How Countries in the British Isles Got Their Names

[Mingle]

Germany is l'Allemagne in French ...

Lol, I completely forgot about that.

But I was more so thinking about if Germans also ever used it in a similar fashion (for themselves as a whole).

[#Oda#]

Lol, I completely forgot about that.

But I was more so thinking about if Germans also ever used it in a similar fashion (for themselves as a whole).

As far as I know no.

[Mingle]

As far as I know no.

Upper Franks (of modern North Bavaria and North Baden-Wurttemberg) seemed to historically have Alemannic identity though. The region was a battleground between Franks and Alemanns, and the former ended up conquering the region from Alemanns in the end, which is is why they have Frankish identity today if I'm not mistaken. They belong to a distinct linguistic branch of Upper Germans from the Alemannish proper of BW and Switzerland, so they would've identified as something else before the region became under Alemannish rule. But yeah, don't think it was used by other German ethnicities/tribes historically. I recall reading that somewhere before, but could be misremembering.

[Mingle]

...

It seems that the Heruli were also part of the tribal confederation that led to the Thuringians along with the Angles and Werns:


Could the Thuringian leben be connected to the lev in Schleswig?


Thuringians seem to have been recorded in South Holland alongside the Angles and Werns:


This would make sense as the English wouldn't have gone directly from Schleswig to Britain, but from Schleswig to the Netherlands/Belgium to Coastal Gaul to Britain. And this could also explain the English and Saxon toponyms in Northern France.


Source:
https://www.google.com/books/edition...AAAAMAAJ?hl=en

Also, info about Thuringian presence in Britain:


The author seems to be unaware that Thuringians originally lived up north along the coast alongside the Angles, but the highlight here is the presence of Thuringian objects in Britain.

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By the way, which part of East Germany are you from?

[Creoda]

Is Creoda, Cretta etc. Germanic in its etymology? I find hard to determine.

I once read that it had possible Celtic origins, but I can't find that now, so your guess is as good as mine.

[rothaer]

Vikings also refer to the English (as a whole) as Suevi, so Tacitus using it for the English makes sense if you broaden its meaning to refer to West Germanics in general. I think Tacitus saw the Suebi as a confederation of tribes and not a tribe itself (similar to Franks). Tacitus also uses it for the Langobards and Semnones as well.

Suebi was an important endonym that was just reported by Tacitus. Again, Suebi were a religious-cultural confederation of various tribes. They were centered around the Semnones in later Brandenburg that kept the Suebi’s most important loction, the sacred grove of the Semnones. Roughly the area of Suebian tribes overlaps with the former GDR. The Baltic Sea was also referred to as the Mare Suebicum.

From what I can tell, Suebi seems to have been used synonymously with Irminone or Hermione, so basically the High German languages south of the Harz.

No no, High German is unrelated to all this. It emerged with the German sound shift at abt. 700 AD and seems to first have occurred among the Longobards in Northern Italy (implying that the ethnically dying Longobards were the first Germans in a narrow sense!). Before the German sound shift all Germanics spoke unshifted, Low German-like Germanic. The German soundshift is thought to have become evoked by a language contact with Vulgar Latin. It’s all a very secondary thing.

It's the name of a Germanic god, he was probably the main god of the Jutes like Saxnot was for Saxons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansuz_(rune)

Aha! It’s not the name of a particular Germanic god but of a kind of gods. The Germanic gods are divided in Asen and Wanen (in German language, in English it’ll be resembling). So it’s like Ansgar (Oscar), Ansegisil etc. Still the reason for the k in Aesk is unclear to me. Maybe it’s a Frisian-like casual shortening of Ansgar/Oscar?

Frisians are distinguished from Chauci and both lived on coastal regions, so there isn't enough evidence to say they were the same. I guess the idea of New Frisians of Friesland being descended from a northern population of Old Frisians is stronger for now.

The Frisian King Finn's wife, Queen Hildeburh, is a Chauci:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27700695?seq=1

And I assumed they got defeated and gradually absorbed by the Angrians/Saxons rather than willingly join into a confederation under them. Population densities were lower before and population replacements were more common before. DNA tests show we overestimate how much ancient ancestry populations have.

Yes, repeatedly in the evolution populations show to be derived essentially only from comparably small fractures of prior populations. This applies also to the evolution of species.

I think I forgot to reply to that part. Who assigns New Frisians to tribal Saxons?

It was written in the Frisii Wikipedia arcticle that I had earlier linked:

„In the 3rd and 4th centuries the population of Frisia steadily decreased, and by the 5th century it dropped dramatically. Archaeological surveys indicate that only small pockets of the original population stayed behind (e.g. in the Groningen coastal marshes).[30] The coastal lands remained largely unpopulated for the next one or two centuries. As soon as conditions improved, Frisia received an influx of new settlers, mostly from regions later characterized as Saxon, and these would eventually be referred to as 'Frisians', though they were not necessarily descended from the ancient Frisii. It is these 'new Frisians' who are largely the ancestors of the medieval and modern Frisians.[5] Their Old Frisian language, however, was more intricately related to Old English spoken by their relatives settling abroad, than to the Old Saxon language spoken by the people staying behind in Germany.“

I had an account there, but rarely used it, and I'm not familiar with those users. Are you calling the other one a wannabe cause he was from Groningen?

It was that one, however. The reason for me to call him wannabe was that he and his closer family simply did not traditionally speak Frisian in contrast to the other one. It took me much effort to „press“ out this information from him. He repeatedly avoided answering and eagerly explained to me why my question doesn’t matter.

As far as I know, "Saxo-Frisian" is used for the Saxon-speaking Frisians of East Frisia (including Groningen).

I don’t know but that’s well possible. Now, my point is that the traditional Frisian speaker agreed with him that ”we” are all Saxo-Frisians no matter the language we speak because modern Frisians are disconnected from antique Frisii and in fact Saxons, however Sea Shore Saxons.

Well, yes, but when you have these similar suffixes being shortened the same way and being associated more with certain dialects, then I don't think it's unreasonable to link them. This was anyways a conclusion I read from someone else, I haven't looked into it further myself. It's nothing extraordinary, but there's almost nothing left behind from those groups besides this.

I see what you mean but with my Monnem example I wanted to point out that the question if the name of the town is Mannheim or Monnem is not dependent on the dialect (alone) but on the conservatism of the administration that decides what is the official name.

And from Wikipedia, it seems like the local Northern Saxon dialects started using Holsteen: 🤦*♂️
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holstein

OMG. Then it’s even a home made mess…

By the way, the -saten suffix in Holsaten exists in some English toponyms too in the form of -set such as in Dorset and Somerset. And the High German -saß in Elsaß (Alsace) is the same as well.

Nice examples! It may be noted that words are often better conserved in foreign languages as they there often get „frozen“. So the Latin terms Holsatia and Alsatia conserve more of the origin. Or like the word kuningas (!) in Finnish for king.

Do you have any idea about the etymology of "Engern" by the way?

Unfortunately not. The word is mostly considered related to German Anger, which means an agricultural used field. But it doesn’t really convince me.

What do you mean?

I mean that I think that new names emerged when populations merged or split up rather than an identical population simply switched ist name. Without stating that such things didn’t occur.

From Wikipedia:

*herut is a reasonable assumption!

I have also heard the Humber River in Britain etymologically equated to it as well.

Humber and Umbria being connected sound like folk etymology to me anyways. I'm also skeptical of the Ambrones connection despite mentioning it above. The Ampsivarii are also said to derive their name from the Ems. I'm not so sure about the Ambrones, but I think the other three I mentioned are more likely to be one and the same.

Much is unclear but the derivation of the Ampsivarii from the Ems I consider completely sure. A number of scholars even think that it’s an emendation of Angrivarii because the Romans encountered them at the Ems river. However, the geographic connection to the Ems river is undisputed.

Was it ever used as a generic name for Germanics as a whole in the past?

No. Except for if you refer to a particular local area. In regard to that this is even one of the theories of the name (all men).

What about the Vangiones, Nemetes, or Tulingi?

Tulingi are considered Celts, Vangiones are Celts or Germanics and Nemetes are disputed as Germanics. Also, if you look up, where they lived, it was just in a very small area. Admittedly, the province Germania superior was also very small at the turn of times and became much expanded later, partly acrosse the Rhine where Germanics lived but also much to the southwest, were there were no Germanics.

I don't see why they couldn't have had a name change. Look at Albanians changing their name from Arberori to Shqiptare, Dutch from Frank to Nederlander, French from Roman to Francois, and there's the possibility that New Frisians didn't originally call themselves Fries as well. Then you also have those like the Russians who use a foreign Germanic name for their ethnicity despite obviously being from tribes that would've originally had Slavic names. If Bavarians didn't exist before, that means they are just descended from an older tribe that started using a new name.

All your examples but the Albanian one confirm what I mean. When the Gallo-Romans changed their name to French there had been a strong contribution by Germanic Franks etc.

As for the Bavarians I listed up tribes that ought to be involved after there was no apartheid performed. This makes it very unlikely that the Bavarians are simply a continuation of Markomanns only.

These are the possibilities for why the Marcomanni may have changed their name to Baier:
- Bavarians were the strongest subtribe or regional subgroup, and their oversized influence led to their name taking over.
- Marcomanni weren't strict in what they called themselves, they decided to adopt the Bohemia-Bayern region's name after making it their home.

Theoretically possible. But afaik there was never spoken of Bavarians simultanously with other subtribes, however, there is no such record.

The Lex Baiuvariorum beside the Agilofinger expressly mentions 5 Bavarian noble families and they to my perception do have somewhat unusual names:

„Title III: Stipulates the Agilolfings as the leading noble family from which the rulers of Bavaria are chosen. The other noble families explicitly mentioned are: Anniona, Fagana, Hahilinga, Huosi and Trozza (sometimes also spelled "Drozza").“

I think the latter is more likely. Keep in mind that Marcomanni was originally a regional name that gained tribal identity later similarly, it's the exact same as the modern German Märkisch or Modern English Mercian meaning "frontiersman".

True, BUT: The name must have referred to the tribe regardless of what position Bohemia had. Because they were beaten in the west under the name of Markomanni before they went to Bohemia.

Hermanduri are probably the ancestors of East Franks in northern parts of Bavaria and Wurttemberg? East Franks speak a distinctive Upper German language and I'm not sure which other ancient group they can be connected with.

I personally imagine that Hermanduri are the main contributor to Markomanni that became „frontiersman“ when they became neighours of the Romans at the Rhine river. The tribal Germanic substance of what you describe and what later became named Franconia is unclear. (Btw. the area is considered the origin area of the Celtic Volcae the gave rise to the Germanic term Walah, welsch, which first became a generic name for Celts and later for their Romanised descendants and Romance people in general.) However, this area is a Frankish conquest from the Thuringian Empire.

As I told, the German dialectal conditions are deeply formed by the German sound shift which is a later development. Hence it’s very hard to destillate earlier differences and connect them to particular tribes. The Franconian and the Thuringian dialects seem related but the deep linguistic trench is towards Bavarian and that indeed suggests a pre German soundshift dialectal difference.

Interesting. Seems like a huge stretch to me. Are there any other proposed etymologies for Thuringi?

Translated from the German Wikipedia article on the Thuringi:

”There are various hypotheses as to the etymology of the name ‘Thuringians’. The derivation of the name from the Hermundurians, which was common for a long time, as well as the derivation from the Germanic-Celtic Turonians, is now mostly questioned[1].

Most recently, Wolfgang Haubrichs has made an interpretation on the basis of all known traditions for the Thuringians in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. His onomastic linguistic analysis, in particular of the spelling, phonology and morphology, revealed that the name Thuringian can be traced back to a Germanic adjective thur- 'strong, powerful, great, rich' with a derivation to ing. It can therefore be assigned to those ethnic names that emphasised the strength and size of the tribesmen, as is the case with the Franks and Alemanni. An etymology from the base Germanic dur- 'hill, elevation' by Jürgen Udolph is - according to Haubrichs - just as impossible from a linguistic point of view as the proposed derivation from the East Germanic 'Terwingi' by Heike Grahn-Hoek[2][3].

The region north of the Thuringian Forest and Erzgebirge - the settlement area of the Naumburg group (300-60 BC) - was still known to Ptolemy[4] in the second century AD as the ‘home of the Teurians’ (Τευριοχαῖμαι, Teuriochaĩmai). [5] This is the first time that archaeologists from the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Archaeology have linked a local archaeological culture with an ancient folk name[6].“

Additionally, I read the opinion that the name may be derived from the very small river Thyra, a tributary of the Helme river, in turn a tributary of the Unstrut river, in turn a tributary of the Saale river. At the mouth of the Thyra is the small village Thürungen. But to me the Thyra seems far too small and unimportant.

I see. If not for the Slavic interference, then Saxon and Danish could probably have been part of the same dialect continuum?

Well, there is the opinion that the notable difference between West Germanic and North Germanic developed because of the Slavic barrier. This makes sense to me. On the other hand this can not explain why a former dialect continuum in the very small permanent Danish-Saxon contact area should have vanished. The loss of this dialect continuum I attribute to the said Danish expansion.

Bede also said that in the 7th century, Anglia (Eastern Schleswig) was still uninhabited, not sure how reliable that is.

The settlement conditions for a number of Germanic lands are a conundrum. The current state of archaeology does see confirmed a settlement hiatus of abt. 120 years (550-670 AD) in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg (not sure about Farther Pomernia) between Germanics and Slavs as I read in a very recent (2016) evaluation of newer archaeological finds.

What other place could it be confused with? Multiple different accounts mention the place (Haduloha in Old Saxon, Hatheloe in Latin) and it's described as a coastal town.

Nothing. That the current Land Hadeln is referred to is clear. I consider the content of the story nonsense. It’s anachronistic as Thuringians did not yet exist in the earliest tiems of Saxons.

Could it be that the land was inhabited by a different German tribe (like Frisians or Chauci?), but they inserted Thuringians into the story since the other tribe was subject to them?

Yes.

It’s well possible that the „original Saxons“ as the core of the later Saxons came from North Albingia and landed in the Land Hadeln and there encountered not amused Chauci. But as later the Chauci became Saxons and maybe the knowledge even of their existence vanished, Saxon chronists had a problem to meaningfully tell this story.

So you agree with the account saying that Eastfalia (including Hannover) was inhabited by Thuringians first and they were pushed south of the Harz by the Saxons?

Not in detail.

To my understanding roughly just what is today’s Saxony-Anhalt North of the Harz area (including a protrusion as far as Merseburg in the south-east) was Thuringian and became conquered by Saxons (in 531/534). In fact also the eastern half of what was directly south of the Harz. Imo Thuringians were not pushed away (ruling Thuringian nobility may have been, though) but assimilated and they also became subject of Saxon colonisation. Somewhere I read that Germanic conquests were often performed that way that the conquerer got ceded 1/3 of the arable land. You have interesting smaller colonisation areas there south of the Harz like Friesenfeld (Frisian field) and Hassegau. As the latter is documented as ho(c)hsegau it is considered not derived from Hassians but from Chauci.

There was a drama following the Longobard conquest of Italy in 568. Alboin had managed to attract also 20,000 Saxons to join his undertaking. After the conquest of Italy these Saxons were very disappointed because the Longobards allegedly broke their promise that these Saxons could live in Italy under their own Saxon law. They returned and wanted back their former land which was in the aforementioned Hassegau. But the new owners were prepared and they totally destroyed the returning Saxons (I guess not the women and children, though). Northeast of the Harz you also have a Nordschwabengau which is somewhat surprising. That are likely no Swabians from Southern Germany but kind of original Suebians that withdrew from Brandenburg in the context of the Slavic expansion. Interestingly, the noble dynasty of Ascanians that was very important in the later German Ostsiedlung hails from the Nordschwabengau and is said to be Swabian. Did they have any memory and conciousness about that they made a kind of re-conquista?

[rothaer]

Germany is l'Allemagne in French ...

And resembling in Spanish and Turkish but I took this knowledge by Mingle as granted and understood "in the past" as in earlier times. And here I think that French for sure did not refer to German Franks in Charlemagne's Aachen as Allemands. When the latter became a generic term for Germans is interesting, though.

I guess that the Spanish name is French derived, because the Spanish main Germanic contacts were with Visigoths and Franks.

[rothaer]

Upper Franks (of modern North Bavaria and North Baden-Wurttemberg) seemed to historically have Alemannic identity though. The region was a battleground between Franks and Alemanns, and the former ended up conquering the region from Alemanns in the end, which is is why they have Frankish identity today if I'm not mistaken. They belong to a distinct linguistic branch of Upper Germans from the Alemannish proper of BW and Switzerland, so they would've identified as something else before the region became under Alemannish rule. But yeah, don't think it was used by other German ethnicities/tribes historically. I recall reading that somewhere before, but could be misremembering.

That Upper Franconia in today's Bavaria is a Frankish conquest from the Thuringians in 531/534.

I don't know where all battles between Franks and Allemanns took place but the main battle was in 496 at Tolbiac / Zülpich which is west of the Rhine river even: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tolbiac

[rothaer]

It seems that the Heruli were also part of the tribal confederation that led to the Thuringians along with the Angles and Werns:

That Ostrogothic diplomatic letter to the three kings Herminafried, Berthachar and Baderich - likely brothers and sons of Bisin - and that are being addressed as kings of Thuringians, Warini and Heruli I do consider extremely interesting. On one hand it terminologically distinguishes Thuringi from Warini and also it points out the existence of Heruli in that context.

The factual background will be that the three sons ruled different parts of the inherited from their father Bisin Thuringian empire, with Herminafried being the main king. By murder or death in battles their parts eventually also became to be ruled by Herminafried as the sole Thuringian king. Because Herminafried was likely the head of the three the distinguishing between Thuringians and Warini is maybe not to be taken serious. How else than "Thuringian" should the head be addressed? But it's very interesting that the others were tribally defined. There has beed speculated as for the Heruli that they may have been in Brandenburg but this is pure speculation and this diplomatic letter is the only hint at all for Heruli in this context.

Spoiler!

Just as a side note: The Heruli are the only Migration Period Germanic tribe where I concede the likelyhood of a Scandinavian (Scandinavian peninsula) origin and that would be from Scania and adjacent areas. If they would also comprise the Sandbyborg on Öland returnees, I don't know. It's rather Getae land. There were some events causing goose pimples that are completely atypical for Scandinavia but for sure carried out by Scandinavian locals. https://www.archaeology.org/issues/2...yborg-massacre

I just want to point out one more possibility that is alien to today's people: Migration period Germanic tribes had been much on the move and were defined by the people, not any geographic area. (!) If they moved, their king remained their king, no matter where they moved. This means that you could have had Anglians, Warini and Heruli, all spread over the same territory but all living along their own law. The idea that there must have been non overlapping separate territories that this is knitted to is just a modern idea.

Could the Thuringian leben be connected to the lev in Schleswig?

There is zero doubt and it's undisputed that it is. Numerous Central German place names with -leben are recoded at abt. 782 as -leve, -levo, -lebo. My paternal lineage also hails from a village with such a name type.

Thuringians seem to have been recorded in South Holland alongside the Angles and Werns:

The aforementioned Heike Grahn-Hoek has published a paper on that question and rejects it. But considering that you likely may have had fractions of Germanic tribes all around, I'd be open to many possibilities.

This would make sense as the English wouldn't have gone directly from Schleswig to Britain, but from Schleswig to the Netherlands/Belgium to Coastal Gaul to Britain. And this could also explain the English and Saxon toponyms in Northern France.

Exactly.

And this would in general apply to all thinkable Germanic tribes invading Britain. I do not reject Rhine mouth Eotas to have been tribal Jutes. This is why I formulated the immigrants that I questioned as Jutland Jutes, meaning that they were coming directly from Jutland, which would be hard to get in congruence with being much influenced by a Roman material culture.

Source:
https://www.google.com/books/edition...AAAAMAAJ?hl=en

Also, info about Thuringian presence in Britain:
The author seems to be unaware that Thuringians originally lived up north along the coast alongside the Angles, but the highlight here is the presence of Thuringian objects in Britain.

Thuringians are a later emergence but some of their constitutive components, yes.

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By the way, which part of East Germany are you from?

I currently (since 1995) live in Western Mecklenburg and my ancestry is like this: https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...=1#post7719679

[rothaer]

Is the member -folk in Norfolk and Suffolk meaning folk the same way like the German(ic) word thiud, which is the basis of Deutschland (folk land)?

We have Svitjod in old Swedish meaning Sweden and etymologically - Swe-thiod - meaning Swea-folk. Whether the found in Romania Gothic runic inscription Guthiuda in the perception of Goths also meant Gothic land or just Gothic people as it literally means is unclear.