How Countries in the British Isles Got Their Names

[#Oda#]

Now onto the genealogies of the Saxon kingdoms. As I mentioned, Greater Essex was part of the Saxon Shore of Roman Britain. It can be split into three regions - Essex, Middlesex, Sussex. In between Essex and Sussex is Kent, which was a Jutish kingdom. Both Essex and Sussex were tributary states of Kent and not independent kingdoms like Kent was. Middlesex was likely originally between Essex and Sussex i.e. in the middle of two -sex polities, but is now pushed to the side bounded by Kent and Surrey instead of Sussex. Sussex's founder is given an Anglian name that doesn't exist among Saxons (Ælli), he may have been confused by a scribe for the Ælli of the Anglian Kingdom of Northumberland. And his three sons are fictitious names invented by working backwards from the names of major cities in Sussex that aren't named by Bede or Welsh annalists. Essex's founder is called Æscwine or Ercanwine, a clear reference to the patriarch Æsc of Jutish nation. Since Essex was controlled by Jutish Kent and they have the same genealogy, Essex's kings would've been Jutes. One sign of being a proper independent kingdom as opposed to a tributary state is minting their own separate coins. Sussex, Essex, and Middlesex didn't mint their own coins while Wessex and Kent did. So Greater Essex was basically comprised of Jutish regions for the most part, which is why Procopius would've mentioned them as the main Germanic tribe in Britain alongside the Angles.

I have something in my own genealogy research referring to the names you mention, and its not true that Elli is not found among Saxons:

Reginwerch v. ITTER, Count in the Southern Ittergau, documental in 973 - 74, first of the family named Itter
His father Elli (Alli, Allo) is from the ancient Saxionian family of counts named E s i k o n e n .
He appears from 942 to 965 as Count of the Saxonian Hessengau and around 950 as Count in Leinegau (districts in Hessen and on Leine River). His father is Esiko (Esicho, Asico, Asig, Adalrich), documental in 839 and 842, Count of Hessengau and son of Hiddi (813). This Saxonian noblemen Hiddi was a follower of the King of Franks.

[CordedWhelp]

From what I recall, the Angles were mostly settled in northeast England and southern Scotland, yes?

[#Oda#]

....

Just want to draw your attention to the Elli thing which might be interesting in context of what Mingle posted.

[rothaer]

I have something in my own genealogy research

There must be a flaw in your research.

referring to the names you mention, and its not true that Elli is not found among Saxons:

Reginwerch v. ITTER, Count in the Southern Ittergau, documental in 973 - 74, first of the family named Itter
His father Elli (Alli, Allo) is from the ancient Saxionian family of counts named E s i k o n e n .
He appears from 942 to 965 as Count of the Saxonian Hessengau and around 950 as Count in Leinegau (districts in Hessen and on Leine River). His father is Esiko (Esicho, Asico, Asig, Adalrich), documental in 839 and 842, Count of Hessengau and son of Hiddi (813). This Saxonian noblemen Hiddi was a follower of the King of Franks.

At a first glance I'd guess Aelli/Elli to be a shortening of agil- names like Agilmar > Elmar.

I didn't dig deeper in that particular case but my told general stance was that trys to connect particular Germanic names to particular tribes essentially have failed.

Thanks for the detailed information.

[#Oda#]

There must be a flaw in your research.

24. G E N E R A T I O N

1024 + 1104 + 2136 + 7594 / 1025 + 1105 + 2137 + 7595
Gottfried III v. HATZFELD documental in 1239, 43 and 50 + after 1250 - must have been a knight
After his wife’s death he gave 1 hide of land to the Cistercian cloister in Haina for his and his wife’s salvation of souls.
oo Jutta v. ITTER + 1250 The Edelherren of Itter come down from the Esikonen, a family of Saxonian counts.
As followers of C h a r l e m a g n e , King of Franks, they had to leave their country and were appointed as Counts in Leinegau and Hessengau (districts on Leine River and in North-Hessen) by him. Their descendants appear as Counts of (Winzenberg-)Reinhausen, v. Itter, v. Warburg and v. Kanstein.

[Creoda]

It was Aelle/Ella of Sussex, not Aelli/Elli.

My username, an early Anglian King of the Mercians, also has a supposed namesake in the early West Saxon line, and is thought by some to be of partly Brittonic derivation, his son Pybba and grandson Penda's names were definitely of Celtic origin. Don't think Brittonic names in early Anglo-Saxon kings is proof of much other than there being closer cultural ties between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons than often thought.

From what I recall, the Angles were mostly settled in northeast England and southern Scotland, yes?

They settled most heavily in East Anglia, Central England (Mercia) and Yorkshire (Deira). They also settled NW England, NE England and SE Scotland (Bernicia), but those areas have less Germanic/Anglian ancestry than the former.

[Mingle]

Just as a side note that Suebi are something old and specific as it depicts a cultural-ritual confederation. From all my dealings it seems to me unlikely that the Suebi name became a generalised name for Germanics (except for the 20th century Danube Swabian term for Germans in Hungary and the 19th century szwaby Polish slur for Germans). I’d take the Suevi mentioning serious. On the other hand Tacitus counted Angli as Suevi...

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.

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.

Maybe. But in general the tempting try to connect specific Germanic names to various tribes has not been successful. On the other hand you do have for certain periods of time some tribal popularities visible. What’s the etymology of the name member Æsc? (Ercan is clear.)

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)

The Chauci are commonly considered a core of the new Saxon tribe. But it doesn’t necessarly contradict what you say. I’d assume them to have spoken essentially like the new Frisians.

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.

I know that you somewhat ignored the referred to by me quotes about the new Frisians being derived from areas that were and are assigned without reservation to tribal Saxons, but just keep in mind that it’s assessed like that by resonable scholars. I don’t know whether you also were at Anthrogenica but there were two Frisians from the Netherlands or more correct: one Frisian and one wannabe Frisian. And they both claimed that all up there were „Saxo-Frisians“, no matter whether they spoke (new) Frisian or the historically expanding (Low) Saxon language.

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

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

Frisians are so „lazy“ in their prononciations and spellings - that is making up their language - that you could just screamingly run away. I don’t know how this is with the toponyms but regarding the family names like Reemtsma, Brinkama etc. -ma is a shortening for -mann. The low Saxons also go in that direction but less extreme. Place names ending with -sen are shorted from -husen and place names with -um are shortened from -heim.
This said, I take for granted that your mentioned toponyms characteristically ending with -a are nothing but such a horrible late development that is unconnected to the linguistic origin. I even think that this development is just because NW Germany lacked a continous layer of STRICT scholars and burocrates! NW Germans are more practical and un-fanatic, too un-fanatic imo. What am I at all talking about? In the local Hessian dialect Mannheim is spoken Monnem. And I’m fully convinced that if there would not have been the German strictness and sense for correctness among higher level burocrates it would today have been written Monnem instead of Mannheim!



Such a tribal association can not be maintained. -husun is simply the Low German form for High German -hausen. You have myriads of -hausen names in Germany that - if not lazy shortenend to -sen (Tötensen, Boltersen, Bevensen) - in Northern Germany exhibit the Low german form like in Kellinghusen in Holstein.

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.

(And Holstein btw. being an embarassing etymological accident: You had the Holt-saten (those who sit (dwell) in the wood, would be Holz-sassen in High German), slightly abraded called Holsaten and later Holsten (pronounced „holstn“). And then someone hypercorrected an assumed Low German sten (stone) to High German Stein. )

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

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.

Damn, I didn’t know and should long have looked it up!

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

But imo expressing sequences of mergings and splitting-ups rather than simultanously having different terms for the same subject.

What do you mean?

I did not yet hear of an etymology of the Cherusci (If Laly would have said it, it would quite obvious have been chère Russki) name. However, the endings are clear.

From Wikipedia:

Cherusci (Latin: [kʰeːˈrus.kiː]) is the Latin name for the tribe. Both it and the Greek form Khēroûskoi (Χηροῦσκοι) are presumably transcriptions of an otherwise unattested Old Germanic demonym, whose etymology is unclear. The dominant opinion in scholarship is that it may derive from *herut ("hart"), which may have had totemistic significance for the group.[1] Another hypothesis—proposed in the 19th century by Jacob Grimm and others—derives the name from *heru- (Gothic: hairus; heoru, a kind of sword).[2] Hans Kuhn has argued that the derivational suffix -sk- involved in both explanations is uncommon in Germanic. He suggested that the name may therefore be a compound of ultimately non-Germanic origin and connected to the hypothesized Nordwestblock.[3]

Interesting with the Ems river. The older spelling of the connected town Emden was Embden. That would fit.
Often Ambrones are put in some relation to the island of Amrum and actually a number of scholars claim that there can be assumed a pre Germanic and pre Italic tribe IE common tribe that after a split-up also gave the name to the Umbrians. I guess that would then not be compatible with the river Ems.

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.

The Slavs were distributed over a so big area that they encountered different people that had no connection with each other, which much promoted the existence of a number of different names for the same subject. I’m a little bit sceptical if those conditions can be projected to smaller Germanic tribes where all neighbours can communicate with each other and also with them.

There's also smaller nations having different names by their neighbors. Georgia is called Sakartvelo in Georgian, Vrastan in Armenian, and Gurjistan in Persian. And we already mentioned before how some German tribal names like Saxon, Suebi, Alemanni, Frank were misused.

But you understand that according to that opinion (that I do follow) Axones is just a typo by copists for Aviones? That was the reason to display how resembling it looks in Greek letters.

I see.

I recently read some 30 pages on the Alemann name only. (Here, starting at the PDF page 126: file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/alemannien-und-der-norden-internationales-symposium-vom-18-20-oktober-2001-in-zrich-3110178915-9783110178913_compress.pdf)

The most common opinion is that the tribe name formed after the penetration of the Limes at abt. 260 AD (I don’t recall the exact year.)

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

As for Germania superior: I looked at the extent of that province after the Arminius battle and I must say that I’m not aware that there at all lived any Germanics in that territory. Have a though for that as for the turn of times. I consider the Germania superior province at that time having a hoax name in order to mask the fact that so much of Roman ruled Germania had become lost.

What about the Vangiones, Nemetes, or Tulingi?

There is a relative cluelessness among scholars as for what are Bavarians. The general lines are clear. Boiohaemum. But already the new name instead of older names does suggest that this is likely not just a continuation of Markomanns. Prior to the Slavic expansion Bohemia had belonged to the Longobard empire. Before they came to Pannonia their king Wacho had even his ”capital” in (likely Northern) Bohemia. Hermundurs are somewhat connected to Markomanns and will have contributed to the Germanic population. In Moravia and westernmost Slovakia you had Quadi. You also had a little kindom by the Rugii in Rugiland directly at the Danube and that area likely was continously Germanic since the migration period and there was later nothing else than Baiuvarii. When the Avars conquered most lands at the Middle Danube in the context of emigrating Longobards 567/568 likely loads of Germanics were pushed westwards and ended up in the later Bavarian tribal area. There are numerous Eastern Germanic influences among early Bavarians. If you consider what all had been left for kind of Germanics at the Middle Danube when they got freed from the Huns at the battle of Nedao in 454, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Herulii, Skirii, Quadi, Gepids, remaining Longobards, Vandals, then you can imagine that there might have come a lot of different Germanics. And considering that the last Celtic tribe in Bohemia/Moravia was heard of in the Markomannic wars at abt. 166 (it were Cotini in Moravia, I think) then it can be assumed that from then during additionally 400 years of Germanic rule and settlement likely all Celts will have become Germanised per 568. This implicates that the Baiuvarii also will have hailed from the Boii etc.

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.

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.

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".

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.

As for direct ties and traces such are given by the Friedenhain-Prestovice archaeological culture: https://www.historisches-lexikon-bay...Prestovice.jpg

👍

There are kind of a dozen theories and this one is to my perception in majority rejected today (I also don’t stick to that.)

There is an interesting female scholar, Heike Grahn-Hoek, that has written much about migration period Thurigia. This subject is stunning foggy. It is believed that at the zenit of it’s power Thurigia ruled (with subdued allied tribes) close to all of Germania magna, i. e. the area outside of the former Roman Empire. It bordered its ally, the Ostrogothic kingdom, at the Danube in today’s Bavaria and it likely reached up to Mecklenburg which was essentially empty at that time (500 AD). The border to the east is completely unknown.

As for the name Grahn-Hoek has developed an own theory (I’m sceptical, but it’s interesting): She thinks it comes from teruingi (Gothic Tervingi) and that name is derived from the Tyras river (today Dnjestr), cf. Tiraspol. The Thuringians were famous for their sophisticated horse breeding and she says this is something that likely teruingi, that also as Eastern Germanics were well into horse breeding, brought. She knows of the diverse origin of the Thuringians, ofc, and she doesn’t equal them with Tervingians but she assumes the latter to have made a key contribution including the name.

No. You can archaelogically see that the movement went from north to south only.

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

Also, if their name is from a name of the Dniester River, why would they start using it after the Angles and Werns united to form the Thuringian confederation? My guess is that they got the same name Duri/Thuri independently from the Hermanduri. Maybe the Duri/Thuri in Hermanduri and/or Thuringi are originally exonyms that they made their own? Or the name of a Celtic tribe whose name they adopted originally as a regional identity similar to the Bavarians?

The name Hermanduri may come from the Ancient Greek word Ermóndoroi. The word "herman" in Hermunduri may also be related to the word "german", which was used by the Hermunduri to refer to themselves as spearmen.

There will have been a continuum but with the Danish expansion a continuum of maybe 400 km was compressed to 1 km figuratively. And at about the same time the contact will have become almost cut off. First (from abt. 500/550 on) all those areas that were later subject to the Slavic expansion were essentially empty of people. And later the Slavs were a barrier. There area, where Saxons and Danes could have a contact in the eastern half of Schleswig was just some 12 km at the most narrow place. The west of Schleswig was swampy wadden sea-like land. This condition went on for centuries before by the German eastward expansion the Slavic barrier became dissoluted.

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

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

Yes, I know. This is from the Saxon chronicle of Widukind of Corvey. To my conviction this is nonsense. The Thuringians formed with the beginning of the 5th century and Saxons were existent before. In this story they come from the sea and the Lower Saxon coast in Germany is Thuringia figuratively. It doesn’t fit to anything. I consider it a confusion with later battles with the Thuringians as enemies. There are some theories that core Saxons may have come from North Albingia and maybe they landed somewhere and had such inistial hassles before they established. that would fit to land Hadeln. But then they had conflicts with Chauci and that must have been before the existence of tribal Thuringians.

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. 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?

The first part is still this landing nonsense in Hadeln, at least it’s nonsense in a Thuringian context.

The second part is essentially applicable. It’s about the fights in 531/534 when the Thuringian empire became crushed enduringly. The Frankish chronists don’t state a word about a Saxon participation but after the Saxons got notable parts of the Thüringian Empire, say the eastern 2/3 of later Eastphalia and even some areas south of the Harz, this is very indicative of their participation. And the Saxon chronists do state such a participation. In fact they in turn do not much talk abot the Franks. While the decisive battle is by the Frank told to have been at the Onestrudis (Unstrut) river, the Saxons speak of Runibergun as the battle field and of Scithingi (likely Burgscheidungen in today’s Thuringia). There are a number of possible locations for Runibergun amongst them one in the Hannover area. Others are in Thuringia. It could not be located with confidence till this very day.

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?

[Mingle]

From what I recall, the Angles were mostly settled in northeast England and southern Scotland, yes?

All of England besides the deep south (south of the Thames).

[rothaer]

It was Aelle/Ella of Sussex, not Aelli/Elli.

My username, an early Anglian King of the Mercians, also has a supposed namesake in the early West Saxon line, and is thought by some to be of partly Brittonic derivation, his son Pybba and grandson Penda's names were definitely of Celtic origin. Don't think Brittonic names in early Anglo-Saxon kings is proof of much other than there being closer cultural ties between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons than often thought.


They settled most heavily in East Anglia, Central England (Mercia) and Yorkshire (Deira). They also settled NW England, NE England and SE Scotland (Bernicia), but those areas have less Germanic/Anglian ancestry than the former.

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

[#Oda#]

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

Germany is l'Allemagne in French ...