod, firm spirit.
The names in rand have likewise been a difficulty; but the word is
best referred to the Gothic razn, a house, and likewise a shield, from
the protection both afford.
Rand is a northern prefix, and its derivatives are not easy to
distinguish from those of Regin and Raven. Röndolfr, or House
wolf, was certainly a northern name, and the same seems to have
belonged to St. Radulphus, bishop of Bourges in 888, and to thirty-eight
Radulfs in Domesday Book, then to the good justiciary, Ranulf
de Glanville, under Henry II., to the crusading Earl Randle of
Chester, and subsequently to many a Randal, Randolf, and Ralf, or,
as we foolishly spell the word, Ralph.
The North had Rannveig, House-liquor, by way of a lady, and
have shortened her into Rannog and Ronnau, also Rannmod, Randvid,
Randve, or Randverr, house consecration.
Fast—in the sense of firm, not of quick—is found in the northern
Fastolf, in the Frank queen, Fastrade, Firm council, in Fastburg,
Fastmann, Fastmund. Lidvard, an old Norse name, that with us
has run into Ledyard, in its own country into Levor, is the gate
ward.
Tryggve, a favourite old northern name, is the true or trusty. The
same word sometimes serves as a termination, as in Sigtryg or
Sihtric.
Magan is the Gothic and Saxon to be able, whence our defective
may, and a number of other words in all the various northern tongues,
in especial main or chief. The names from it are chiefly of German
origin. Maginfred, or Powerful-peace, was a fine Old German name,
which, by the time it came to the brave but unfortunate Sicilian, son
of Frederick II., had been worn down to Manfred, whence he was
called by his subjects Manfredi, by his French foes Mainfroi, and by
his English contemporaries Mainfroy.
Meginhard, main power, was a chronicler of the early ages, and in
1130 appears in the Cambrai registers. The Germans used it as
Mainhart, and the English surname Maynard is from it. Meginrat
made Meinrad, or powerful council, and Maginhild is still in use in
the North as Magnild.
The main land is, in fact, the chief land, the main, the chief sheet
of water, or sea, and might and main are so closely connected together,
that Maginhild is the most natural step to Mahthild, Main heroine to
Might heroine; for maht is really the modern German macht, and our
420own might, and both these mighty names were in early use in
Germany. Mahthild was the wife of the emperor Henry the Fowler,
and afterwards became the sainted abbess of Quedlingburg. Another
Swabian Mechtild was canonized after being abbess of Adilstetten;
and so fashionable did the name become, that all the French maidens,
who were not Alix, seem to have been Mahthild; and in Italy it was
borne by the Countess Matilda, the friend of Gregory VII., whose
bequest was one of the pope’s first steps to the temporal power, and
who is introduced by Dante in the flowery fields of Paradise. The
Flemings call it Mahault, and thus term the lady, who, as the wife
of William the Conqueror, brought it to England. Molde, as the
Normans were pleased to term it, was regarded as so decidedly a
Norman name, that the Scottish-Saxon Eadgyth was made to assume
it, and it continued the regnant royal name until it sunk beneath the
influences of the Provençal Alienor. It seems as if Matilde had been
freshly introduced in Flanders when Count Philip married Matilda
of Portugal; and this, and the old traditional Mehaut, went on side
by side, just as in England did the full name Matilda, and the
Anglicized Norman contraction Maude. Of late years Maude has
been fashionable, though not so near the original, nor so really graceful
in sound as Matilda. The earlier Mall and Moll were from
Matilda, not Mary, which came much later into use.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Bavarian. |
| Matilda |
Mathilde |
Matilda |
Mechtild |
| Molde |
Mahaud |
German. |
Mechel |
| Mall |
Mehaut |
Mathilde |
Melchel |
| Maud |
|
Hamb. |
|
| Tilda |
|
Tilde |
|
| Tilly |
|
Tille |
|
Maatfred and Maatulf were old masculines.
From may and might we pass to our other defective auxiliary can.
‘Knowledge is power,’ is an idea deeply rooted in our languages, for
the difference between I ken and I can is well-nigh imperceptible.
The Sanscrit gna, forming the Greek verb γιγνώσκω (gignosco),
reappears in the Latin nosco, and the Anglo-Saxon cnawan. Another
Anglo-Saxon form is cunnan, answering to the Danish kjende, Iceland
kunna, German kennan. Thence our word cunning, knowing, and
cuth, the past participle, known, noted, or dexterous, whence came
several North-Anglian names, Cutha, Cuthwealh, Noted power;
Cuthred, Noted council; Cuthwine, Noted friend; Cuthburh, Noted
pledge; and chief of all Cuthbryht, the great saint of Lindisfarn in his
lifetime, of Durham after his death, when the wanderings of his
relics rendered his fame so great that Cuthbert is still national among
the peasantry of Northumbria and the Lothians.
421Kann seems to have been originally a past tense of ken, and the
Teutonic mind concluded that to have learnt is to be able, for all
adopted the word can without an infinitive, and varied it into past
tenses. To be able was likewise to dare, whence the old Teuton kuoni,
Frank chuon, Saxon cene, German kuhn, bold.
Be this as it may, a large class of names has arisen from these words
of knowledge and action, earliest of the bearers of which should stand
Kunimund, king of the Gepidæ, and Chunimund, king of the Suevi,
both meaning Able protection. Chuonrath, Able council, or Bold-speech,
was also Suevic, and in the form of Konrad, afterwards a
world-wide name in the Swabian house of Hohenstaufen, till the last
of their generous though impetuous blood was shed on the scaffold of
Corradino, as Naples fondly termed its unfortunate young heir, the
Conradin of history. Pity for his untimely fate assisted to spread
the name through all the German dependencies, and it has become so
common that, like Vasili, Tom, and Heinz, Künz has descended to
cats. It has the feminine Cunzila; and our old Mercian King
Cenred represented it in England.
| English. |
French. |
Provençal. |
Italian. |
| Conrad |
Conrade |
Cohat |
Corrado |
| Cenred |
Quenes |
|
Currado |
| German. |
Bavarian. |
Swiss. |
Swedish. |
| Konrad |
Kadl |
Chuedli |
Konrad |
| Kunz |
Kuenl |
Kudli |
Netherlands. |
| Kurt |
Kuenz |
Chuedler |
Koenraad |
| Kuno |
Kunl |
Kored |
Court |
| |
|
Koredli |
|
| |
|
Chuered |
|
| Danish. |
Russian. |
Bohemian. |
Slovak. |
| Cort |
Konrad |
Kunad |
Kunsch |
| |
Kunrat |
Lusatian. |
|
| |
Kondratij |
Kunat |
|
Kunigund, or Bold war, was the name of a daughter of the counts
of Luxemburg, who was wife to Henry of Bavaria, the sainted
emperor, and shared in his canonization, rendering her name national
in Bavaria. Another royal saint reigning in Hungary added to its
honours, nor has it ever sunk into disuse.
| French. |
Italian. |
Portuguese. |
German. |
Bavarian. |
| Cunigonde |
Cunegonda |
Cunegundis |
Kunigunde |
Kunl |
422The West Saxon Cenbyrht is the same with the German Kunibert;
and Wessex likewise reckoned among her kings Cenfyrth, or able
peace, Cenfus, bold impetuosity; while Mercia has Cenhelm and
Cenwulf.
Alternating with these are Cynric, Cynebald, Cynewald, Cyneburh,
Cynethryth, whose first syllable is cyn, kin, or kind, meaning, of
course, kindred or lineage. Some refer Kunibert and Kunigund to
this same kin instead of kuhn. This word cyn is one of those regarded
as the root of king, cyning, the son of his race or kindred.
Another word seems to have had the same double meaning of
ability being strength; for svinn, which is wise in the northern
tongues, is in those of central Europe, strong; the English swith,
Gothic swinths, German swind; whence the present geschwind, and
swift; moreover, swindig is much, or many, in vulgar Dutch, and to
swindle is probably to be too much for the victim.
Suintila was an old Gothic king of Spain, Swithbert, one of the
early Anglo-Saxon missionaries, especially honoured as the converter
of the kindred land of Friesland, where he was revered as St. Swibert.
Swithelm was another Saxon form; but the most noted amongst us
was Swithun, the bishop of Winchester, tutor to King Alfred, and
endowed with many supposed miracles, the best known of which was
the forty days' rain, by which, like other honest English saints, he
testified his displeasure at having his bones meddled with. The
Germans have had Swidburg, Swintfried, Swidger; but in general
this has served as a feminine termination, as in Melicent, Frediswid,
and in all the many swiths and swinds of the Franks and Goths.
Whether this be the root or not, Svein is in the North a strong
youth, generally a servant, but in the form of Svend becoming the
favourite name of the kings of Denmark, belonging to him whom
Ethelred’s treachery brought down on England, where it was called
Swayn, and translated into Latin as Sueno, while Tasso calls the
crusading Swend, Sveno. Svinbjorn occurs in Iceland, and is our
Swinburn. Svenke, again, is the active or slender youth. It is
amusing to see how, from a strong man, the swain became a young
man, then a bachelor, then a lover, and, finally, a shepherd.
Another of the mighty words that have been formed into names is
vald, the near relative of the Latin valeo. Our verb to wield continues
the Anglo-Saxon wealdan, which named the wealds of Kent, nay, and
the world itself.
Vald still stands alone in the North, and once was the name of
a Frank abbot of Evreux; St. Valdus, in Latin, St. Gaud, in
French.
The leading name is, however, Waldheri, Powerful-Warrior
appearing as the young prince of Aquitaine, who, in the curious Latin
poem which seems to represent the Frankish Nibelungenlied in the
south of France, flies from Attila’s court with his fellow-hostage, the
Burgundian Hildegunna, and her treasure, and repulses the pursuing
Gunther and Hagano. This same Walther was said to have afterwards
reigned thirty years in Aquitaine, and, no doubt, the name was
already common there, when, about 990, it came to saintly glory,
423through a monastic saint of that dukedom, who, being followed by
two others, caused it to be spread far and wide. Indeed, there are
twenty-eight Walters in Domesday, and Cambrai made plentiful use
of it in the same form, till, about 1300, the spelling was altered to the
French Gautier. Walther von Vogelwied, the Minnesinger, who
bequeathed a perpetual dole to the birds of the air at his tomb, well
deserved that the memory of his name should be kept up in Germany,
and it has always been very popular. Wat, as a contraction, is as old
as Rufus’s time, and Water was in use, at least, in Shakespeare’s time,
when he shows the prophecy of Suffolk’s death by water fulfilled by
the name of his assassin.
| English. |
Irish. |
French. |
Italian. |
| Walter |
Thaiter |
Waltier |
Gualtiero |
| Water |
|
Gualtier |
Spanish. |
| Wat |
|
Wautier |
Guttierre |
| Watty |
|
Gatier |
|
| Wattles |
|
Gautier |
|
| Portuguese. |
Netherlands. |
Lettish. |
Dutch. |
| Gualter |
Gualterus |
Waters |
Wolder |
| Gualterio |
Walter |
Swiss. |
|
| |
Wouter |
Watli |
|
Waldemar is an old German form imported by the Normans to
England, and sometimes supposed to have been carried to Russia,
and to have turned into Vladimir; but this has been traced to a
genuine Slavonic source, though it is used by the Russians to represent
Walter.
This commencement is almost exclusively German; its other
varieties are Waldobert, or Walbert, the Gualberto of Italy, Waldrich,
and, perhaps, Walpurg, though she is more probably from val,
slaughter.
Frodhr, Wise or learned, is sometimes an epithet, but is also used
for a name, and Latinized into Frotho. The Germans have it in combination
as Frodwin, wise friend, Frodbert and Frodberta, whence
the French make Flobert and Floberte.
The root mah, which made the Sanscrit mahat, Zend maz, Greek
megas, Latin magnus, Kelt mawr, comes forth again in Teutonic,
with mære, or mara, in Anglo-Saxon, with its comparatives mœrre
and mœriste, whence our more and most. This same sense of greatness
formed the word maara, fame, and maren, to celebrate, both old
German, and it is the commencement of the Frank chieftain’s name
from whom all the princes of the earlier race were called Meerwings,
Merowig, or Famed men, the Meerwig of German writers and
Meroveus of Latinity, whence the Merovée of French history.
Our own Anglian Mercians had among their royal line Merowald,
424Merehelm, and Merewine; but, in general, mer, or mar, is used as a
termination rather than a commencement, and then is always masculine.
Merohelm is also called Merchelm, so the French saint, ‘Marculphe,’
may have been Merowulf, though he now looks more like
Markulf, a border wolf.wolf.[148]
The Teutons had a few names denoting affection. Dyre is the same
in Norse as our own word dear, or dyr in Anglo-Saxon. An inlet on
the north-west corner of Iceland is still termed Dyrefiord, from one
of the first settlers, and Dyre was the hero of a ballad in the Kæmpeviser,
answering to the Scottish Katharine Janfarie, the original of
young Lochinvar. The old Germans had Dioro and Diura, and the
Anglo-Saxons affectionately called the young sons of their nobility
Dyrling, or darling.
Leof, the German lieb, beloved, is much used by the Anglo-Saxons.
Two bishops, one of Wells, and afterwards primate, the other of
Crediton, were called Leofing, or Lyfing. The first was certainly
properly Ælfstan, so it is probable that in both instances Leofing
was merely an endearing name that grew up with them, and displaced
the baptismal one; but its Latin translation, Livingus, shows
the origin of the surname of Livingstone.
England also had Leofwine, Beloved friend, the only native name
borne by any of the sons of Earl Godwin. An earlier Leofwine was
a member of St. Boniface’s mission, and converted many of the
heathens on the banks of the Weser; and as St. Lebwin is patron of
Deventer, probably occasioned the name of Lubin, which, from being
borne by French peasants, crept into pastoral poetry.
Another of the same mission party was Leobgytha, or Dear gift,
called also Liuba and Liebe, who was sent for from her convent at
Wimborne to found one of the earliest nunneries in Germany. It is
probably from her that Lievine became an old Cambrecis name.
Leof seems to have been the special prefix of the earls of Mercia,
for we find among them, besides Leofwine, Leofstan and Leofric, the
last the best known for the sake of his wife and of Coventry.
The continental instances of the prefix are among the Spanish
Goths, Liuva, Leovigildo, and Liuvigotona; and among the Franks,
Leobhard, or Liebhard, a saint of Touraine.
The only present survivor of all the varieties is probably, if we
exclude the occasional Puritan Love, the Cornish and Devon feminine
Lovedy.
Far more universal are the names derived from the old word vinr,
or wine, meaning friend or object of love, the same which has left a
descendant in the German wonne, affection, and the Scottish adjective
425winsome. It is a continual termination, as must have been already
observed, and we had it as a commencement in our great English
missionary Winfrith, or Friend of peace, the Devonian bishop who
spread Christianity over Germany, but who is far better known by
the Latin surname which he assumed, namely, Bonifacius. Winibald
was another of our missionary saints, and Germany has also had
Winrad, Winrich, and Winmar, but the Welsh Wenefred must not
be confused with it.
Mild, or mild, is exclusively Saxon; nay, almost exclusively
Mercian, for it only occurs in one family; that of King Merowald,
who named his three daughters Mildgyth, Mildburh, and Mildthryth.
All became nuns, the two latter abbesses, one in Shropshire,
the other in the isle of Thanet, and they were canonized as Milburga
and Mildreda. Milborough, as the first became Anglicized, was found
within the last century in Shropshire, and Mildred was never entirely
disused; it belonged to the daughter of Burleigh, and has lately been
much revived, under the notion that it means mild speech; but red
is always masculine, and, as has been before said, thryth commands
or threatens, so that Mildthryth is the gently strict.
Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs was verily named after a
beard. Skegg means neither more nor less than a beard, and strange
to say, Bardr and Skegg were both fashionable names in the North;
indeed, one Icelandic gentleman rejoiced in the euphonious title of
Bardr Bla-skegg, or Beard Blue-beard.
But we have an independent name of this class. William de
Albini, the second husband of Henry I.’s widow, Alix of Louvaine,
wore moustachios, which the Normans called gernons, and thus his
usual title was William als Gernons; and as the common ancestor of
the Howards and Percys, he left this epithet to them as a baptismal
name, one of the most whimsical of the entire roll. From the Percys
it came to Algernon Sidney; and partly through his admirers, partly
through inheritance, and partly through the love of trisyllables, has
become diffused in England.
Faxe meant the hair or tresses, as may be seen in the names of the
horses of day and night, Skinfaxi and Hrinfaxi. Two instances of it
are found in the Landnama-bok, Faxi, a colonist from the Hebrides,
and Faxabrandr, most likely an epithet due to some peculiarity of
hair, probably whiteness, or perhaps fieriness; but it was not common,
though it came to England to be the surname of Sir Thomas
Fairfax.
The name of our excellent friend Wamba in Ivanhoe must probably
have been taken from one of the Visigothic kings of Spain, with
whom it was most likely a nickname, like that of Louis de Gros in
France, for it means nothing but the belly. Epithets like this were
not uncommon, and sometimes were treated as names, such as Mucel,
426or the big, the sobriquet of the earl of the Gevini; or Budde, the
pudding, the person who showed Knut the way over the ice. Many
of those used in England were Keltic, showing that the undercurrent
of Cymric population must still have been strong.
It is remarkable how very few are the Teuton names taken from
the complexion—in comparison with the many used by the Kelts,
and even by the Romans—either because the Teutons were all alike
fair, or because they thought these casual titles unworthy to be
names. Bruno was exclusively German, and may perhaps be only a
nickname, but it came to honour with the monk of Cologne, who
founded the Carthusian order, and has been used ever since; and the
North has Sverke, Sverkir, swarthy or dark, a famous name among
the vikings.
Far more modern is the name of Blanche. The absence of colour
is in all tongues of Western Europe denoted by forms of blec. In
Anglo-Saxon, blœc or blac is the colour black, but blœca is a bleak,
empty place, and blœcan is to bleach or whiten; blœco, like the
German bleich, stands for paleness. It is the same with German and
Norse, in the latter of which blakke hund is not a black dog but a
white one. All these, however, used their own weiss or white for the
pure uncoloured snow; while the negative blœc, or colourless, was
adopted by the Romance languages, all abandoning the Latin albus
in its favour. It is literally true that our black is the French white;
black and blanc are only the absence of colour in its two opposite
effects.
Blach, Blacheman, Blancus, and Blancard, all appear in Domesday;
but Blanchefleur and Blanche, seem to have been the produce of
romance. The mother of Sir Tristrem was Blanchefleur, a possible
translation of some of the Keltic Gwenns or Finns, and it probably
crept from romance to reality among the poetical people of southern
France. The first historical character so called was Blanca of
Navarre, the queen of Sancho IV. of Castille, from whom it was
bestowed on her granddaughter, that child of Eleanor Plantagenet,
whom her uncle, King John, employed as the lure by which to
detach Philippe Auguste from the support of Arthur of Brittany.
The treaty only bore that the son of Philippe should wed the daughter
of Alfonso of Castille; the choice among the sisters was entrusted to
ambassadors, and they were guided solely, by the sound of the name
borne by the younger, that of the elder sister, Urraca, being considered
by them hateful to French ears, and unpronounceable to
French lips. John was punished for his policy, for Blanche’s royal
English blood was the pretext of the pope in directing against him
her husband, Louis the Lion, but no choice could have been a happier
one for France, since Blanche of Castille was the first and best of her
many queen-regents.
From her the name became very common in France. One of the
daughters of Edward I. was so called, probably from her, in honour
of his friendship for her son; it became usual among the English
nobility, and is most common in Italy, though it is somewhat
forgotten in Spain.
| 427 |
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
Spanish. |
Portuguese. |
| Blanch |
Blanche |
Bianca |
Blanca |
Branca |
A Swedish heroine called Blenda made this name, from blenden, to
dazzle, common in her own country, but it is not known elsewhere.
Koll, with a double l, meaning head, is sometimes used in northern
names, but far less commonly than kol, cool, or rather in the act of
cooling after great heat. The great blast-bellows with which the
gods charitably refreshed the horses of the sun, are called in the
Eddaic poetry, isarnkol, or iron coolers, and there may have been
some allusion to this in the names of Kol and Kale, which alternated
in one of the old northern families. But as the cooling of iron
involved its turning black, kolbrünn meant a black breastplate, and
was thus used as a by-name; and it may be in this sense of black
that kol enters into the composition of Kolbjorn, black bear, Kolgrim,
Kolgrima; Kolskegg would thus be black-beard; but Kolbein can
hardly be black-leg, so, perhaps, it may refer to the bones being
strong as wrought iron; and Kolfinn and its feminine are either
cool-white or refer to Finn’s strength. Colbrand is in English
romance the name of the Danish giant killed by Guy of Warwick, at
Winchester; but the Heptarchy displays a very perplexing set of
Cols, as they have been modernized, though they used to be spelt
Ceol. There were three Ceolwulfs in Bernicia, Mercia, and Wessex;
Ceolred in Mercia, Ceolwald in Wessex, Ceolnoth on the throne of
Canterbury. Are these the relatives of the northern kol, cool, or are
they ceol, keel, meaning rather a ship than merely the keel, as it does
now? Or, on the other hand, are both these, and the northern col,
adaptations of the Keltic col or gall, like those already mentioned of
Finn? Their exclusive prevalence among the Scandinavians and
Anglo-Saxons would somewhat favour the notion.
The northern feminine terminal, frid, belongs to this class, and
means the fair, or pretty, from the old northern fridhr, though it is
most deceitfully like fred, or frey, peace, and is probably from the
same root.
Teitr is a northern man’s name, meaning cheerful: Zeiz answers
to it in old German; and though the analogue in Anglo-Saxon does
not otherwise occur in any Anglo-Saxon work, yet we find from Bede
that Æthelburh, the daughter of Æthelbeorht and Bertha, of Kent,
who carried her Christianity to her husband, Eadwine, was also
called Tâte, by which we may gather that she was particularly lively
and cheerful.
A large and interesting class of names relate to country, and
express the birthplace or the wandering habits of the original
bearers.
The word land was one of these. Its primary meaning seems to be
428the abode of the people. Long ago we spoke of the Greek λαος, prominent
in Laodamia, and many other of the like commencement.
An almost similar term runs through the Teutonic tongues; the
Saxon leod, German leute, Frank liade, Northern lydhr. The leod, or
leute, seem to have been the free inhabitants, including all ranks, and
thence we have the laity, for the general people, and the lewd, which
has sunk from the free to the ignorant, and then to the dissipated.
The great region of these names taken from the people is Germany.
Leutpold, the people’s prince, was a canonized Markgraf of Austria,
in the days when that family had hardly yet begun its course of
marrying into greatness, and making Leutpold better known at every
stage, and by each new dialect differently pronounced, till it turned
into Leopold, and was confounded with the old lion names. Indeed,
in the old Swiss ballad on the battle of Sempach, translated by Scott,
Leopold the Handsome is called the Austrian Lion. The recurrence
of the name in the modern imperial line has made it European, and
the close connection of our own royal family with the wise king of
the Belgians has brought it to England. Of course, it has not escaped
a modern German Leopoldine.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
German. |
Slav. |
| Leopold |
Léopold |
Leopoldo |
Luitpold |
Leopoldo |
| |
|
|
Leupold |
Poldo |
| |
|
|
Leopo |
Poldi |
Leutgar, the people’s spear, was a good bishop of Antrim, who was
speared by the people, or, at least, murdered by them, in the furious
wars of the long-haired kings, and was revered as a martyr under the
Latin form of Leodigarius. A priest of Chalons was canonized by the
same name, which is in France Leguire, and was brought as a territorial
surname to England as St. Leger.
Liutgarde seems to have been a Frank saint, but there is no account
of her in Alban Butler; but hers is one of the favourite old names at
Cambrai. Liutprand, the people’s sword, is one of the chief chroniclers
of early French history, and the other forms are Liuther, the only
one accepted by the North, and that in the form of Lyder.
Ger. Liutbert; Fries. Liubert—People’s brightness
Ger. Liutberga—People’s protection
Fr. Leodefred, Leufroi—People’s peace
Ger. Liutmar; Fries. Luttmer, Lummer; Fr. Leodemir—People’s
greatness
Ger. Leuthold, Liutold; Ags. Leodwald—People’s power
The land itself was compounded into names chiefly among the
Franks, Germans, and Lombards, often as a conclusion, but now and
then at the beginning. Lantperaht, or the country’s brightness, is
429the most noted of these, having been borne by three saints of Maestricht,
Lyons, and Venice, and having thus become national in all
the countries around; but it is universally corrupted into Lambert,
and has been generally derived from a lamb.
| English. |
French. |
Italian. |
German. |
Dutch. |
| Lambert |
Lambert |
Lamberto |
Landbert |
Lambert |
| |
Lanbert |
|
Lambert |
Lammert |
Landerich, or country’s ruler, was an early Frank saint, who has
left Landry to be still frequent among the Flemish and French
peasantry.
Landfrang, lord of the country, was the Lombardic Lanfranco,
whence the Lanfranc of the archbishop of Canterbury, whom William
the Conqueror imposed on the English Church, but who brought in
fresh vigour and learning. Landfrid has left the surname Laffert to
France; its contraction Lando belonged to a saint, and has the
feminines Landine and Landoline. There are also recorded Landolf,
Landrad, Landrada, and Landinn.
If Germany and Italy talked of dwellers in the land, the North,
with its seas and numerous islets, distinguished the islanders with the
word Ey, or Øi, the word that we use to this very day in speaking of
Guernsey Jersey, &c., of an eyot in a river; and even in Sodor, that
puzzling companion to the Isle of Man, which once was the Sudeyas,
or South Isles, the Hebrides.
The most famous northern island name is Eystein, or Øistein,
much in use among the early kings, and especially honoured for the
sake of the good brother of Sigurd the Crusader, who stayed at home
and worked for his people’s good, while Sigurd was killing blue men
in the land of the Saracens. The Danish Eystein was turned into
Austin, or Augustin, to be more ecclesiastical, and this may be the
origin of some of our Austins. Eyulf, or the island wolf, has become,
in the course of time, Øiel and Øiuf. Eyvind, who appears in the
Landnama-bok with the unpleasant sobriquet of Skalldur Spiller, or
the poet spoiler, is supposed to have been the Island Wend, a reminiscence
of the Wends on the shores of the Baltic. It was a very
common name, and became Øvind and Even, while Eymund, in like
manner, was turned into Emund. An island thief was not wanting,
as Eythiof; nor an island warrior, as Eyar; also Eyfrey, Eylang; and
the ladies Eygerd, Eydis, Eyny, and Eyvar, or, as Saxo calls her,
Ofura.
An island is also sometimes holm, whence the northern Holmstein
and Holmfrid, with Holmgeir, which gets mixed with Holger.
Persons of mixed birth were drolly called by the actual fractional
word half, in Germany Halbwalah, half a foreigner, or half a
Wallachian, and Halbtüring or half a Thuringian; and in the
North, generally, Halfdan, half a Dane. So early was this in use
that there was a mythical king, Halfdan, from whom the name was
430adopted by many a true-born Dane and Northman, and has been
Latinized as Haldanus.
Travellers had their epithets, which probably came to be family
names. Lide, Wanderer, was compounded in Haflide, sea wanderer;
Vestlide, west wanderer; Vetilide, winter wanderer; and Sumalide,
or summer wanderer, which last was current among the lords of the
Isles, and kings of Man, in the shape of Somerled, or, in Gaelic,
Somhle; but ‘the heirs of mighty Somerled’ did not long keep up
his name.
Travellers again had their name from fara, the modern German
fahren, and the scarcely disused English to fare, meaning to journey.
The most noted instance is Faramund, who, in the guise of Pharamond,
is placed at the head of the long-haired Frankish dynasty, far
travelled it may be, from the river Yssel whence the Salic stock took
the title that was to pass to one peculiar law of succession; also Farabert,
Farulf, and Farthegn, contracted into Farten, and Faltin, and
then supposed to be a contraction of Falentin, or Valentine. Thegn
did, in fact, originally mean a servant, so that Farthegn was either
the travelled servant, or the travelled thane. Fargrim appears in
Domesday; but these names are not easy to divide from those taken
from waren, to beware.
Even the exile had his sorrows commemorated in his children’s
names. No doubt if we could meet with the story of the original
Erland, we should find that he was born under the same circumstances
as Peregrine Bertie, for the name is from the old northern er, out, or
away from, and land. Erland is the Outland, the banished man, and
he must have been beloved, or celebrated, for Erlendr, as the
Icelanders had it, occurs plentifully, with its diminutive Erling, and
perhaps the corruption Elling.
The unfortunate Bishop Hatto’s name was anciently Hazzo, and is
translated a Hessian.
Viking has been used as a Christian name in Norway in comparatively
modern days, in memory of the deeds of the terrible
Vikingr of old; but, in spite of the resemblance in sound, it must
not be suspected of any relation to sea-kings, being only the inhabitant
of a vik, or bay, of course the most convenient abode for a sea-rover.
The sea, haf, or hav, as it was called in the North, named Haflide,
Hafthor, and Hafgrim, as well as the mythic hero, Haflok, the Dane,
whose life, according to his legend, was saved by his faithful servant
Grim, the founder of Grimsby, in Lincolnshire, the native place of
our own Sir Henry Havelock, who was bewailed by the Danish
school-children as their own ballad hero. The two feminine terminations
laug and veig may have been in its honour, but it is much to
be feared that they only meant liquor, and at the best were allusions
to the costly mead of the gods, the drink of inspiration, or the magic
bowls that inflamed the Berserks. Nay, men rejoiced in the name of
Ølver or Ølve, meaning neither more nor less than Ale, øl, which
acquires a v in the oblique cases and plural. Ø1ver and Olaf have,
no doubt, been confounded into the modern Oliver.
431Knud, or Knut, a very common northern name, is a very puzzling
one. Its origin and nationality are Danish, and it only came to
Norway by intermarriages, nor does it appear at all in the Landnamabok.
The great Dane who brought it here is called by the chroniclers
Canutus, from some notion of making it the Latin hoary, and thus
we know him as Canute; but even in Domesday, one landholder in
Yorkshire, and another in Derbyshire, are entered as Cnud. The
whole North, and the inhabitants of the Hebrides, use the name,
which comes from the same root as our knot, and properly means a
protuberance, a hill, or barrow.
Life played its part among Teutonic names. One old word conveying
this sense was the Gothic ferchvus, Saxon feorh, and Northern
fiorh. The Anglo-Saxon feorh also meant youth, and thus passed on
to mean a young man.
There are not many names from thence, but one of the few has
been a great perplexity, and has been explained in many ways, i. e.
the Gothic Ferhonanths, the last syllable being nanth, daring, so that
its sense would be, ‘adventuring his life.’ It was the Spanish Goths
who used this gallant name, and made it with their Romance tongues
into Fernan and Fernando. San Fernando, king of Castille, and
father of our own Eleanor, made it a favourite for his royal line; and
a younger son of Castille so called, being heir of Aragon, carried it
thither, and thence it passed to southern France, where the grandson
of old King René was Ferrand or Ferry. Aragon again bestowed it
upon Naples; but it was there prolonged into Ferdinando, whilst
Spanish elisions had at home turned it to Hernan, as the conqueror
of Mexico termed himself. It was bestowed upon the second son of
Juana la Loca, who was born in Spain, and long preferred there to
his brother, though it was to the imperial throne that he was destined
to succeed, and to render his Spanish name national through Germany,
where Ferdinand has long been a sore puzzle; sometimes explained
by fart, a journey, and sometimes by fried, peace, but never satisfactorily.
The contraction Nandel was the shout of the mob in the
ears of Ferdinand, the obstinate, narrow-minded man who won his
cause by mere force of undivided aim. It is so popular in Spain and
Germany as in each to have a feminine, Fernanda and Ferdinandine.
| English. |
French. |
Spanish. |
Italian. |
| Ferdinand |
Ferdinand |
Fernando |
Ferdinando |
| |
Ferrand |
Hernando |
Fernando |
| |
Ferry |
Hernan |
Ferrante |
| German. |
Polish. |
Lettish. |
|
| Ferdinand |
Ferdynand |
Werlands |
|
| Nandl |
|
|
|
432Ferahbald and Ferahmund were forgotten old German forms, and
Fjorleif was known in the North.
This is, probably, relic of life, as otherwise the word would be a
reduplication; but the termination leif or lif is sometimes used, being
our very word life.
There are two words which may be said to form names of progress,
the German gang, from to go, sometimes commencing as in Gangolf,
but more usual at the end of a word; and the Northern stig, from the
universal root stig, found in the Greek ἔστιχον, and in our step and
stile, also stairs, for the usual sense of the word implies mounting
upwards; and the name of the semi-Danish archbishop of Canterbury
who crowned Harold, and was one of the Conqueror’s lifelong
captives, was the participle Stigand, mounting, and was long extant
in the North, as well as the Danish Styge and Stygge.
PART VII. Names from the Slavonic. — Section I. — Slavonic Races. — Section II. — Slavonian Mythology. — Section III. — Warlike Names. — Section IV. — Names of Might. — Section V. — Names of Virtue. — Section VI. — Names of Affection. — Section VII. — Names from the Appearance. — CONCLUSION. MODERN NOMENCLATURE. — Section I. — Greece. — Section II. — Russia. — Section III. — Italy. — Section IV. — Spain. — Section V. — France. — Section VI. — Great Britain. — Section VII. — Germany. — Section VIII. — Scandinavia. — Section IX. — Comparative Nomenclature.
433
The last class of names that have had any influence upon European
nomenclature are those borne by the Slavonic race dwelling to the
eastward of the Teutons, and scarcely coming into notice before the
period of modern history.
Nor, indeed, have they been ever very prominent. Slipping into
the regions left empty by the Teutons, or depopulated by the forays
of the Tatars, these nations have carried on a life for the most part
obscure and industrious, though now and then drawn, either by
Mongol fury on the one hand, or by Teuton ambition on the other,
into gallant exertions; but a genuine Slavonian has seldom or never
extended his power far beyond his own country. Imaginative and
poetical, they have nevertheless few ancestral traditions, they have
no history previously to coming under the influence of other countries,
and their migrations are even less known than those of the early
Kelts and Teutons.
All that we do know is that by the time the ten horns of modern
empire were developing themselves, there was a long strip of
Slavonians, or Wends, extending from the White and Baltic seas
down to the Black and Adriatic, making a division between the
Teutons and the Tatars, but utterly unable to oppose a barrier when
periodical fits of fury and invasion seized upon the wild hordes to
the eastward of them.
Wends, or Venedi, seems to have been one universal national term;
Slava furnished another. The word, like the Greek κλύα and Teuton
hlod, is from the root çru, and denotes fame or glory; and it is
constantly employed in the personal names, commencing Slavoljub,
glorious love, Slavomir, glorious peace, Slavomil, friend of glory,
and terminating Siroslav, far-famed, and many others, usually
rendered as slas and slaus.
But just as Geta, the Goth, stood for a bondsman in classical
literature, so when the Slav became the captive of the German, his
434once glorious epithet became the generic term of the thrall, bought
and sold, while the derivatives of the Latin servus were reserved for
the free hired domestic. Glory had literally turned to slavery,
perhaps the more readily because it is the Slav who, of all the Indo-European
race, most readily bows beneath the yoke, so that to this
day, his forms of courtesy are the most servile, his respectful address
the most extravagant, used in Europe.
At our first glimpse of the Slavonic nations, the Danube flowed
through the midst of a considerable settlement of them, known to
classical writers as Bulgarians, and most savage foes to the Eastern
empire, who lost army after army in expeditions against these
barbarians.
In the North, two great merchant republics at Kief and Novgorod
were conducting the trade of the North, and apparently living an
honourable life of industry and self-government.
All around the east and south of the Baltic were other large
territories occupied by Slavonians, from Finland to Jutland; and,
with few exceptions, most of these lands still own a Slavonian
population, though only one has a native government.
The Mongols have, perhaps, chiefly influenced the changes undergone
by the Slaves. The great and terrible Tatar invasion of Attila
trod them down, but by ruining the Roman empire, established
homes for them, especially round the Danube. In the kingdom now
called Hungary, there is a large Slavonian population, called Slovak,
from the term slov, a word, living mixed with the remains of the
Huns, but keeping a separate language.
The mountain-girt lozenge of Bohemia was also a separate kingdom,
with its own language, not the same, though nearly related, and more
resembling that of the fierce elective kingdom of Poland.
The migrations of the Teutons drove most of the Wends out of
Denmark into the marshy and sandy lands at the mouth of the
Vistula; and, somewhat later, home quarrels, and fears of the Tatars,
impelled the republics of Russia to call in the aid of the Northmen,
who quickly put an end to the freedom of the cities, and set up the
principality that was the germ of the Russian empire.
The Greek Church converted the Bulgarians about the year 870,
and the translations of the liturgy and Scriptures, made for their
benefit, have been the authorized version of the Slavonians ever
since. The same missionaries, Cyrillus and Methodius, likewise
baptized the first Christian king of Bohemia; and in the next century,
a Bohemian bishop, Adalbert of Prague, converted Hungary and
Poland. But these three realms gave their allegiance to the Western,
not the Eastern Church; and though Hungary received much of her
civilization from Constantinople, her faith was with Rome. The
Norse Grand Princes of Muscovy themselves sought Christianity from
Byzantium, and the Russian Church has ever since been the most
earnest and conservative of the Eastern Churches.
The Baltic Slavonians held out longest against the Gospel. Missionaries
preached to them, and orders of knighthood crusaded against
them on far into modern history, and the final period of their
435conversion and settlement into small duchies or realms, held by the
conquering knights, is hardly worth tracing out.
The next step in general Slavonic history is the great Turkish
outbreak, which almost crushed Muscovy, and infused a strong Tatar
element into the Russian population; and, finally, conquered the
Greek empire, and with it the Bulgarian lands, which, though
never Mahometanized, have ever since remained under Turkish
dominion.
The kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, with the other western
Slavonic provinces, were one by one absorbed into the German
empire, or by the House of Austria—it made little difference which
was the original tenure—all are ‘Austrian’ now, whether willingly
or not.
With the same skill, the House of Brandenburg obtained the
domains of the Baltic Slaves, and formed the kingdom of Prussia,
very Teutonic to the west, and very Slavonic to the east.
Meantime, after a long period of exhaustion, almost of extinction,
the Muscovites came forth from the Tatar oppression stronger than
ever; and by gradual conquests from their former enemies, at length
formed their huge empire of the east.
And Poland, after many a turbulent election, many a summons to
German princes to hold the reins of its restless multitude, was finally
and unrighteously dismembered and divided, and the cry of its
wrongs has ever since rent the ears of Europe.
The existing Slavonian languages are the Russian, the literary
language of the great empire; the Livonian, or the language spoken
by the persons who are not of Finnish blood in the elbow beneath
the Gulf of Finland; the Lettish and Lusatian, used by the old
Prussian subjects and their neighbours in Russia; the Polish; the
Slovak, spoken in Hungary; the Servian, Illyrian, and Croatian, all
representing the old Bulgarian.
Of all these, it is perhaps the Polish that has contributed the most
names to the European stock, and they are but few; but there were
intermarriages, and friendly intercourse, besides occasional elections
to the Polish throne; and, latterly, the dispersion and exile of the
Polish nobility carried their names into distant parts of Europe, and
gave them a romantic interest.
Bohemia and Hungary sent a few names into the Austrian line,
but they soon died out; and Russia uses comparatively few native
Slavonic names, but makes chief use of those of the saints of the
Greek Church.
Slavonian languages are said to be soft in their own speech, but
our letters clumsily render their sounds, and make them of cumbrous
length; and the few names that have been adopted have been severely
mangled.
They are, for the most part, grand and poetical compounds, often
exactly corresponding to Greek or Teutonic names, and with others
more poetical than those in either of these other languages, such as
Danica, the Morning star; Zwezdana, or in Russian, Swetlana, a
Star; Zora, Zorana, Zorica, the Slovak Aurora; and Zorislava, the
436Dawn of glory; Golubica, the Dove; Lala, the Tulip. The Slaves
use likewise the amaranth, or everlasting flower, as a name both for
men and women, namely, Smiljan and Smiljana; and while a man
may be called Dubislav, or Oak fame, the Servians and Illyrians call
their daughters after fruits,—Grozdana, Rich in grapes; Jagoda, the
Strawberry; and Kupina, or Kupiena, the Gooseberry.[149]
The Slavonians had a polytheistic religion, answering, in spirit, to
that of the other Indo-European nations; but as they had no mythic
literature, like Greece and Scandinavia, we are dependent for
information upon popular ballads and superstitions, eked out by
the notices of missionaries and statements of conquerors; and it is not
easy to perceive whether their myths were an independent branch of
the general stock, or only the Teutonic religion under another
dress.
The divine word, in all the various nations, is Bog. It was used for
God, both in the old heathen times, and afterwards in its full sense,
when Christianity became known to them. It enters into numerous
names, both before and after Christianity. The most noted is
Bogislav, or God’s glory, which was borne by many a Pole and old
Prussian; and, in 1627, it finished off the old Slavonic line of dukes
of Pomerania, from whom that state came to the acquisitive house
of Brandenburg. The historical Latinism of the name is Bogislaus;
and it is still current in Illyria as Bogosav.
Theophilus is literally translated by Bogoljub or Bogoje in Illyria,
and Bohumil in Bohemia. This makes it probable that Robert
Guiscard thence took the name of his eldest son, Bohemond, giving
it a Norman termination. The mother is called Alvareda, and she
is said to have been divorced on the score of consanguinity; but it is
not improbable that this was a mere excuse of the wily duke of
Calabria for ridding himself of an Illyrian wife. Bohemond is said
to have been called after a giant of romance; but the giant has not
as yet transpired, and may have been, after all, a Slavonic divinity.
Bohemond, or Boemondo, as Tasso calls him, was the Ulysses of the
first Crusade, and left a grandson namesake.
Theodorus and Theodora are answered by Bogdan and Bogdana,
both spelt with h in Bohemia—Bohdan, Bohdana, and in Illyria
Bozidar, Bozidara; and, as has been already said, the Divine birth-night,
Christmas, is commemorated by Slovak children being called
Bozo. Bogohval is Thank God, Bogoboj, God’s battle, all names in
use in Poland and the kindred nations before the general names of
Europe displaced the native growth.
437The word does not answer to either Deus or God, but is related to
the Sanscrit bhagas, destiny.
The word ljube, Love, is rather a favourite in the affectionate
Slavonic nomenclature. At the outset of Bohemian history we come
on the beautiful legend of Queen Libussa, or the darling. She succeeded
her father in 618, governed alone for fourteen years, then,
finding her people discontented, sought the wisest man in her
domains for a husband, and found him, like Cincinnatus, at the
plough, when he not only retained his homely cloak, iron table, and
bark sandals, as marks of his origin, but bade them be produced at all
future royal elections. His name, Przemysl, or the thoughtful, was
continued in his line, though chroniclers cut its dreadful knot of
consonants by calling it Premislaus and the next ensuing namesake
Germanized himself as Ottokar. He was afterwards elected king of
Poland, where the name was used, with the feminine Przemyslava.
Russia has the feminine Ljubov, Love, fondly termed Lubuika,
and, in families where French is spoken, called Aimée, though this
more properly translates Ljubka and Ljubnia. The Slovaks have
Ljuboslav and its feminine, and the Polish Lubomirsky is Peace-loving.
The Russian Ljubov is chiefly used in allusion to the Christian
grace of love; and Faith, or Vjera, and Hope, Nadezna, are both,
likewise, very popular at the present day, the latter usually Frenchified
into Nadine; while the Serbs have Nada, or Nadan.
The Slaves of Rugen had a terrible deity called Sviatovid, or the
luminous, who was considered to answer to Mars, or Tyr, and had a
temple at Acron, and an image with seven heads, which must have
much resembled Indian idols. A white horse was sacred to him, and
was supposed to be ridden by him during the night, and to communicate
auguries by the manner in which it leaped over lances that
were arranged in its path. Human sacrifices were offered to this deity
both in Rugen and Bohemia; and when his image was at length
overthrown, St. Vitus, from the resemblance of sound, was confounded
with him by the populace, and Svantovit, as they called both alike,
was still the tutelary genius of the place. Svetozor, Dawn of light,
and Svetlana, a Russian lady’s name still in use, are connected with
light, the first syllable of his name.
Conjoined with Sviatovid, and lying on a purple bed in the temple
in Rugen, was the seven-headed Rugevid, or Ranovid (whose name
is explained by reference to the Sanscrit rana, blood-thirsty); and
likewise Radegost, the god of hospitality, from rad, prosperous, and
gose, a guest, the word so often encountered. Several names began
with the first syllable—Rada, Radak, Radan, Radinko, Radmir,
Radivoj, Radko, Radman, Radmil, Radoje, Radoslav; and the Illyrians
have the hospitable name of Gostomil, or Guest love: indeed,
gost forms the end of many Slavonic names, in accordance with the
ready and courteous welcome always offered by this people.
Davor is another war god, whose name seems of very near kindred
to Mavors, or Mars, and who left Davorinn, Davroslav, and Davroslava,
as names.
Tikla was the old Slavonic goddess of good luck, and, being confounded
438with St. Thekla, made this latter name popular in Poland,
Russia, and Hungary; and, in like manner, Zenovia, the huntress
goddess, conduced to make Zenobia, and Zizi, its contraction, common
in Russia.
The fire god was Znitch; and though he does not show any direct
namesakes, yet there are sundry fire-names in his honour, such as the
Slovak Vatroslav and Illyrian Ognoslav, both signifying fire glory.
Possibly, too, the Russian Mitrofan may be connected with the old
Persian mithras, or sacred fire; though in history it figures in Greek
ecclesiastical guise, as the Patriarch Metrophanes.[150]
Few more Slavonic names remain to be mentioned, and these more
for their correspondence with those of other races than for much
intrinsic interest.
Very few are known beyond their own limits. Stanislav, or Camp
glory, is the most universal, and is one of the very few found
in the Roman calendar, which has two Polish saints thus named.
The first, Stanislav Sczepanowski, Bishop of Cracow, was one of the
many prelates of the eleventh century who had to fight the battle of
Church against king, and he was happy in that his cause was that of
morality as well as discipline. Having excommunicated King
Boleslav for carrying off the wife of one of the nobles, he was murdered
by the king in his own cathedral; and Gregory VII. being the
reigning Pope, his martyrdom was an effectual seed of submission to
the Church. The wretched king died by his own hand, and the
bishop became a Slavonian Becket, was enshrined at Cracow, and
thought to work miracles. His name was, of course, national, and
was again canonized in the person of Stanislav Kostka, one of the
early Jesuits who guided the reaction of Roman Catholicism in
Poland. The name has even been used in France, chiefly for the
sake of the father of the Polish queen of Louis XV., and afterwards
from the influx of Poles after the partition of their kingdom.
| English. |
French. |
Portuguese. |
Italian. |
| Stanislaus |
Stanislas |
Estanislau |
Stanislao |
| German. |
Bavarian. |
Polish. |
Illyrian. |
| Stanislav |
Stanes |
Stanislav |
Stanisav |
| Lettish. |
Stanisl |
Stach |
Stanko |
| Stanislavs |
Stanel |
Stas |
|
| Stachis |
Stanerl |
|
|
439Much in the same spirit is the Russian Boris, from the old Slavonian
borotj, to fight. It has never been uncommon in Muscovy,
and belonged to the brother-in-law of Ivan the Terrible, Boris
Goudenoff, who was regent for his imbecile nephew Feodor; and,
after assassinating the hopeful younger brother, Dmitri, reigned as
czar, till dethroned by a counterfeit Dmitri. Borka and Borinka are
the contractions, and Borivor was the first Christian duke of Bohemia.
Bron, a weapon, forms Bronislav and Bronislava. Voj is the
general Slavonic term for war, and is a very frequent termination.
Vojtach, the Polish Vojciech, and Lithuanian Waitkus, all mean
warrior.
It is a curious feature in nomenclature how strongly glory and
fame are the leading notion of the entire race, whose national title of
glory has had such a fall. Slav is an inevitable termination; voj
almost as constantly used; and even the tenderest commencements
are forced to love war, and to love fame. The old Russian Mstisslav
glories in vengeance (mest), but is usually recorded as Mistislaus;
Rostislav increases glory; Vratislav, Glowing glory, names not only
the Wratislaus of history, but the city of Breslaw. The Slovak
Vekoslav, and Vekoslava, are Eternal fame.
The two animals used in Slavonic names are warlike; Vuk, the
wolf, and Bravac, the wild boar; but both these are very possibly
adopted from the German Wulf and Eber.
Boleje, strong or great, answers to the Teuton mer, and Boleslav is
great glory. Boleslav Chrobry, the second Christian prince of Poland,
was a devout savage and great conqueror, both in Russia and Bohemia.
He was the first Pole to assume the title of king; and after his death,
in 1025, there are many instances of his name in both Poland and
Bohemia.
In this latter country it had, however, a far more sinister fame.
Borivor and Ludmilla, the first Christian prince and princess of that
duchy, had two grandsons, Boleslav and Vesteslav, or Venceslav, the
first a heathen, the latter a Christian. Boleslav stirred up the pagan
population against his brother, and murdered him while praying in
church at Prague, on the 28th of September, 644, thus conferring on
him the honour of a patron saint and centre of legends. The House
of Luxemburg obtained the kingdom of Bohemia by marriage, and
Venceslav was introduced among their appellations in the form of
Wenzel; and the crazy and furious Bohemian king of that name sat
for a few unhappy years on the imperial throne; but in spite of the
odium of that memory, the name of good King Wenceslas, as we call
it, held its ground, and contracts into Vacslav and Vaclav. Some
say that it is crown glory, from vienice; others deduce the prefix from
vest, the superlative of veliku, great, which furnished the Bulgarian
Velika, Veleslav, Velimir.
440The familiar root that has been so often encountered in valeo, wield,
&c., in the sense of power, gives the prefix vlad to various favourite
Slavonic names. The Russian Vladimir, being of the race of Rurik,
is sometimes seized upon as Waldemar; and, in fact, there is little
difference in the sense of the first syllable. He is a great national
saint, since it was his marriage with the Greek Princess Anna that
obtained for the Byzantine Church her mighty Muscovite daughter;
and in honour of him, Vladimir has been perpetually used in Russia,
shortened into Volodia, and expanded into Volodinka by way of
endearment.
The national saint of Hungary was Vladislav, who was the restorer
of the faith that had almost faded away after the death of the sainted
King Stephen, and was chosen as leader of a crusade, which was prevented
by his death in 1095. His name, and that of his many
votaries, have sorely puzzled Latin and Teutonic tongues; when not
content, like the French, to term him St. Lancelot, his countrymen
call themselves after him Laszlo, or Laczko, the Illyrians Lako, the
Letts Wendis; but chroniclers vary between Uladislaus and Ladislaus
in Hungary and Poland; and when the Angevin connection brought
down a king from Hungary to revenge the death of his brother upon
Giovanni of Naples, the Italians called him Ladislao; and as Ladislas
we recognize the last native Hungarian king, brother-in-law to
Charles V. Vladislavka is a feminine, contracting into Valeska,
which is still borne by Polish young ladies. Vladivoj is another of
the same class, and sve, all, with the verb vladati, to rule, has
formed Vsevolad and Svevlad, All ruler, and Vseslav, All fame.
Possibly there may be some connection here with the deity Volos,
Weles, or Veless, invoked under these names by the Slaves, Bohemians,
and Russians, as witness of their oaths, and likewise as guardian of
flocks. Possibly the Roman Pales may be the same deity under
another form; but the name of Volos is still applied to shepherds,
and comes, no doubt, from the Slavonic vlas, or Russian volos, the
same word as wool.
The word mir at the end of Vladimir is somewhat doubtful. It
may mean peace, or it may mean the world; and in like manner the
Slovak Miroslav stands in doubt between world-fame or peaceful-fame.
Purvan, Purvançe, is the Bulgarian first, whether used in the sense
of chief or of first-born does not appear; but, at any rate, bearing a
most eastern sound with it.
We are familiar with the Russian ukase, from ukasat, to show
forth; and kaze in Polish has the same sense of command. Kazimir
is thus Command of peace, a noble title for a prince, and essentially
national in Poland, where it was endeared by the fame of three of the
best of the earlier sovereigns. It has the feminine Kasimira, and is
one of the very few Slavonic names used by Teutons. Intermarriages
introduced it among the German princes; and Johann Kasimir, a son
of the Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, was a noted commander in the war of
the Revolt of the Netherlands, and received the Garter from Queen
Elizabeth. He was commonly called Prince Kasimir, and his namesakes
441spread in Germany; and either for the sake of the sound, or
Polish sympathies, Casimir was somewhat fashionable in France.
| French. |
Polish. |
Bohemian. |
Lettish. |
| Casimir |
Kazimir |
Kazimir |
Kasimirs |
| German. |
Kazimierz |
|
Kasche |
| Kasimir |
|
|
Kaschis |
| |
|
|
Kaschuk |
Kol, council, formed Koloman, somewhat noted in early Slavonic
history.
Jar, pronounced as beginning with y, means strength or firmness.
Jaromir, Firm peace, was prince of Bohemia in 999. Jaropolk, firm
government, was the last heathen grand prince of Muscovy; and this
name, with Jaroslav, is very frequent in the early annals of the House
of Rurik.
From lid, the people, (our old friends hleute and λαος,) came
Ljudomir and Ludmilla, who was the first Christian duchess in
Bohemia, and was strangled by her heathen daughter-in-law,
Dragotina, the mother of Boleslav and Venceslav, leaving a sainted
name much used among all Slavonian women, and called at home
Lida and Lidiska; in Russia, Ljudmila. Lidvina was likewise
Bohemian, from Vina, an old goddess.
Words signifying goodness are far from uncommon in this class of
nomenclature. Dobry, good, has a worthy family. Dobrija, sometimes
called Dobrowka, was the Bohemian princess whose marriage,
like those of Clotilda, Bertha, and Anna, brought religion into her
new country. Her husband, Miczslav, of Poland, had been born
blind, but recovered his sight at seven years old. He had seven
wives while still a heathen, but was told that he would have no
children unless he began afresh with a Christian lady. He demanded
the Czech princess. She brought St. Adalbert, of Prague, with her;
and Mistislaus, as he is generally called in history, is counted as the
first Polish Christian king, in the year 970. So national was the
name, that the Poles altered Maria of Muscovy to Dobrija, on her
marriage with Kasimir, their king. The other names of this commencement
are Illyrian—Dobrogast, Dobroljub, Dobroslav, and its
feminine Dobrovoj, Dobrvok, Dobrutin, and Dobrotina, Good guest,
Good love, Good glory, Good war, Good wolf, and Beneficent.
Ssvätyj, holy, and polk, government, are the component parts of
the old Russian Sviatopolk, often found among the early race of
Rurik. Holy glory, Sviatoslav, was the inappropriate name of the
son of the Christian princess Olga, the same who refused baptism,
442believing that all the converts were cowards, and that he should lose
the support of the war gods and of his followers.
The Illyrian blag, good, makes Blagorod, Good birth, also, as usual,
Blagovoj, Blagoslav, Blagodvor, Blagogost, and the contraction
Blagoje.
Prav is upright, a connection, it may be, of probus, and it has
formed the Slavonic Upravda, and the Illyrian Pravdoslav, Pravdoslava,
Pravoje. It is, perhaps, the same with the Wend prib,
which formed the name Pribislava. The Danes amalgamated the
Wend pred into their own names as Predbiorn, or Preban.
Çast, or cest, is honour. The first letter, ç, should be pronounced
z; it is rather a favourite with Poland and Bohemia. Çastibog
exactly answers to the Greek Timotheus, as does Çastimir to the
modern German Ehrenfried, very possibly a translation from it.
Çastislav is the most popular form, like all else ending in slav, and
has shortened into Çaslav, Çaislav, Cestislav, Ceslav.
Of the same sound is the first letter of çist, pure, whence Çistav
and Çistislav. From tverd, firm, we have Tverdko, Tverdimir,
Tverdislav.
The Slavonian nature has much in common with the Irish, and
there is much of caressing and personal affection. Ljub, as has been
seen, is a favourite element in names, and dragi, dear, does a considerable
part. Dragomira, or DearDear peace, was the name of the
heathen mother of Boleslav and Venceslav. Dragoslav, or dear glory,
is Russian, and Poland and Bohemia have used Dragan, Draganka,
Dragoj, Dragojila, Dragioila, Dragnja, Dragotin, Dragotinka, Dragilika,
Dragija.
Duschinka is the tender epithet which, in Russia, a serf applies to
her lady in addressing her. It is properly the diminutive of Duscha,
happy, which is sometimes a Christian name in Russia, as well as in
Illyria, where it is called Dusa and Dusica. Stastny is the Bohemian
word for happy, and is sometimes used as a name. Blazena, meaning
happy, in these tongues, is used as the South Slavonic equivalent for
Beatrice.
Another word for love is mil. Mila and Milica are the feminines,
meaning lovely, or amiable, Milan the masculine; but all these are
now confounded with the numerous progeny of the Latin Æmilius.
Mil is a favourite termination, and is found loving war and glory—Milovoj
and Miloslav.
Cedoljub and Cedomil are both most loving names, the first half
of the name signifying a child, so that they signify ‘child-love,’ or
‘filial affection.’
Brotherly love is likewise honoured as nowhere else, save in the
Greek Philadelphus, which exactly renders Bratoljub, from brata, a
word of the universal family likeness whence ἀδελφός and hermano
443are the only noted variations. Brajan and Bragican also belong to
brotherhood.
Deva is a maiden, whence Devoslav and Devoslava, probably
formed, or at least used, in honour of the Blessed Virgin.
A few names of extremely personal application exist, such as the
Servian Mrena, white in the eyes, and Mladen, young, and the highly
uncomplimentary Illyrian Smoljan and Smoljana, from smoljo, an
overhanging nose, probably a continuation of the nickname of some
favoured individual.
Krasan, beautiful, however, was used in names, as Krasimir,
Krasislav, Krasomil, &c.; and zlata, golden, though once used in
Zlatoust, as a literal translation of Chrysostomos, in other names
may, it is hoped, be employed to denote beauty; or else Zlatoljub,
with its contractions Zlatoje and Zlatko, would be a most avaricious
name. Zlata, Zlatana, Zlatibor, and Zlatislav, are also used.
Tiho, silent, is a curious prefix. Tihomil, Silent love, and Tihomir,
Silent peace, are clear enough; but Tihoslav, Silent glory, is a
puzzling compound, probably only arising from the habit of ending
everything with slav.
It is remarkable, however, that there is an entire absence of the
names of complexion so common among the Kelts and Romans.
444
It still remains to cast a passing glance over the countries of the
European commonwealth, and observe the various classes of names
that have prevailed in them. It is only possible to do this, with my
present information, very broadly and generally. In fact, every
province has its own peculiar nomenclature; and the more remote
the place the more characteristic the names, and, therefore, the most
curious are the least accessible. It is the tendency of diffused civilization
to diminish variations, and up to a certain point, at least, to
assimilate all to one model, and this process for many years affected
the educated and aristocratic community, although latterly a desire
for distinctiveness and pride in the individual peculiarities of race
and family, have arisen; but, on the other hand, the class below, which
used to be full of individualities, has now reached the imitative stage,
and is rapidly laying aside all national and provincial characteristics,
The European nobility, except where some old family name has been
preserved as an heirloom, thus cease, about the sixteenth century,
to bear national names; but all are on one level of John, Henry,
Frederick, Charles, Louisa, &c., while the native names come to light
among citizens and peasants; but now, while the gentleman looks
back for the most distinctive name in his remote ancestry, and proudly
bestows it on his child, the mechanic or labourer shrinks from the
remark and misunderstanding that have followed his old traditional
baptismal name, and calls his son by the leastleast remarkable one he can
find, or by one culled from literature. These remarks apply chiefly
to England, but also, in great measure, to the town population of
France, and to all other places which are much affected by the
universal fusion of national ideas and general intercourse of the
present day.
Modern Greece has the most direct inheritance from the ancient,
classical, and old Christian names. True, her population has undergone
changes which leave but little of the proud old Ionian or Dorian
blood; but her language has been victorious over the barbarous
speech of her conquerors, and Latins and Bulgarians became Greek
beneath her influence.
445The inhabitants of her peninsulas and islands are, then, with few
exceptions, called by Greek names. The exceptions are, in the first
place, in favour of the Hebrew names that are in universal use, not
only the never-failing Joannes and Maria, but Isaakos, David, Elias,
and others, for whom the Greek Church has inculcated more constant
veneration than has the Latin. Next there are the few Latin names
that were accepted by the Greeks during the existence of the Byzantine
empire, and either through martyrs or by favourite sovereigns,
recommended themselves to the love of posterity; but these are few
in number, and Konstantinos is the only distinguished one. And,
lastly, an extremely small proportion have been picked up by
intercourse with the Western nations, but without taking root.
The mass of Greek names belongs to the class that I have called
‘Greek Christian,’ being those that were chiefly current in the years
of persecution and martyrdom—some old hereditary ones from
ancient time, others coined with the stamp of the Faith. These,
with others expressive of favourite ideas, such as Macharios, Blessed,
Sophia, Wisdom, Zoe, Life, were the staple of the Greeks until
the modern revival brought forward the old heroic and historical
names; and Achilles, Alkibiades, Themistokles, &c., are again in
familiar use.
In a list of names used at the present day in the Ionian Islands, I
find seventeen men and four women of the old historical and heroic
class; the four ladies being Kalliope, Arethusa, Euphrosyne, and
Aspasia; and, perhaps, Psyche and Olympias ought to be added to
these: twenty-three male and nineteen female of the Christian Greek
class: two Hebrew, i. e. Joannes and Jakobos, of men; three of
women, Maria, Anna, and Martha. Paulos and Konstantinos, and
perhaps Maura, alone represent the Latin, and Artorioos the Kelt,
probably borrowed from some Englishman.
Surnames are inherited from the Latin nomina, and began earlier
in Constantinople than anywhere else. They are divided between
the patronymic, ending, as of old, in ides, the local, and the permanent
nickname.
The European portion of the vast empire of Russia is nationally
Slavonic, but much mixed with Tatar; and the high nobility is
descended, at least according to tradition, from the Norsemen. The
royal line is, through intermarriages, almost Germanized. The Church
continues the faith, practice, and ritual of the Greek Church, but in
the old Slavonic tongue, from which the spoken language has much
deviated.
The Greek element greatly predominates in the nomenclature:
native saints have contributed a few Slavonic specimens, and a very
few inherited from the Norsemen occur; but the race of Rurik seem
very quickly to have adopted Russian names. The Tatar population
hardly contributes a Christian name to history, and the Germans
446almost always, on their marriage with the Russian imperial family,
assumed native, i. e. Greek or Roman-Greek, names. The present
fashions in nomenclature are, however, best explained in the following
letter from an English lady residing in Russia:—
'Children (and grown-up persons in their own family) are, I may
say, universally called by their diminutives. In society the Christian
name and patronymic are made use of, and you seldom hear a person
addressed by his family name, though he may be spoken of in the
third person as “Romanoff,” or “Romanova” (surnames take the
gender and number of their bearers), except by his superiors, such as
a general to his young officers, &c.
'The patronymic is formed by the addition of vitch, or evitch, to
the Christian name of a person’s father; as Constantine Petrovitch,
Alexander Andréevitch, in the masculine; and of ovna, or evna, in
the feminine, Olga Petrovna, Elizavetta Andréovna.
'I would call your attention to the error that is generally made in
the newspapers, where these patronymics are spelt with a W, whereas
they really are spelt and pronounced with a V.
'The diminutives can always be traced to the root, being derived
from the first, or the accented syllable, of the full name, with the
termination of a little fond syllable, sha, ia, inka, otchka, oushka; for
instance, Mária, Másha, Mashinka—Olga, Olinka, Olitchka: Ian,
John, Vanoushka, Vanka—Alexandre, Alexandra, Sasha, Sashinka.
Not in one diminutive are there such glaring differences of spelling
and sound, as Dick for Richard, Polly for Mary, Patty for Martha.
'Perhaps it is not superfluous to mention, that there are diminutives
of reproach as well as of affection; if you scold Olga, she becomes
Olka; Ivan, Vanka; and so on. This form, however, is seldom
made use of by well-educated people, except in fun; though there
are some who do not hesitate to make free use of it in their kitchens
and nurseries, in a private sort of a manner. Among the lower
orders, and especially in the country, it is not considered reproachful,
but is the general form of appellation. You observe, that this is
formed by the addition of ka to the principal syllable.
'I find, on attentive search in the “Monument of Faith,” a sort of
devotional book of prayer and meditations applied to every day of
the year, and with the names and a short-biography of each saint,
that there are 822 men’s names and 204 women’s in the Russian
calendar. Of these, you will be surprised to hear twelve only are
really Slavonic. Unfortunately I am unable to inform you of their
meanings, notwithstanding every inquiry among the few educated
inhabitants of this little out-of-the-way town; but if ever I have an
opportunity of seeing a real “Sclavonophile,” as searchers into
Russian antiquities are called, I will not fail to ask about it. The
names are as follows:—
- ‘1 Boris (m.), grand duke; murdered in 1015.
- ‘2 Gleb (m.), brother to Boris; murdered in 1016.
- ‘3 Vetcheslav (m.), Duke Chetsky.
- ‘4 Vladimir (m.), grand duke; baptized in 988 (1st Christian grand duke).
- 447‘5 Vsévolod (m.), duke; he changed his name to Gabriel when baptized;
died in 1138.
- ‘6 Igor (m.), grand duke of Tchernigoff, 1147. (Norse.)
- ‘7 Razóomnik (m.); this name is taken from rázoom, which means sense,
wisdom, and signifies a wise, sensible person.
- ‘8 Olga (f.), grand duchess, god-mother to Vladimir. She was the first
Christian duchess. (Norse.)
- ‘9 Ludmilla (f.), god-mother to Vsevold, and martyred in the cause of
Christianity.
- ‘10 Véra (f.), means faith.
- ‘11 Nadéjda (f.), hope.
- ‘12 Lubov, charity, love.
‘All the other names are of Greek, Latin, or Hebrew origin (with
a very few exceptions, of which I will speak afterwards), and though
they generally differ in termination, yet they are to be recognized
instantly. I observe that in Greek names K is used, and not the
sound of S, as in Kiril, Kiprian (Cyril, Cyprian). Also that Th takes
the sound of F, as Féodore, Fomá (Theodore, Thomas). But the Th
is represented by a letter distinct from that by which Ph or F are
represented, the former being written Θ and the latter Ø, but both
have exactly the same sound. U sometimes becomes V when used in
the middle of names, as Evgenia (Eugenia), Evstafi (Eustace). B in
many instances becomes V, as in Vasili (Basil), Varvara (Barbara),
Varfolomey (Bartholomew).
‘The names of other origin are very few, viz.:—
'Avenir—Indian;
Arisa—Arabian;
Daria—Persian;
Sadof—Persian;
Erminigeld—Gothic.
‘German names, I may say, are not to be found in the Russo-Greek
calendar.
‘When I say that there are 1026 Christian names in the calendar,
I must explain that the number of saints is infinitely greater; there
being from two or three to twenty or thirty every day of the year,
the 29th of February included. There are sixty-one St. John’s days,
thirty St. Peter’s, twenty-seven St. Féodor’s, twenty-four St.
Alexandre’s, eighteen St. Gregory’s, sixteen St. Vasili’s, twelve St.
André’s, ten St. Constantine’s, &c.
‘Sometimes the same saint is fêted two or three times in the year,
but the different saints of the same name are very many. The
female saints are in less number. Maria and Anna each occur ten
times in the year, Euphrosinia six times, Féodora eight, and so on.
In proportion to the number of saints so are the names of the population;
so that Ivan is the most common; next, I think, comes
Vasili, André, Pëtre, Nicolas (Nikolâï), Alexandre.
‘The lower orders have no idea of dates; they always reckon by
the saints’ days. Ask a woman the age of her baby, she will say,
“Well, I suppose it is about thirty weeks old.” “What is its name?”
448“Ivan.” “Which Ivan?” you ask, your calculations being defeated
by the sixty-one St. Johns. “Why, the Ivan that ‘lives’ four days
after dirty Prascóvia.” You then understand that the child must
have been born about the 10th or 12th October, as the blessed saint
is irreverently called “dirty Prascóvia” from falling on the 14th
October, a very muddy time of the year in holy Russia.
‘One name only can be given at baptism, and it must be taken
from the orthodox calendar. German, French, and English names
not to be found there cannot be bestowed, nor can a surname, as in
England.’
Italy, like Greece, has her classical inheritance. Her Lucio, Marco,
Tito, Giulio, bear appellations borne by their Oscan or Sabine forefathers,
even before Rome was a city; but mingled with this ancient
stream there have been such an infinite number of other currents,
that no land has undergone more influences, or has a more remarkable
variety of personal names.
In the decay of the Roman Empire, and the growth of the Church,
the old prænomina were a good deal set aside, by the heathen in his
search for heroic-sounding titles, by the Christian in his veneration
for the martyrs and saints of his Church. So the prosaic matter-of-fact
three-storied name of the Roman was varied by importations,
generally of Christian Greek, but now and then of heroic Greek; and
as the Christian element predominated, the Hebrew apostle or prophet
suggested the name of the young Roman. Barbarians, acquiring
rights of citizenship, ceased to adopt the nomen of their patron,
retaining appellations that a Scipio or Cato would have thought only
fit to be led in a triumph, but still putting on a Latin finish and
regarding them as Roman. But these—disgraceful as they are now
regarded—were the days that stamped the Roman impress on the
world, and marked the whole South of Europe with an indelible.
print of Latin civilization and language.
Goths, Vandals, Gepidæ, and Lombards came on northern Italy
one after the other; and the Lombards established a permanent
kingdom that deeply influenced the north of the peninsula and
Teutonized its nobility. The towns were less open to their influence;
and Venice remained the Roman and partly Byzantine city she was
from her source—using a language where her g is still the Greek ζ,
and christening her children by the names of later Rome in its
Christian days, only with the predominance of the national saint,
Marco, the guardian of the city ever since his bones were stolen
from Alexandria. The recurring ano, or ani, of Venetian surnames
is the adoptive anus of Rome—republican Rome—whose truest representative
the merchant city was till her shameful degradation and
final ruin.
The Italian element in the population of Cisalpine Gaul continued
far too strong for the Lombardic conquerors, and ere long had taught
449them its own language. If they wrote, it was in their best approach to
classical Latin; when they spoke, it was in the dialectic Latin of the
provinces farther broken by the inability of the victors to learn the
case terminations, which were settled by making, in the first declensions,
all the singular masculines end in o, and plurals in i, all the
feminines in a and e; in the others, striking a balance and calling all
ite. But though the speech was Latin, the Lombard kept his old
Teutonic name—Adelgiso, Astolfo, or the like, and handed it on to
his son, softened, indeed, but with its northern form clearly traceable.
Time went on, and the Lombardic kingdom was fused into the Holy
Roman Empire. The towns remained self-governing, self-protecting
old Roman municipalities; the Lombardic nobles, if they had a
strong mountain fastness, lived like eagles in their nests and were
the terror of all; if they had but a small home on the plains, were
forced to make terms with the citizens and accept their privileges as
a favour. Thus came the Teuton element into the cities, and old
Lombardic names were borne by Florentine and Milanese citizens.
The Roman nomina so far were preserved that a whole family would
be called after its founder, whether by his name or nickname. The
noted man might be originally Giacopo, but called Lapo for short.
His children were, collectively, Lapi; a single one would be either
Bindo Lapo, or, latterly, dei Lapi, one of the Lapi. Sometimes office
gave a surname, as Cancelliero, when the family became Cancellieri.
One of these Cancellieri was twice married; and one of the wives
being yclept Bianca, her children were called Bianchi; their half-brothers
Neri, merely as the reverse; and thence arose the two famous
party words of the Guelfs of Florence. Latterly, when these names
in i were recognized as surnames, it was usual to christen a boy by
the singular, and thus we have Pellegrino Pellegrini, Cavaliere
Cavalieri, and many other like instances, familiar to the readers of
Dante and of old Italian history. Dante’s own names—the first
contracted from a Latin participle, the second the direct patronymic
from his father—Alighiero, the Teutonic noble spear, form a fit
instance of the mixed tongue, which he first reduced to the dignity
of a written language. Those were its days of vigour and originality;
of fresh name-coining from its own resources,—Gemma, Fiamma,
Brancaleone, Vinciguerra, Cacciaguido—words not merely of commonplace
tradition, but original invention.
Meantime southern Italy had been under other influences. Long
remaining a province of the Eastern empire, Calabria, Apulia, and
Sicily were the marauding ground of the Saracens, till the gallant
Norman race of Hauteville came to their deliverance, and imposed
on them a Norman-French royalty and nobility, with their strange
compound of French and Northern names—Robert and Roger,
Tancred and William, Ferabras and Drogo, the latter certainly
Frank, as it belonged to an illegitimate son of Charlemagne. It was
brought to England by Dru de Baladon, a follower of the Conqueror;
and we find it again in Sir Drew Drury, the keeper of Mary of
Scotland. It may be related to the Anglo-Saxon dry, a sorcerer,
and dreist, the German skilful, but its derivation is uncertain.
450When the Norman influence waned, the Swabian power gave a few
German names to the Two Sicilies, but was less influential than
either the French in Naples or the Aragonese in Sicily, where the
one strewed Carlo, the other Fernando and Alfonso.
All this time the Christian name was the prominent one, more
used and esteemed than titles throughout all ranks. Men and
women would be simply spoken of as Giovanni or Beatrice, or more
often, by contractions, Vanni or Bice, Massuccio, or Cecca, now and
then with Ser or Monna (signor or madonna) added as titles of
respect.
All the time, what may be called the Roman Catholic influence on
nomenclature was growing in its great centre. The city of martyrs
was filled with churches where the remains of the saint gave the
title, and was thought to give the sanctity, and these suggested names
to natives and pilgrims alike. Cecilia, Sebastiano, Lucia, &c., and
more than can be enumerated, won their popularity from owning a
church that served as a station in the pilgrimages, and thus influenced
the world. Relics brought to Rome, and then bestowed as a gift
upon princes, carried their saints' epithets far and wide; and when
Constantinople was in her decay, and purchased the aid of Western
sovereigns by gifts of her sacred stores, the Greek and Eastern saints
had their names widely diffused, as Anna, Adriano, &c. Moreover,
the feasts of different events in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary
began to tell on Italian names, and Annunciata, and later, Assunta,
were the produce.
Francesco is the most universal name of native Italian fabrication.
It is one of what may be called the names spread by religious orders,
all of which originate in Italy; Benedetto, oldest of all and universal
in Romanist lands; Augustino, never very popular; Domenico, not
uncommon in Italy, but most used in gloomy Spain; Francesco and
Clara, both really universal in Protestant as well as Roman Catholic
lands.
The revival of classical literature, produced partly by the influx of
Greek scholars after the fall of Constantinople, partly by the vigour
of Boccaccio and Petrarch, brought a classical influence to bear on
Italy, of which her names are more redolent than those elsewhere.
Emilia, Virgilio, Olimpia, Ercole, Fabrizio, all arose and flourished
in Italy, and have never since been dropped, though the Romanist
influence has gone on growing, and others have affected parts of the
country.
Romance had some influence—Orlando, Oliviero, Rinaldo, Ruggiero—and
the more remote Lancilotto, Ginevra, Isolda, Tristano, all
became popular through literature; and the great manufacture of
Italian novels, no doubt, tended to keep others in vogue.
The French and German wars in Italy, the erection of the
Lombardic republics into little tyrannical duchies, and the Spanish
conquest of Naples, all tended to destroy much of the individuality
of Italian nomenclature, and reduce that of the historical characters
to the general European level. And this tendency has increased
rather than diminished, as Spain devoured the North, and ‘balance
451of power’ struggled for Austrian interests, and established Bourbon
kingdoms and duchies. The old national names were not utterly
discarded; there was still a Lombardic flavour in the North, a
classical one in the old cities, a Norman one in Sicily; but the
favourite commonplace names predominated in the noblesse, and
titles began to conceal them. Moreover, the women were all Maria,
and many of the men likewise; and the same rule at present holds
good, though of late the favourites have become Filomena and
Concetta—in honour, the one of the new saint, the other of the new
dogma of Rome.
The House of Savoy, which is just now the hope of Italy, always
had its own peculiar class of names—Humbert, Amé, Filiberto,
Emanuele, Vittore, and these are likely to become the most popular
in liberal Italy.
Spain has many peculiarities of her own, to which I would fain do
greater justice than is in my power. Celtiberian at first, she seems
to have become entirely Latin, except in those perplexing Basque
provinces, where the language remains a riddle to philologists. One
Spanish name is claimed by Zamacola as Basque, i. e. Muño, with its
feminine Muña, or Munila; and for want of a more satisfactory
history, one is inclined to suppose that Gaston, or Gastone, must be
likewise Basque. It first comes to light as Gascon among the counts
of Foix and Béarn, from whom the son of Henri IV. derived it, and
made it French.
Rome Latinized the Spanish speech for ever, and left many an old
Latin name, which, however, went on chiefly among the lower orders,
while the Suevi and the Goths ruled as nobles and kings, bringing
with them their Teutonic names, to be softened down to the dignified
Romance tongue, which took the Latin accusative for its stately
plurals in os and es. It is likely that the Latin element was working
upwards at the time of the Mahometan conquest, since the traitor
Julian, his daughter Florinda, the first patriot king, Pelayo, all have
classically derived names; and some of these occur in the early
royal pedigrees of the Asturias and Navarre, and the lords of Biscay,
as these small mountain territories proclaimed their freedom and
Christianity. Here we find Sancho (Sanctus), Eneco (Ignatius), Lope,
Manse, Fortunio, Adoncia, Teresa, Felicia, all undoubtedly Latin
and Greek; and curiously, too, here are the first instances of double
Christian names, probably the remnant of the Latin style. Eneco
Aristo, Inigo Sancho, Garcias Sancho, and the like, are frequent
before the year 1000; and the Cid’s enemy, Lain Calvo, is supposed
to be Flavius Calvus. The Goths, however, left a far stronger
impression on the nomenclature than on the language. Alfonso,
Fernando, Rodrigo, Berengario, Fruela, Ramiro, Ermesinda, are
undoubtedly theirs; but other very early names continue extremely
doubtful, such as Ximen and Ximena, Urraca, Elvira, or Gelvira,
452Alvaro, Bermudo, Ordoño, Velasquita, all appearing in the earliest
days of the little Christian kingdoms, though not in the palmy
times of the Gothic monarchy. These names have been already
mentioned, with the derivations to which they may possibly belong;
but they are far from being satisfactorily accounted for. The simple
patronymic ez was in constant use, and formed many surnames.
As the five kingdoms expanded and came into greater intercourse
with Europe, the more remarkable names gradually were discarded;
but Alfonso, Fernando, Rodrigo, Alvar, Gonzalo, were still national,
and the two first constantly royal, till the House of Trastamare
brought Enrique and Juan into fashion in Castille. The favourite
saint was James the Great, or, more truly, Santiago de Compostella,
in honour of whom Diego and his son Diaz are to be found in very
early times. Maria, too, seems to have been in use in Spain sooner
than elsewhere, and Pedro was in high favour in the fourteenth
century, as it has continued ever since.
Aragon and Portugal had variations from the Castillian standard
of language; and Portugal now claims to have a distinct tongue,
chiefly distinguished by the absence of the Moorish guttural; and in
nomenclature, by the close adherence to classic spelling, and by the
terminations which would in Spanish be in on, or un, being in aŏ,
the contraction of nho. Aragonese has been absorbed in Castillian,
and Catalan is only considered as a dialect.
After Aragon and Castille had become united, and, crushing the
Moors and devouring Navarre, were a grand European power, their
sovereigns lost all their nationality. French, or rather Flemish,
Charles, and Greek Philip, translated as Carlo and Felipe, reigned on
their throne as the House of Austria, while the native Fernando went
off to be the German Ferdinand. Isabel, the Spanish version of
either Jezebel, or Elizabeth, did retain her popularity, but hardly in
equal measure with the universal Maria; and as the Inquisition
Romanized the national mind more and more, the attribute names of
Mercedes and Dolores, and even the idolatrous Pilar, and Guadalupe,
from a famous shrine, were invented. These were given in conjunction
with Maria, and used for convenience' sake. Literary names seem
to have been few or none, and the saint, or rather the Romanist,
nomenclature, was more unmitigated in Spain and her great western
colonies than anywhere else; even in Italy, where the classics and
romance always exerted their power. In the Spanish colonies, even
divine names are used, without an idea of profanity.
The use of the Christian name in speech has, however, never been
dropped, even under the French influence of the Bourbon monarchy;
and Don Martin, Doña Luisa, &c., would still be the proper title of
every Spanish gentleman or lady.
The Spanish names that have spread most extensively have been
Fernando in Germany, Iñigo and Teresa throughout all Roman
Catholic countries, for the sake of the two Spanish saints who
revived their old half-forgotten sound.
453
France, the most influential of European countries for evil or for
good, can hardly be properly spoken of as one, in nation or language.
Yet that one dialect of hers that has contrived to be the most universal
tongue of Europe, that character, which by its vivacity and
earnestness, and, perhaps, above all, by its hard, rigid consistency,
has impressed its ideas on all other nations, and too often dragged
them in its wake, though both only belonging to a fraction of the
population, are still, in general estimation, the French, and their
importance undeniable. Dislike, despise, struggle as we will, we are
still influenced, through imitation and vanity, and the deference
of the weaker majority, in matters of conventional taste.
Old Gaul had its brave Keltic inhabitants, and its race in Brittany,
unsubdued by even Rome, were only united to the rest of the
country by the marriage of their heiress, only subdued by gradual
legalized tampering with their privileges. Even in the Keltic
province, however, genuine Keltic names are nearly gone; though
Hervé, Guennolé, Yvain, Arzur, are still found in their catalogues;
and in France, Généviève, by her protection of Paris, left her ancient
name for perpetual honour and imitation.
The Roman overflow came early and lasted long; it left a language
and manners strongly impressed, and the names seem to have been
according to Latin forms and rules. Dionysius, Pothinus, Martinus,
Hilarius, are all found among the Gauls in the end of the Roman
sway; and when the Franks had burst over the country and held the
north of the Loire, whenever a Gaul comes to the surface, he is called
by a Roman name—Gregorius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Germanus,
Eligius.
Southern Gaul was, indeed, never Frank. The cities were Roman
municipalities, shut their gates, and took what care of themselves
they could; while the Hlodvehs and Meervehs, the Hilperics, and
Hildeberts ravaged over the stony country, which still called itself
Provincia. And there, though Burgundians on the east, and Goths
from the Pyrenees, gradually contrived to erect little dukedoms and
counties, and hold them under the empire established by Charlemagne,
the country was still peopled by the Romanized Gaul,
and the Langue d’oc was spoken and sung. This was the centre of
the softened classic names, Yolande and Constance, Alienor and
Delphine, while the legends of St. Marthe and of the Martyrs of
Lyons supplied provincial saints. The rich literature, chiefly of
amatory songs, died away, and the current remains of the language
are now unwritten, falling further and further into patois, and
varying more from one another. One of its curious peculiarities is
to make o a feminine termination; Dido is there short for Marguerite,
Zino for Theresine, &c.
A great number of French surnames are still Roman, such as
Chauvin (Calvinus), Godon (Claudius), Marat, Salvin, and many
454more, showing that Latin nomenclature must long have been prevalent
among the mass of the people, though as history is only concerned
with the court, we hear chiefly of the Franks around the unsteady
thrones of Neustria and Austrasia. The High German of these
kingdoms, as used by the Meerwings, was extremely harsh; Hlodveh
and Hlodhild, Hlother and Hlodvald, were their rough legacies;
but, despised as was the name and cheap the blood of the Roman
among them, his civilization was conquering his victors; and when
the Karlings, with their middle class cultivation, subdued the effete
line of Meerveh, they spoke Latin as freely as Frankish, and the
names they bore had softened; Ludovicus and Lotharius, Carolus
and Emma in Latin, or in German, Ludwe and Lothar, Karl and
Emme. And now, among the many saints that were fostered by the
religious government and missionary spirit of Frankland, arose the
founders of the chief stock names of Europe—Robert, Richard, Henry,
Williaume, Walther, Bernard, Bertram, Eberhard, and the like.
When, in the next generation, Germany, Lorraine, and France fell
apart, the latter country was beginning to speak the Langue d’oui,
retaining the Latin spelling, but disregarding it in speech, as though
the scholar had written correctly, but the speaker had disregarded
the declension, and dropped the case endings alike of Latin and
Teutonic. And so Karl was Charles, and Lodwe Louis, long before
the counts of Paris, with their assimilation of the Cymric Hu to the
Teuton Hugur, had thrust the Karlings down into Lorraine, and
commenced the true French dynasty in their small territory between
the Seine and Loire.
Already had the Northmen settled themselves in Neustria, and,
taking the broken Frank names and mangled Latin speech for badges
of civilization and Christianity, had made them their own, and
infused such vigour into the French people, that from that moment
their national character and literature begin to develop.
Then it was that France exercised a genuine and honourable
leadership of Europe. Her language being the briefest form of Latin,
was, perhaps, the most readily understood of the broken Romance
dialects; and though Rome had the headship of the Church, and
Germany the nominal empire of the West, France had the moral
chieftainship.
The Pope did but sanction the Crusades; it was France that
planned them. Frenchmen were the connecting link between the
Lorrainer Godfrey, the Norman Robert, the Sicilian Tancred, the
Provençal Raymond, the Flemish Baldwin. The kingdom of Jerusalem,
though founded by the Lorrainer, was essentially French; the
religious orders of knighthood were chiefly French; the whole idea
and language of chivalry were French; and perhaps rightly, for
France has at times shown that rare and noble spirit that can exalt a
man for his personal qualities, instead of his rank, even in his own
lifetime. The nation that could appreciate its St. Bernard, its Du
Guesclin, its Bayard, deserved, while that temper was in it, to be a
leader of the civilized world.
England was in these earlier days regarded as a foreign and semi-barbarous
455realm held by a French duke or count, while southern
France was divided into independent fiefs of the empire. The names
began to be affected by reverence for saints, and fast included more
and more of the specially popular patrons, such as Jean, Jaques,
Simon, Philippe. They became common to all the lands that felt the
central crusading impulse, and the daughters of French princes, Alix,
Matilde, the Provençal Constance, Alienor, Isabel, Marguérite, were
married into all parts of Europe, and introduced their names into
their new countries, often backed up by legends of their patrons.
Normandy lapsed to France through King John’s crime and weakness,
and the persecution of the Albigenses, and the narrower views
of the popes, changed the Crusades to a mere conquest of the Langue
d’oc by the Langue d’oui, completed by the marriages of the brothers
of St. Louis; and though Provence continued a fief of the empire,
and the property of the Angevin kings of Naples, yet their French
royal blood united it more closely to the central kingdom, and the
transplanting of the papal court to Avignon, gave a French tinge to the
cardinalate which it only recovered from at the expense of the Great
Schism.
Philippe le Bel was the last able sovereign of France of the
vigorous early middle ages; but the brilliant character of the nobility
still carried men’s minds captive, and influenced the English even
through the century of deadly wars that followed the accession of
the House of Valois, and ended by leaving Louis XI. king of the
entire French soil.
The ensuing century was that when the influence of France on
other nations was at the lowest ebb. Exhausting herself first by
attacks on Italy, and then by her savage civil wars, she required all
the ability of Henri IV. and of Richelieu to rouse her from her
depression, and make her be respected among the nations. Meantime,
her nomenclature had varied little from the original set of names in
use in the tenth century; dropping a few obsolete ones, taking up
a few saintly ones, recommended by fresh relics, and occasionally
choosing a romantic one, but very scantily; François was her only
notable adoption. The habit of making feminines to male names
seems to have spread in France about the eighteenth century, rather
narrowing than widening the choice. Jeanne seems to have been
the first to undergo this treatment; Philippine was not long after,
then Jacqueline, and, indeed, it may have been the habit—as it is
still among the peasantry of the South—always to give the father’s
name to the eldest child, putting a feminine to it for a girl.
With the cinque-cento came a few names of literature, of which Diane
was the most permanent; and the Huguenots made extensive use
of Scripture names—Isaac, Gédéon, Benjamin, and many more; but
the Christian name was quickly falling out of fashion. People were,
of course, christened, but it is often difficult to discover their names.
The old habit of addressing the knight as Sire Jehan, or Sire Pierre,
and speaking of him as le Beau Sieur, had been entirely dropped.
Even his surname was often out of sight, and he was called after some
estate—as le Sieur Pierre Terrail was to the whole world Chevalier
456Bayard. Nay, even in the signature, the Christian name was omitted,
unless from some very urgent need of distinction. Henri de Lorraine,
eldest son of the duke of Guise, signs himself Le Guisard in a letter to
the Dauphin Henri, son of François I. Married ladies wrote themselves
by their maiden joined to their married title, and scarcely
were even little children in the higher orders called by one of the
many names that it had become the custom to bestow on them,
in hopes of conciliating as many saints and as many sponsors as
possible,—sometimes a whole city, as when the Fronde-born son of
Madame de Longueville had all Paris for his godmother, and was
baptized Charles Paris.
Now and then, however, literature, chiefly that of the ponderous
romances of the Scudéry school, influenced a name, as Athenaïs or
Sylvie; but, in general, these magnificent appellations were more
used as sobriquets under which to draw up characters of acquaintances
than really given to children. Esther is, however, said to have
been much promoted by the tragedy of Racine.
The Bourbons, with their many faults, have had two true kings of
men among them—Henri IV. and Louis XIV.—men with greatness
enough to stamp the Bourbon defects where their greatness left no
likeness.
There is something very significant in the fact, that these were the
days when it was fashionable to forget the simple baptismal name.
There was little distinction in it, if it had been remembered; Louis
or Marie always formed part of it, with half-a-dozen others besides.
As to the populace, nobody knows anything of them under Louis
XIV.: they were ground down to nothing.
The lower depth, under Louis XV., brought a reaction of simplicity;
but it was the simplicity of casting off all trammels—the classicalism
of the Encyclopædists. Christian names are mentioned again, and were
chosen much for literary association. Emile and Julie, for the sake of
Rousseau; and, from Roman history, Jules and Camille, and many
another, clipped down to that shortened form by which France always
appropriated the words of other nations, and often taught us the same
practice.
The Revolution stripped every one down to their genuine two
names, and woe to the owners of those which bore an aristocratic
sound, or even meaning. Thenceforth French nomenclature, among
the educated classes and those whom they influence, has been pretty
much a matter of taste. Devotion, where it exists, is satisfied by the
insertion of Marie, and anything that happens to be in vogue is added
to it. Josephine flourished much in the first Bonaparté days; but
Napoléon was too imperial, too peculiar, to be given without special
warrant from its owner; nor are politically-given names numerous:
there are more taken from popular novels or dramas, or merely from
their sound. Zephyrine, Coralie, Zaidée, Zénobie, Malvine, Séraphine,
prevail not only among the ladies, but among the maid-servants of
Paris; and men have, latterly, been fancifully named by appellations
brought in from other countries, never native to France—Gustave,
Alfred, Ernest, Oswald, &c. Moreover, the tendency to denude words
457of their final syllable is being given up. The names in us and in a
are let alone, in spelling, at least; and some of our feminine English
contractions, such as Fanny, have been absolutely admitted.
All this, however, very little affects the peasantry, or the provinces.
Patron saints and hereditary family names, contracted to the utmost,
are still used there; and a rich harvest might be gathered by
comparison of the forms in Keltic, Latin, Gascon, or German, in
France.
The waning space demands brevity; otherwise, the appellations of
our own countrymen and women are a study in themselves; but
they must here be treated of in general terms, rather than in
detail.
The Keltic inhabitants of the two islands bore names that their
descendants have, in many instances, never ceased to bear and to
cherish. The Gael of Ireland and Scotland have always had their
Niel and Brighd, their Fergus and Angus; Aodh, Ardh, and Bryan,
Eachan, Conan, the most ancient of all traditional names, continuing
without interval on the same soil, excepting a few of the more
favoured Greek and old Italian.
The Cymry, in their western mountains, have a few equally permanent.
Caradoc, Bronwen, Arianwen, Llud, and the many forms
of Gwen, are extremely ancient, and have never dropped into disuse.
In both branches of the race there was a large mass of poetical and
heroic myth to endear these appellations to the people; and it is one
of the peculiar features of our islands to be more susceptible than any
other nation to these influences on nomenclature. Is it from the
under-current of the imaginative Kelt that this tendency has been
derived?
Rome held England for four hundred years; and though Welsh
survived her grasp and retained its Keltic character, instead of
becoming a Romance tongue, it was considerably imbued with Latin
phraseology; and the assumption of Latin names by the British
princes, with the assimilation of their own, has left a peculiar class of
Welsh classic names not to be paralleled elsewhere, except, perhaps,
in Wallachia. Cystenian, Elin, Emrys, Iolo, Aneurin, Ermin,
Gruffydd, Kay, are of these; and there are many more, such as
March, Tristrem, Einiawn, Geraint, which lie in doubt between the
classic and the Cymric, and are, probably, originally the latter, but
assimilated to those of their Latin models and masters. It was these
Romanized Kelts who supplied the few martyrs and many saints of
Britain; whose Albanus, Aaron, and Julius left their foreign names
to British love, and whose Patricius founded the glorious missionary
Church of Ireland, and made his name the national one. His pupils,
Brighde and Columba, made theirs almost equally venerated, though
none of these saintly titles were, at first, adopted in the Gadhaelic
458Churches without the reverent prefix Gille, or Mael, which are
compounded with all the favourite saintly names of the Keltic
calendar.
Again, the semi-Roman Kelts were the origin of the Knights of
the Round Table. Arthur’s own name, though thorough Keltic, is
claimed by Greek. Lancelot is probably a French version of the
Latin translation of Maelgwn; and the traces of Latin are here and
there visible in the nomenclature of the brave men who, no doubt,
aimed rather at being Roman citizens than mediæval knights.
The great Low German influx made our island English, and
brought our veritable national names. An immense variety existed
among the Anglo-Saxons, consisting of different combinations,
generally with some favourite prefix, in each family—Sige, Æthel,
Ead, Hilde, Cuth, Ælf, and the terminations, generally, beorht, red,
volf, veald, frith, or, for women, thrythe, hilde, gifu, or burh. The
like were in use in the Low German settlements on the Continent,
especially in Holland and Friesland.
Christianity, slowly spreading through the agency of the Roman
Church on the one hand and the Keltic on the other, did not set
aside the old names. It set its seal of sanctity on a few which have
become our genuine national and native ones. Eadward, Eadmund,
Eadwine, Wilfrith, Æadgifu, Æthelthryth, Mildthryth, Osveald, and
Osmund, have been the most enduring of these; and Æthelbyrht we
sent out to Germany, to come back to us as Albert.
The remains of the Danish invasions are traceable rather in surnames
than Christian names. The permanent ones left by them were
chiefly in insular Scotland and Ireland. Torquil, Somerled, Ivor,
Ronald, Halbert, are Scottish relics of the invaders; and in Ireland,
Amlaidh, Redmond, Ulick.
But it was the Normans, Norsemen in a French dress, that brought
us the French rather than Frank names that are most common with
us. Among the thirty kings who have reigned since the Conquest,
there have been ten Christian names, and of these but two are Saxon
English, three are Norman Frank, two French Hebrew, one French
Greek, one French, one Anglicized German Greek. Strictly speaking,
Richard is Saxon, and began with a native English saint; but it was
its adoption by Normans that made it popular after the Conquest;
and it came in company with William, Henry, Robert, Walter,
Gilbert, all in perpetual use ever since. Alberic, Bertram, Baldwin,
Randolf, Roger, Herbert, Hubert, Reginald, Hugh, Norman, Nigel,
and many others less universally kept up, came at the same time;
and Adelheid and Mathilda were imported by the ladies; but, in
general, there were more men’s names than women’s then planted,
probably on account of William’s policy of marrying Normans to
English women.
Scripture names were very few. There are only two Johns in
Domesday Book, and one is a Dane; but the saints were beginning
to be somewhat followed; Eustace was predominant; Cecily, Lucy,
Agnes, Constance, were already in use; and in the migration, Brittany
contributed Tiffany, in honour of the Epiphany. At the same time
459she sent us her native Alan, Brian, and Aveline; and vernacular
French gave Aimée and afterwards Algernon.
It was a time of contractions. Between English and French, names
were oddly twisted; Alberic into Aubrey, Randolf into Ralph,
Ethelthryth into Awdry, Eadgifu into Edith, Mathilda into Maude,
Adelheid into Alice.
Saint and Scripture names seem to have been promoted by the
crusading impulse, but proceeded slowly. The Angevins brought us
the French Geoffrey and Fulk, and their Provençal marriages
bestowed on us the Provençal version of Helena—Eleanor, as we have
learnt to call their Alienor, in addition to the old Cymric form
Elayne. Thence, too, came Isabel, together with Blanche, Beatrice,
and other soft names current in poetical Provence. Jehan, as it was
called when Lackland bore it, and its feminine Jehanne, seem to have
been likewise introductions of our Aquitanian queen.
The Lowland Scots had been much influenced by the Anglo-Saxons,
whose tongue prevailed throughout the Lothians; and after the fall
of Macbeth, and the marriage of Malcolm Ceanmore, English names
were much adopted in Scotland. Cuthbert has been the most lasting
of the old Northumbrian class. The good Queen Margaret, and her
sister Christian, owed their Greek names, without a doubt, to their
foreign birth and Hungarian mother, and these, with Alexander,
Euphemia, and George, forthwith took root in Scotland, and became
national. Probably Margaret likewise brought the habit, then more
eastern than western, of using saintly names, for her son was David;
and from this time seems to have begun the fashion of using an
equivalent for the Keltic name. David itself, beloved for the sake of
the good king, is the equivalent of Dathi, a name borne by an Irish
king before the Scottish migration. David I., nearly related to the
Empress Maude, and owning the earldom of Northumbria in right of
his wife, was almost an English baron; and the intercourse with
England during his reign and those of his five successors, made the
Lowland nobles almost one with the Northumbrian barons, and
carried sundry Norman names across the border, where they became
more at home than even in England; such as Alan, Walter, Norman,
Nigel, and Robert.
Henry II. was taking advantage of the earl of Pembroke’s expedition
to Ireland, and the English Pale was established, bringing with it to
Erin the favourite Norman names, to be worn by the newly-implanted
nobles, and Iricized gradually with their owners. Cicely became
Sheelah; Margaret, Mairgreg; Edward, Eudbaird; and, on the
other hand, the Irish dressed themselves for civilization by taking
English names. Finghin turned to Florence, and Ruadh to Roderick,
&c.
Henry III. had been made something like an Englishman by his
father’s loss of Normandy; and in his veneration for English saints,
he called his sons after the two royal saints most beloved in England,
Edward and Edmund; and the death of the elder children of Edward
I. having brought the latter a second time to the throne, it was
thenceforth in honour. Thomas owed its popularity to Becket, who
460was so christened from his birth on the feast of the Apostle, St.
Thomas, and, in effect, saintly names were becoming more and more
the fashion. Mary was beginning to be esteemed as the most honourable
one a woman could bear; and legends in quaint metrical English
rendered Agnes, Barbara, Katharine, Margaret, and Cecily well
known and in constant use.
The romances of chivalry began to have their influence. Lionel
and Roland, Tristram, Ysolda, Lancelot, and Guenever, were all the
produce of the revival of the tales of Arthur’s court, arrayed in their
feudal and chivalrous dress, and other romances contributed a few.
Diggory is a highly romantic name, derived from an old metrical tale
of a knight, properly called D'Egaré, the wanderer, or the almost lost,
one of the many versions of the story of the father and unknown son.
Esclairmonde came out of Huon de Bourdeaux; Lillias, such a
favourite in Scotland, came out of the tale of Sir Eger, Sir Graham,
and Sir Graysteel; Lillian out of the story of Roswal and Lillian;
and Grizel began to flourish from the time Chaucer made her patience
known.
The Scots, by their alliance with France, were led to import French
terminations, such as the diminutives Janet and Annot; also the
foreign Cosmo, and perhaps likewise Esmé.
Meantime we obtained fresh importations from abroad. Anne
came with the Queen of Richard II.; Elizabeth from the German
connections of Elizabeth Woodville’s mother, Jaquetta of Luxemburg;
Gertrude was taken from Germany; Francis and Frances caught from
France; and Arthur was revived for his eldest son by the first
Tudor; Jane instead of Joan began, too, in the Tudor times.
But when the Reformation came, the whole system of nomenclature
received a sudden shock. Patron saints were thrown to the winds;
and though many families adhered to the hereditary habits, others
took entirely new fashions. Then, Camden says, began the fashion
of giving surnames as Christian names; as with Guildford Dudley,
Egremont Ratcliffe, Douglas Sheffield; and in Ireland, Sidney, as a
girl’s name, in honour of the lord deputy, Sir Henry, the father of
Sir Philip, from whom, on the other hand, Sydney became a common
English boy’s name.
Then, likewise, the classical taste came forth, and bestowed all
manner of fanciful varieties; Homer, Virgil, Horatius, Lalage,
Cassandra, Diana, Virginia, Julius, &c., &c., all are found from this
time forward; and here and there, owing to some ancestor of high
worth, specimens have been handed on in families.
The more pious betook themselves to abstract qualities; Faith,
Hope, Charity, Prudence and Patience, Modesty, Love, Gift, Temperance,
Mercy, all of which, even to the present day, sometimes are
used, but chiefly by the peasantry, or in old Nonconformist families.
Between the dates 1500 and 1600 began the full employment of
Scripture names, chosen often by opening the Bible at haphazard,
and taking the first name that presented itself, sometimes, however,
by juster admiration of the character. Thus began our use of
Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Rachel, Joseph, Benjamin,
461Josiah, Gershom, Gamaliel, &c.; and others more quaint and peculiar.
The Puritan clergy absolutely objected to giving unedifying names.
A minister was cited before Archbishop Whitgift for refusing to
christen a child Richard. The Bible was ransacked for uncommon
names only found in the genealogies, and parish registers show the
strangest varieties, such as Hope still, Dust and Ashes, Thankful,
Repent, Accepted, Hold-the-Truth, &c. These were chiefly given at
the baptisms in the latter days of Elizabeth and the reign of James I.
They were the real, not assumed, names of the Ironsides, but they
were not perpetuated. A man called Fight-against-Sin would have
too much pity for his son to transmit such a name to him. Original
is, however, a family name still handed on in Lincolnshire. Probably
it was at first Original Sin. The most curious varieties of names
were certainly used in the 17th century. The register of the scholars
admitted to Merchant Taylors' school between 1562 and 1699 shows
Isebrand, Jasper, Jermyn, Polydore, Cæsar, Olyffe, Erasmus, Esme,
Ursein, Innocent, Praise, Polycarpe, Tryamour, and a Sacheverell,
Filgate, admitted in 1673.
Comparatively few of these Puritan names were used in Scotland;
but several were for sound’s sake adopted in Ireland as equivalents;
Jeremiah for Diarmaid; Timothy for Tadhgh; Grace for Graine.
Charles was first made popular through loyalty to King Charles I.,
who had received it in the vain hope that it would be more fortunate
than the hereditary James, itself brought into Scotland seven
generations back by a vow of Annaple Drummond, mother of the
first unfortunate James. English registers very scantily show either
Charles or James before the Stuart days, but they have ever since
been extremely popular. Henrietta, brought by the French queen,
speedily became popular, and with Frances, Lucy, Mary, Anne,
Catherine, and Elizabeth, seem to have been predominant among
the ladies; but all were contracted, as Harriet, Fanny, Molly, Nanny,
Kitty, Betty. The French suppression of the Christian name
considerably affected the taste of the Restoration; noblemen dropped
it out of their signature; the knight’s wife discarded it with the
prefix Dame; married daughters and sisters were mentioned by the
surname only; young spinsters foolishly adopted Miss with the
surname instead of Mistress with the Christian; but the loss was not
so universal as in France, for custom still retained the old titles of
knights and of the daughters and younger sons of the higher ranks
of the nobility. The usual fashion was, in imitation of the French,
for ladies to call themselves and be addressed in poetry by some of
the Arcadian or romantic terms, a few of which have crept into
nomenclature; Amanda, Ophelia, Aspasia, Cordelia, Phyllis, Chloe,
Sylvia, and the like.
The love of a finish in a was coming in with Queen Anne’s
Augustan age. The soft e, affectionate ie or y, that had been natural
to our tongues ever since they had been smoothed by Norman-French,
was twisted up into an Italian ia: Alice must needs be Alicia;
Lettice, Letitia; Cecily, Cecilia; Olive, Olivia; Lucy, Lucinda; and
no heroine could be deemed worthy of figuring in narrative without
462a flourish at the end of her name. Good Queen Anne herself had an
a tacked on to make her ‘Great Anna’; Queen Bess must needs be
Great Eliza; and Mary was erected into Maria; Nassau had lately
been invented for William III.’s godchildren of both sexes; and
Anne, after French precedent, made masculine for his successor’s
godsons. Belinda, originally the property of the wife of Orlando,
was chosen by Pope for his heroine of Rape of the Lock; Clarissa was
fabricated out of the Italian Clarice by Richardson; and Pamela was
adopted by him out of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, as a recommendation
to the maid-servant whom he made his heroine; and these, as
names of literature, all took a certain hold. Pamela is still not
uncommon among the lower classes.
In the mean time the House of Brunswick had brought in the
regnant names of German taste—George, of which, thanks to our
national patron, we had already made an English word, Frederick,
Ernest, Adolphus—a horrible English Latinism of good old German,
Augustus, an adoption of German classic taste; and, among the ladies,
generally clumsy feminines of essentially masculine names—Caroline,
Charlotte, Wilhelmina, Frederica, Louisa, together with the less
incorrectly formed Augusta, Sophia, and Amelia.
This ornamental taste flourished, among the higher classes, up to
the second decade of the nineteenth century, when the affectations, of
which it was one sample, were on the decline, under the growing
influence of the chivalrous school of Scott, and of the simplicity
upheld by Wordsworth. The fine names began to grow vulgar, and
people either betook themselves to the hereditary ones of their
families, or picked and chose from the literature then in fashion.
Two names, for the sake of our heroes by sea and land, came into
prominence—Horatio and Arthur, the latter transcending the former
in popularity in proportion to the longer career and more varied
excellences of its owner. Womankind had come back to their Ellen,
Mary, and Lucy; and it was not till the archaic influence had gone
on much longer that the present crop sprang up, of Alice and Edith,
Gertrude, Florence, and Constance, copied again and again, in fact
and in fiction, and with them the Herbert and Reginald, Wilfrid and
Maurice, formerly only kept up in a few old families. It is an
improvement, but in most cases at the expense of nothing but
imitation, the sound and the fashion being the only guides. After
all, nomenclature cannot be otherwise than imitative, but the results
are most curious and interesting, when it is either the continuation
of old hereditary names, like the Algernon of the Howards or the
Aubrey of the de Veres, or else the record of some deeply felt event,
like the Giustina of Venice, in honour of the battle of Lepanto, or
our own Arthur, in memory of the deeds of our great duke.
Names are often an index to family habits and temper. Unpretending
households go on for generations with the same set, sometimes
adopting one brought in by marriage, but soon dropping it out if it
is too fine. Romantic people reflect the impressions of popular
literature in their children’s names; enthusiastic ones mark popular
incidents,—Navarino, Maida, Alma, have all been inflicted in honour
463of battles. Another class always have an assortment of the fashionable
type—Augusta, Amelia, and Matilda, of old; Edith and Kate at
present.
Nonconformity leaves its mark in its virtue names and its Scripture
names, the latter sometimes of the wildest kind. Talithacumi was
the daughter of a Baptist. A clergyman has been desired to christen
a boy ‘Alas,’ the parents supposing that ‘Alas! my brother,’ was a
call on the name of the disobedient prophet. There is a floating
tradition of ‘Acts’ being chosen for a fifth son, whose elder brothers
had been called after the four Evangelists; and even of Beelzebub
being uttered by a godfather at the font.
Among other such names may be mentioned ‘Elibris,’ which some
people persisted belonged to their family, for it was in their grandfather’s
books: and so it was, being e libris (from the books), the old
Latin manner of commencing an inscription in a book. Sarsaparilla
was called from a scrap of newspaper. ‘Valuable and serviceable’ is
also said to have been intended for a child, on the authority of an
engraving in an old watch; and an unfortunate pair of twins were
presented for the imposition of Jupiter and Orion, because their
parents thought them pretty names, and ‘had heard on them.’
Double names came gradually in from the Stuart days, but only
grew really frequent in the present century; and the habit of calling
girls by both, now so common among the lower classes in towns, is
very recent.
With many families it is a convenient custom to christen the sons
by the mother’s maiden name in addition to their first individual
name; but the whole conversion of surnames into Christian names
is exclusively English, and is impossible on the Continent, as state
and church both refuse to register what is not recognized as in use.
Of English surnames we need say nothing; they have been fully
treated of in other works, and as any one may be used in baptism, at
any time, the mention of them would be endless.
In speaking of England we include not only our colonies but
America. There our habits are exaggerated. There is much less of
the hereditary; much more of the Puritan and literary vein.
Scripture names, here conspicuous, such as Hephzibah, Noah,
Obadiah, Hiram, are there common-place. Virtues of all kinds
flourish, and coinages are sometimes to be found, even such as
‘Happen to be,’ because the parents happened to be in Canada at
the time of the birth.
‘Peabody Duty perhaps keeps a store,
With washing tubs, and wigs, and wafers stocked;
And Dr. Quackenbox proclaims the cure
Of such as are with any illness docked:
Dish Alcibiades holds out a lure
Of sundry articles, all nicely cooked;
And Phocion Aristides Franklin Tibbs,
Sells ribbons, laces, caps, and slobbering-bibs.’
The Roman and Greek influence has been strong, producing Cato,
Scipio, Leonidas, &c.; but the habit of calling negroes by such
464euphonious epithets has rather discouraged them among the other
classes, and the romantic, perhaps, predominates with women, the
Scriptural with men. The French origin of many in the Southern
States, and the Dutch in New England, can sometimes be traced in
names.
What was said of Frankish applies equally to old High German,
of which Frankish was a dialect, scarcely distinguishable with our
scanty sources of information.
We have seen Frankish extinguished in Latin in the West; but in
the East we find it developing and triumphing. The great central
lands of Europe were held by the Franks and Suevi, with the half
civilized Lombards to their south, and a long slip of Burgundians on
the Rhine and the Alps, all speakers of the harsh High German, all
Christians by the seventh century, but using the traditional nomenclature,
often that of the Nibelungenlied. The Low Germans, speaking
what is best represented by Anglo-Saxon literature, were in the
northerly flats and marshes, and were still heathens when the Franks,
under Charlemagne conquered them, and the Anglo-Saxon mission
of Boniface began their conversion.
The coronation of Charles by the pope was intended to establish
the headship of a confederacy of sovereigns, one of them to be the
Kaisar, and that one to be appointed by the choice of the superior
ones among the rest. This chieftainship remained at first with the
Karlingen; but after they had become feeble it remained, during
four reigns, with the house of Saxony, those princes who established
the strange power of the empire over Italy, and held the papal
elections in their hands. It was under them that Germany became
a confederation, absolutely separate from her old companion France.
There is not much to say of German nomenclature. She little
varied her old traditional names. Otto, Heinrich, and Konrad,
constantly appeared from the first; and the High German, as the
literary tongue, has had the moulding of all the recognized forms.
The Low German continued to be spoken, and became, in time,
Dutch and Frisian, as well as the popular dialect of Saxony and
West Prussia. The Frisian names are, indeed, much what English
ones would be now if there had been no external influences.
In spite of being the central empire, the German people long
resisted improvement and amalgamation. The merchant cities were,
indeed, far in advance, and the emperors were, of necessity, cultivated
men, up to the ordinary mark of their contemporary sovereigns; but
the nobility continued surly and boorish, little accessible to chivalrous
ideas, and their unchanging names—Ulrich, Adelbert, Eberhard,
marking how little they were affected by the general impressions of
Europe. A few names, like Wenceslav, or Boleslav, came in by
marriage with their Polish, Bohemian, and Hungarian neighbours;
and Hungary, now and then, was the medium of the introduction of
465one used at Constantinople, such as Sophia, Anne, Elisabeth, which,
for the sake of the sainted Landgraffinn of Thuringia, became a
universal favourite. Friedrich came in with the Swabian dynasty;
Rudolf and Leopold, with the house of Hapsburg.
Holland and the cluster of surrounding fiefs meanwhile had a
fluctuating succession, with lines of counts continually coming to an
end, and others acceding who were connected with the French or
English courts. The consequence was, that the gentlemen of these
territories gained a strong French tinge of civilization, especially in
Flanders, where the Walloons were a still remaining island of Belgæ.
The Flemish chivalry became highly celebrated, and, under the
French counts of Hainault and Flanders, and dukes of Burgundy,
acquired a tone, which made their names and language chiefly those
of France, and tinctured that of the peasantry and artisans, so as to
distinguish them from the Hollanders. Andreas, Adrianus, Cornelius,
saints imported by the French dukes, were both in Holland and the
Netherlands, however, the leading names, together with Philip, which
was derived from the French royal family. The Dutch artificers and
merchants had their own sturdy, precise, business-like character—their
German or saintly names, several of which are to be found
among our eastern English, in consequence of the intercourse which
the wool trade established, and the various settlements of Dutch and
Flemish manufacturers in England.
The revival of classical scholarship in the fifteenth century was
considerably felt in the great universities of the Netherlands and of
Germany, and its chief influence on nomenclature is shown in the
introduction of classical names; namely, Julius and Augustus, and
the Emperior Friedrich’s notable compound of Maximus Æmilianus
into Maximilian, but far more in finishing every other name off with
the Latin us. Some were restorations to the original form; Adrianus,
Paulus, and the ever memorable Martinus; but others were adaptations
of very un-Latin sounds. Poppo turned to Poppius; Wolf to
Wolfius; Ernst to Ernestus; Jobst, instead of going back to Justinus,
made himself Jobstius; Franz, Franciscus. The surnames were even
more unmanageable, being often either nicknames or local; but they
underwent the same fate; Pott was Pottus; Bernau, Bernavius;
while others translated them, as in the already-mentioned instance of
Erasmus, from Gerhardson, and the well-known transformation of
Schwarzerd into Melancthon. The Danish antiquary Broby (bridge
town), figures as Pontoppidan; Och became Bos; Heilman, Severtus;
Goldmann, Chrysander; Neumann, Neander; and as to the trades,
Schmidt was Faber; Müller, Molitor; Schneider, Sartorius; Schuster,
Sutorius; Kellner, Cellarius.
The German Christian names did not permanently retain this
affectation; but the Netherlanders, owing probably to the great
resort to their universities, retained it long and in popular speech, so
that in many Dutch contractions, the us is still used, as in Janus for
Adrianus; Rasmus for Erasmus; and almost always the full
baptismal name includes the classical suffix. The surnames, of
course, adhered, and are many of them constantly heard in Germany
466and Holland, while others have come to England chiefly with the
fugitives from the persecution that caused the revolt of the Netherlands.
The Latin left in Dacia and long spoken in Hungary must
have assisted to classicalize the Germans even on their Slavonic side.
The Reformation did not so much alter German as English
nomenclature. The Lutherans, following their master’s principle of
altering only what was absolutely necessary, long retained their
hereditary allegiance to their saints, and did not break out into
unaccustomed names, though they modified the old Gottleip into
Gottlieb. Some of their sects of Germany however, invented various
religious names; Gottseimitdir, Gottlob, Traugott, Treuhold,
Lebrecht, Tugendreich, and probably such others as Erdmuth and
Ehrenpreis were results of this revival of native manufacture. A
few Scriptural names came up among the Calvinists, but do not seem
to have taken a firm hold.
This was the land of the double Christian name. It was common
among the princes of Germany, before the close of the fifteenth
century, long before France and Italy showed more than an
occasional specimen. It was probably necessitated, by way of
distinction, by the large families all of the same rank in the little
German states. They seem to have set the fashion which has
gradually prevailed more and more in Europe; indeed, there are
some double names that have so grown together as to be recognized
companions, such as Annstine for Anne Christine, Anngrethe for
Anne Margarethe. At present it is the custom in almost all royal
families to give the most preposterous number of Christian names, of
which one, or at most two, is retained as serviceable, &c.
A few Slavonic names crept in; chiefly Wenzel from Bohemia;
Kasimir from the Prussian Wends; Stanislas from Poland; and the
house of Austria, when gaining permanent hold of the empire, spread
the names derived from their various connections; the Spanish
Ferdinand, and Flemish Karl and Philipp, besides their hereditary
Leopold and Rudolf, and invented Maximilian.
The counter-reformation brought the Jesuit Ignaz and Franz into
the lands where the Reformation was extinguished, and canonized
Stanislav. Under the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, Germany
retrograded in every respect; and when she began to emerge from
her state of depression, the brilliance of the French court rendered it
her model, which she followed with almost abject submission. Every
one who could talked French, and was called by as French a name
as might be; the royal Fritz became Fédéric, and little Hanne,
Jeannette, the French ine and ette were liberally tacked to men’s
names to make them feminine, and whatever polish the country
possessed was French.
This lasted till the horrors of the Revolution, and the aggressions
that followed it, awoke Germany to a sense of her own powers and
duties as a nation. Her poets and great men were thoroughly
national in spirit; and though, after the long and destructive contest,
she emerged with her grand Holy Roman Empire torn to shreds,
her electoral princes turned into petty kings, her noble Hanse towns
467mostly crushed and absorbed in the new states, her Kaisar merely
the Markgraf of Austria, enriched by the spoils of Lombardy and the
Slavonic kingdoms, yet she had recovered the true loyalty to the
fatherland and its institutions, cared again for her literature and her
language, and had an enthusiasm for her own antiquities, a desire to
develop her own powers.
German names, to a degree, reflect this. They have ceased to ape
Latin or French. So far as any are literary, they come from their
own national literature; but as in most of the states only ordinary
names are registered, the variety is not great. More and more
German names pass to England in each generation, and become
naturalized there; but the same proportion of English do not seem to
be returned.
Bavaria, having been always Roman Catholic, has more saintly
names than most other parts of Germany, and, in particular, uses
those of some of the less popular apostles, who probably have been
kept under her notice by the great miracle plays.
Switzerland, once part of the empire, though free for five hundred
years back, is a cluster of varying tongues, races, languages, and
religions,—Kelt and Roman, Swabian and Burgundian, Romanist,
Lutheran, Calvinist, German, French, Italian. Names and contractions
must vary here; but only those on the German side have
fallen in my way, those about Berne, which are chiefly remarkable
for the Ours and Ursel, in honour of the bears, and Salome among
the women; the diminutive always in li.
Grand old Northmen! They had their own character, and never
lost it; they had their own nomenclature, and kept it with the purity
of an unconquered race.
The few influences that affected their nomenclature were, in the
first place, in some pre-historic time, the Gaelic. Thence, when
Albin and Lochlinn seem to have been on friendly terms, they derived
Njal, Kormak, Kylan, Kjartan, Mælkoln, and, perhaps, Brigitte.
Next, in Denmark, a few Wend names were picked up; and, in fact,
Denmark being partly peopled by Angles, and always more exposed,
first to Slavonic, and then to German influences, than the North, has
been less entirely national in names.
In the great piratical days the Northmen and Danes left their
names and patronymics to the northern isles, from Iceland to Man,
and even in part to Neustria and Italy. Oggiero and Tancredi, in
the choicest Italian poems, are specimens of the wideness of their
fame. Our own population, in the north-east of England, is far more
Scandinavian than Anglian, and bears the impress in dialect in
manners, and in surnames, though the baptismal ones that led to them
are, in general, gone out of use.
Christianity did not greatly alter the old northern names, though
it introduced those of the universally honoured saints. But the
468clergy thought it desirable—and chiefly in Denmark—to take more
ecclesiastical names to answer to their own; so Dagfinn was David;
Sölmund, Solomon; Sigmund, Simon; and several ladies seem to
have followed their example, so that Astrida and Griotgard both
became Margarethe, and Bergliot Brigitte.
The popular nomenclature has included all the favourite saints
with the individual contractions of the country. The royal lines
have been influenced by the dynasties that have reigned. Gustaf
grew national in Sweden after the disruption of the union of Calmar,
and Denmark alternated between Christiern and Friedrich; but the
main body of the people are constant to Olaf and Eirik, Ingeborg
and Gudrun; and in the Norwegian valleys the old immediate
patronymic of the father is still in use. Linnea as a feminine from
Linnæus, the Latinism of their great natural historian’s surname is a
modern invention. Linne itself means a lime tree.
The Northmen have hitherto been the most impressing, and least
impressed from without, of all the European nations; and thus their
names are the great key to those of the South.
Before entirely quitting our subject, it may be interesting to make
a rapid comparison of the spirit of nomenclature, and the significative
appellations that have prevailed most in each branch of the civilized
family which we have been considering.
For instance—of religious names, the Hebrew race alone, and that
at a comparatively late period, assumed such directly Divine appellations,
as Eli, Elijah, Adonijah, Joel. The most analogous to these in
spirit would be the heathen Teutonic ones, Osgod, Asthor, Aasir;
but these were, probably, rather assertions of descent than direct
proclamations of glory.
The very obvious and appropriate Gift of God is in all branches
save the Keltic.
| Hebrew. |
Greek. |
Teutonic. |
Persian. |
| Jonathan |
Theodoros |
Godgifu |
Megabyzus |
| Elnathan |
Dorotheus |
Gottgabe |
i.e. |
| Nathanael |
Latin. |
(late) |
Bagabukhsha |
| Mattaniah |
Adeodatus |
Slavonic. |
|
| Nethaniah |
(late) |
Bogdan |
|
Servant of God is everywhere but among Latins and the Slaves.
| Hebrew. |
Greek. |
Teutonic. |
Keltic. |
Sanscrit. |
| Obadiah |
Theodoulas |
Gottschalk |
Giolla-De |
Devadasa |
469Greek and Gaelic likewise own the Service of Christ, by Christopheros
(Christbearer), Gilchrist, and Malise; and the Arabic has Abd-Allah,
and Abd-el-Kadir, servant of the Almighty. The name of
the late Sultan, Abdul Medschid, signified the servant of the All-Famed.
| THE LOVE OF GOD, OR BELOVED OF GOD. |
| Greek. |
Latin. |
Teutonic |
Slavonic. |
Persian. |
| Theophilus |
Amadeus |
Gottlieb |
Bogomil |
Bagadaushta |
| Philotheus |
|
(late) |
|
|
| HONOURING GOD. |
| Greek. |
Slavonic. |
Persian. |
| Timotheus |
Çastibog |
Megabazus |
| GOD'S JUDGMENT. |
| Heb. |
Greek. |
| Daniel |
Theokritus |
| Jehoshaphat |
|
| Jehoiachim |
|
| GOD'S GLORY. |
| Greek. |
Slavonic. |
| Theokles |
Bogoslav |
| GOD'S GLORY. |
| Hebrew. |
German. |
| Eleazar |
Gotthilf |
The Greek and Slavonic have by far the most directly religious
names, next to the Hebrew, from having been less pledged to hereditary
names, and the time of the conversion. The Gaelic devotion was
almost all expressed in the Giolla and Mael prefix.
Idol names are of course numerous, but comparison between them
is not easy, as they vary with different mythologies. One point is
remarkable, that the Supreme God, whether Zeus, Jupiter, Divas, or
Woden, never has so many votaries as his vassal gods. Zeno, Jovius,
and, perhaps, the Grim of the North, are almost exceptions. The
Phœnician Baal had, indeed, many namesakes, and the Persian
Ormuzd, giver of life, had several, of whom the pope, called Hormisdas,
was one. In general, Ares, Mars, Thor, and Ranovit, the
warlike gods, or the friendly Demeter and Gerda, the beneficent
Athene, the brilliant Artemis, and Irish Brighde, the queens of
heaven, Hera, Juno, Frigga, are chosen for namesakes. Mithras in
Persia, and Apollo in Greece, have their share; but, in general, the
sun is not very popular, though Aurora and Zora honour the dawn;
and the North has various Dags.
Of animals the choice is much smaller than would have been
470expected. The lion’s home is, of course, the East, and Sinha, his
Sanscrit title, is represented by the Singh, so familiar in the names of
Hindu chiefs. The Arabs have Arslan in many combinations; the
Greeks introduced Leo, which has been followed by the Romans, and
come into the rest of Europe; but many as were the lion names of
Greece and later Rome, Leonard, and, perhaps, Lionel, alone are of
European growth.
The elephant is utterly unrepresented, unless we accept the
tradition, that the cognomen of Cæsar arose from his African name.
Persia has a few leopards, such as Chitratachna.
The bear does not show himself in favourable colours in the South,
and Ursus and Ursula are more likely to be translations of the
northern Biorn—so extremely common—than original Latin names.
The Erse, however, owns him as Mahon.
The wolf is the really popular animal. Even the Hebrews knew
Zeeb through the Midianites, the Greeks used Lycos in all sorts of
forms, the Romans had many a Lupus, the Teutons have Wolf in
every possible combination, the Slaves Vuk; the Kelts alone avoid
the great enemy of the fold, whose frequency is almost inexplicable.
The Kelts are, however, the namesakes of the dog, the Cu and Con,
so much loathed in other lands, that only a stray Danish Hund,
Italian Cane, and the one Hebrew Caleb, unite in bearing his name
in honour of his faithful qualities.
The horse is, of course, neglected in Judea, where his use was
forbidden; but in Sanscrit was found Vradaçva, owning great horses;
and the horse flourished all over Persia. Aspamithras, horse’s
friend, Aspachava, rich in horses, Vishtaspa, and many more, commemorate
the animal; and in Greece, Hippolytus, Hippodamos,
Hippomedon, Hipparchus, and many more, showed that riding was
the glory of the Hellenes. Rome has no representative of her equus,
except in Equitius, a doubtful name, more likely to be named in
honour of the equestrian order, than direct from the animal. Marcus
may, however, be from the word that formed the Keltic March,
which, with Eachan and Eochaid, and many more, represent the love
of horses among the Kelts, answering to the Eporedorix, mentioned
by Cæsar. The Slaves have apparently no horse names; but many
of our modern Roses are properly horses, and Jostein, Rosmund, and
various other forms, keep up the horse’s fame in northern Europe.
Rome dealt, to a curious degree, in the most homely domestic
names; Mus, the surname of the devoted Decius, was, probably,
really a mouse; for while the swine of other nations never descend
below the savage wild boar of the forest—Eber, Baezan, Bravac, the
Romans have indeed one Aper, but their others are but domestic pigs,
Verres, Porcius, Scrofa.
Goats flourished in Greece in honour of the Ægis, and of Zeus goats,
and Ægidios, with others, there arose; but Sichelgaita, and a few
northern Geits, alone reflect them. The chamois, or mountain goat,
named Tabitha or Dorcas, and is paralleled by an occasional masculine
Hirsch, or stag, in Germany.
The sheep appears to be solely represented by Rachael, for though
471the lamb has laid claim to both Agnes and Lambert, it is only
through a delusion of sound.
Serpents, as Orm and Lind, are peculiar to the North.
The eagle figures in Aias, Ajax, Aquila, the Russian Orlof, and
many an Arn of the Teutons. It is rather surprising not to find him
among the Gael; but the raven, like the wolf, is the fashionable
creature, as an attendant upon slaughter—Oreb, Corvus, Morvren,
Fiachra, Rafn, he croaks his name over the plunderer everywhere but
among the Greeks and Slaves.
The swan has Gelges in Ireland, Svanwhit in the North; the dove
named Jonah, Jemima in Palestine, Columba in Christian Latinity,
Golubica in Illyria; but gentle birds are, in general, entirely
neglected, unless the Greek Philomela, which properly means loving
honey, were named after the nightingale. The Latin Gallus may
possibly be a cock; but Genserich is not the gander king, as he was
so long supposed to be.
The bee had Deborah in Hebrew, and Melissa in Greek; but, in
general, insects are not popular, though Vespasian is said to come
from a wasp; and among fishes, the dolphin has the only namesakes
in Romance tongues, probably blunders from Delphi.
Plants were now and then commemorated; Tamar, a palm tree,
Hadassah, a myrtle, are among the scanty eastern examples. Rome
had a Robur, and Illyria Dobruslav, in honour of the oak; but the
Slaves have almost the only genuine flower names. Rhoda is, indeed,
a true Greek Rose, but the modern ones are mistakes for hross, a
horse. Violet, probably, rose out of Valens, and Lilias from
Cæcilius, Oliver from Olaf. Primrose, Ivy, Eglantine, &c., have been
invented in modern books at least, and so has Amaranth.
Passing to qualities, goodness is found in many an Agathos of the
Greeks, with his superlative Aristos, but early Rome chiefly dealt in
Valens, leaving Bonus and Melior for her later inventors to use.
The goods of the Teutons are rather doubtful between the names of
the Deity and of war, but in passing them, the relation between
Gustaf and Scipio should be observed. The Slaves have many
compounds of both Dobry and Blago, and the Irish, Alma.
Love is everywhere. David represents it in Hebrew, Agape and
Phile in Greek; but the grim Roman never used the compounds of
his amo, only left them to form many a gentle modern name—Amabel,
Aimée, Amy. Caradoc was the old Cymric, and Aiffe the
Gadhaelic, beloved; and Wine and Leof in the German races, Ljubov,
Libusa, Milica in the Slavonic, proved the warm hearts of the people.
Indeed, the Slavonic names are the tenderest of all, owning Bratoljub
and Çedomil, fraternal and parental love, unparalleled except by the
satirical surnames of the Alexandrian kings.
Purity—a Christian idea—is found in Agnes and Katherine, both
Greek; perhaps, too, Devoslava, or maiden glory, with the Slaves.
Holiness is in the Hieronymus and Hagios of heathen Greece,
meaning a holy name, and in the northern Ercen and Vieh, at the
beginning and end of names, the Sviato of the Slavonians.
Peace, always lovely and longed-for, names both Absalom and
472Solomon, and after them many an eastern Selim and Selima. Greece
had Irene and Irenæus, but not till Christian days, and the Roman
Pacificus was a very modern invention; but the Friedrich, &c., of
the North, and Miroslav of the Slav, were much more ancient.
The soul is to be found in Greece, as Psyche, and nowhere else but
in the Welsh Enid. Life, however, figured at Rome, as Vitalis, and
in the Teutonic nations as the prefix fjor; and the Greek Zoë kept
it up in honour of the oldest of all female names, Eve.
Grace is the Hebrew Hannah or Anna, and the charis in Greek
compounds. Eucharis would not answer amiss to the Adelheid, or
noble cheer, of Teuton damsels. Abigail, or father’s joy, Zenobia,
father’s ornament, are in the same spirit.
Eu, meaning both happy and rich, wealthy in its best sense, is
exactly followed by the Northern ad and Anglo-Saxon ead. Eulalia
and Eulogios are the same as Edred, Euphrasia would answer to
Odny, Eucharis and Aine likewise have the same sense of gladness.
Eugenois is, perhaps, rather in the sense of Olaf, or of the host of
Adels and Ethels. Patrocles and Cleopatra, both meaning the
father’s fame, have nothing exactly analogous to them in the Teuton
and Keltic world.
Royalty is found in the Syriac Malchus, the Persian Kshahtra, or
Xerxes, the Malek of the Arab, the early Archos, Basileus, and
Tyrannos of the late Greek; even the Roman Regulus, with
Tigearnach among the Kelts, and Rik in its compounds in the
Teutonic world. The loftiness and strength of the royal power is
expressed in the Persian prefix arta, first cousin to our Keltic Art
and Arthur, akin to the root that forms Ares, Arius, Arteinus, and
many more familiar names from the superlative Aristos. It is the
idea of strength and manhood, perhaps akin to the Latin vir and
Keltic fear. Boleslav is the Wendic name, filling up the cycle of
strength and manly virtue.
Majesty and greatness are commemorated by closely resembling
words—the Persian Mathista or Masistes, Megas and Megalos in
their Greek compounds, Latin Magnus and Maximus, Keltic Mor,
Teutonic Mer; it is only the Velika of the Slav that does not follow
the same root. The crown names Stephanas and Venceslas, or crown
glory.
Justice and judgment are the prevalent ideas in the Hebrew Dan
and Shaphat, Greek Archos, Dike, and Krite, Latin Justinus,
Northern Ragn; perhaps, too, in the Irish Phelim and Slavonic
Upravda. Damo, to tame, is in many Greek names; and ward, or
protection, answers to the Latin Titus.
Venerable is the Persian Arsaces, with Augustus and Sebastian.
Power figures in Vladimir and Waldemar, and the many forms of
wald; and, on the other hand, the people assert themselves in the
Laos and Demos of Greece, the leutfolk and theod of the Teuton, and
even the ljud of the Slave. The lover of his people may be found
under the various titles of Demophilos, Publicola, Theodwine, and the
Slavonic feminine Ludmila; their ruler, as Democritus, or Archilaus,
or Theodoric; their tamer, as Laodamos; their justice, as Laodike.
473Boulos, council, finds a parallel in the Teuton raad; but Sophia,
wisdom, is far too cultivated for an analogy among the name-makers
of the rude North.
But fame and glory were more popular than wisdom and justice.
Slava rings through the names of the Wends, and klas through the
Greeks; while hluod and hruod form half the leading names of
Germanized Europe.
Clara is the late Latin name best implying fame, but answering
best to Bertha, bright, like the Phlegon of Greece, and Barsines of
Persia, which are all from one root. Lucius, light, translates some
of these.
Conquest, that most desired of events to a warlike nation, is the
Nike of the Greeks. Nikias, Victor, Sige, Cobhflaith, are all identical
in meaning; and the Greek and Teuton have again and again
curiously similar compounds. Nicephorous and Sigebot, Nikoboulous
and Sigfred, Stratonice would perhaps be paralleled by Sighilda.
Nicolas has not an exact likeness, because the Teutons never place
either sige or theod at the end of a word.
War itself has absorbed the Teuton spear, and is ger in our Teuton
lands. But the Greek mache, and Teuton hadu, the Kelt cath, and
the Slav boj or voj, all are in common use. Telemachus, or distant
battle, is best represented by Siroslav, or distant glory. Stratos,
meaning both army and camp, Kleostralos and Stratokles, answer to
Stanislav; and Cadwaladyr, in sound as well as sense, to Haduvald.
Cathair, the Irish battle-slaughter, has likeness in the Teutonic
derivatives of Val, but the North stands alone in honouring the
Thiof with namesakes.
The hero, the warrior himself, the Hero as he really is of Greece,
the Landnama-bok of our Teutons, the Landnama-bok and Landnama-bok and Landnama-bok of Ireland, the
Landnama-bok of the Roman, has namesakes in hosts. Herakles himself was
not far removed from Herbert, Robert, or Lothaire, in meaning; and
Sigeher is the conquering warrior, as Nikostratos is the victorious
army.
In fact, warlike names are exhausting in similarity and multitude,
and our readers will discover many more for themselves. The
peaceful ones are far more characteristic.
See how the ocean figures in Pelagios, in Morvan, Muircheartash,
Haflide,—all the formation of maritime nations, while the Slaves
have no sea names at all, and the Latin Marina is mere late coinage.
It is the Welsh, however, who have the most sea names: Guenever,
Bronwen, Dwynwen, &c.
The earth makes Georgos and Agricola, and its cultivators have in
Greece commemorated their harvest with Eustaches and Theresa; in
Illyria, their vintage with Grozdana; but though the old farmer
citizens of Rome were called Faber, Lentulus, Cicero, and the like,
produce of their fields, these were much too homely for our fierce
Teuton ancestry.
Gold is not in much favour; Chryseis, Aurelia, Orflath, and Zlata,
just represent it; and silver is to be found in Argyro, Argentine, and
Arianwen; but iron nowhere but with the Germanic races, Eisambart,
474&c., in accordance with the weapon names in which they alone
delight. Nor are jewels many,—Esmeralda, Jasper (perhaps),
Margaret, Ligach, are almost their only representatives. Spices we
have as Kezia, Muriel, and strangest of all, Kerenhappuch, a box of
stibium for the eyes. Whether the Stein of the North is to be regarded
as a jewel does not seem clear, but it is more according to the temper
of the owners to regard it as answering to Petros, a rock. Veig,
Laug, and Øl, represent liquors, and are one of the peculiarities of
the North.
Beauty is less common than might have been expected. Kallista
is the leading owner of the word in Greece, but the Latin bella must
not be claimed for it, and, in spite of the ny and fridhr of the North,
it is the Kelts who deal most in names of beauty,—Findelbh, Graine,
and more than can here be specified.
Indeed, complexion names are chiefly found among the Kelts and
Romans. The white, Albanus and Finn, (which last Finn passed to
the North,) with Gwenn in Wales and Brittany; the light-haired,
Flavius, Rufus, Ruadh, and Dearg. Fulvius, Niger, and Dubh, with
the answering Swerker, paralleled only by the late Greek Melania
have very few answering names in other lands, though the Bruno of
Germany corresponds to Don, and the Blond, now Blount, of England
is said to be meant to translate Fulvius.
On exceptional names, from the circumstances of the birth, we
have not here dwelt. They were accidental, and never became
national, except from the fame of some bearer of one. The names
derived from places are almost all Latin, at first cognomina, then
taken at baptism by converts. The number names are likewise
Latin. Those of high Christian ideas, like Anastasius, Ambrosius,
Alethea, are generally Greek; and when Latins as Benedictus, the
blessed, and Beatrix, the blesser, are apt to be renderings of the
Greek. The early Latin names are the least explicable, and the least
resembling those of other nations; the Keltic are the most poetical;
the Slavonic either tender or warlike; the Greek and the Teutonic
are the most analogous to one another in sense, and are the most in
use, except the more endeared and wide-spread of the Hebrew,—John
and Mary deservedly have the pre-eminence in the Christian
world above all others.
LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL.
THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION
OF THE
NOVELS AND TALES
OF
CHARLOTTE M. YONGE,
In Crown 8vo, price 6s. each.
THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE.
Illustrated by Miss Kate Greenaway.
HEARTSEASE.
Illustrated by Miss Kate Greenaway.
HOPES AND FEARS.
Illustrated by Herbert Gandy.
DYNEVOR TERRACE.
Illustrated by Adrian Stokes.
THE DAISY CHAIN.
Illustrated by J. Priestman Atkinson.
THE TRIAL: More Links of the Daisy Chain.
Illustrated by J. Priestman Atkinson.
PILLARS OF THE HOUSE, Vol. I.
Illustrated by Herbert Gandy.
PILLARS OF THE HOUSE, Vol. II.
Illustrated by Herbert Gandy.
THE YOUNG STEPMOTHER.
Illustrated by Marian Huxley.
CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY.
Illustrated by Adrian Stokes.
THE THREE BRIDES.
Illustrated by Adrian Stokes.
MY YOUNG ALCIDES.
Illustrated by Adrian Stokes.
THE CAGED LION.
Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy.
THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.
Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy.
THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS.
Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy.
LADY HESTER, and THE DANVERS PAPERS.
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⁂ Other Volumes to follow.
The author seems to distinguish between ‘Slave’ and ‘Slavonic’ (usually
abbreviated as ‘Slav’). ‘Slave’ seems to indicate ethnic rather than
language groups.
Please consult the author’s note about the typographical
conventions she observes there.
The lengthy index of names (the Glossary) at the beginning of the text
appears to be a work in progress, and few pains were taken to perfect it
here.
- Many names are out of alphabetic order and remain so here.
- The punctuation in the Glossary is somewhat haphazard or unclear, and has been
regularized without further notice.
- There are incomplete entries, which may skip the meaning, page references, or both.
Missing page references may or may not indicate that they do or do not appear in the text.
- Some entries include a question mark, indicating some uncertainty in the author or
editor’s mind.
Each entry is given as printed, save where there are obvious discrepancies
between the Glossary and the referenced text. These are resolved based on the
context, as noted below.
| xxv.45 |
As an example, ‘Anuerin’, which has no page reference, is mentioned multiple times as a Welsh bard, and the name appears once in a list of Welsh names, but is not otherwise remarked upon. |
| |
| xliii.5 |
The entry for ‘Coralie’ ends with a comma, without a page reference. The name appears on p. 456. |
| |
| xlv.27 |
In the Glossary, ‘Darius’ includes a page number (followed by a question mark) which refers to a section on Persian names, where only ‘Cyrus’ is discussed. |
| |
| lxii.6 |
There are two entries for ‘Gandolf’, once as a ‘primary form’ (capitalized) and once in ‘Roman type’ as a form ‘since assumed’. |
| |
| lxxxiii.31 |
The Lusatian name ‘Jjewa’ is not on p. 11 of the text, which mentions only ‘Hejba or Hejbka’. |
| |
| xciii.15 |
Loiseach appears only on p. 133, and not on p. 405, as printed. The page reference was corrected. |
| |
| cxviii.23 |
An out-of-order entry for ‘Marl’ is duplicated in the proper order. |
| |
| 78.50 |
The reference to ‘his’ father seems incorrect, since his wife would be grateful to Phillip II of Spain (husband of Queen Mary, and hence ‘King Consort’)for interceding in the life of her father. |
| |
| 100.19 |
The epsilon in Θεκλα (Thekla) on p. 100 was printed with an invalid circumflex (~). |
| |
| 290.26 |
The Anglo-Saxon O character in ‘Ocscetyl’ is printed, seemingly intentionally, with an interior triangular mark  . |
| |
| 305.43 |
The author gives a rune as ‘thorn’ resembling a capital Greek lambda (Λ). The thorn rune is actually  . |
Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line, or indicates that
the issue appears in a footnote in the original.
| vi.32 |
far greater difficulties[.] for |
Removed. |
| xxi.1 |
Teu[,/.] elf ruler, |
Replaced. |
| xxiii.4 |
Sl[o/a]v. Gr. helper |
Replaced. |
| xxiii.52 |
Fr. with w[h]iskers |
Inserted. |
| xxiv.5 |
Ama[ oe/deo], |
Corrupted. |
| xxv.35 |
Andreze[k/j] |
Replaced (probable). |
| xxxi.14 |
Baldetrud, [m/f]. |
Replaced. |
| xxxiv.19 |
Bérang[erè/ère] |
Replaced. |
| lx.32 |
Fra[ncy/cyn]tje |
Transposed. |
| lx.44 |
Fran[z/s]je |
Replaced. |
| lxxiii.2 |
Netherland[s] |
Added. |
| lxxiv.15 |
H[e/é]lène |
Replaced. |
| lxxix.22 |
I[ñ]igo |
Restored. |
| lxxxiii.9 |
Jo[a]qui[n/m]a |
From p. 37. |
| xci.47 |
Le[a/o]nhardine |
Replaced. |
| cxiii.12 |
Radeg[u/o]nda |
Replaced. |
| cxxvi.18 |
Swanh[wite/vit] |
Replaced. |
| cxxxii.7 |
Tone[e]k |
Removed. |
| cxlii |
remembrance of the [Lord] |
Restored. |
| cxliii.8 |
Zlati[d/b]or |
Replaced. |
| cxliii.11 |
Zlatolju[d/b] |
Replaced. |
| 13.12 |
Atalik, [(]fatherlike or paternal,) |
Removed. |
| 14.42 |
Rebekah’s two daughters-in-law[s] |
Removed. |
| 27.23 |
is used els[e]where |
Inserted. |
| 29.34 |
are men[it/ti]oned in the pedigree |
Transposed. |
| 30.35 |
N[eu/ue]stra Señora del Pilar |
Transposed. |
| 30.41 |
a vision of N[eu/ue]stra Señora |
Transposed. |
| 36.note |
Deutsch[a/e] Mythologie |
Replaced. |
| 43.9 |
pa[rt/tr]iarch St. Joannes the Silent |
Transposed. |
| 60.23 |
a maiden[)] |
Added. |
| 65.17 |
still more magnific[i]ent |
Removed. |
| 65.40 |
the deacon[n]ess |
Removed. |
| 67.46 |
the hateful A[c]quitanian grandmother |
Removed. |
| 72.19 |
and ὄρνυμ[υ/ι] (to raise) |
Replaced. |
| 86.14 |
Andreje[e]k |
Removed (probable). |
| 88.14 |
[Feminine] |
Presumed. |
| 88.44 |
Ε[ὔ/ὐ]στᾶθηος (steadfast) |
Diacritic removed. |
| 93.41 |
Attalus Phila[l]dephus |
Inserted. |
| 95.14 |
feminine Λα[ό/ο]δ[α/ά]μεία |
Misplaced diacritics. |
| 95.31 |
Κλ[έ/ε]οπ[α/ά]τρα |
Misplaced diacritics. |
| 138.36 |
merged this unwield[l]y title |
Removed. |
| 167.48 |
that[.] after having served |
Removed. |
| 187.note |
Michaelis[,/.] |
Replaced. |
| 191.40 |
and to France, a[t/s] St. Hilaire. |
Replaced. |
| 222.note |
Deutsch[a/e] Mythologie |
Replaced. |
| 227.12 |
to interp[r]et his Keltic speech |
Inserted. |
| 231.39 |
Lear and [Mananàn/Mănănnán] |
Replaced. |
| 256.35 |
mild-tempered or peac[e]able man |
Inserted. |
| 275.47 |
one of the kings of Ireland[,/.] |
Replaced. |
| 277.13 |
who had quar[r]elled about |
Added. |
| 285.30 |
and thus passed away[.] |
Added. |
| 295.26 |
Freygerdur [ö/o]f the North |
Replaced. |
| 314.45 |
drawn from Wil[eh/he]lm |
Transposed. |
| 328.12 |
the Thuringian Irmanfrit, or Ir[u/n]vrit |
Replaced. |
| 334.12 |
rime or frost [name/mane] |
Transposed. |
| 367.5 |
by the Markgraf Rudiger[.] |
Added. |
| 368.42 |
the same whose de[s]cendant |
Inserted. |
| 377.37 |
‘the Confessor[’] |
Added. |
| 378.26 |
Ric[k/h] kettle |
Replaced. |
| 379.30 |
in the Nieb[e]lungenlied |
Added. |
| 405.28 |
Eri[e/c] |
Probable. |
| 407.note |
Récits des Temps Mérovingien[s] |
Added. |
| 408.18 |
that which i[n]dentifies his appellation |
Removed. |
| 413.note |
Turn[n]er |
Removed. |
| 426.5 |
a border wolf[.] |
Added. |
| 444.23 |
[B/D]ear peace |
Replaced. |
| 446.24 |
by the l[e]ast remarkable one |
Inserted. |
