Custom Patronymics Like a Response of Far Past
We continue our publication of a overview regarding the origin of European names globally used today. This part is related to names that came from distant past.
• Ancient Mainland Germanic: Some widely known names, such as William, Robert, Richard, Roger, Geoffrey, Guy, Hugh, and Matilda – all of which have settled ties in German, Dutch, French, and other linguas – borne in Germanic pre-era. It is possible to utilize English to Polish translation to find more. They approached English by a circuitous way. The paperwork language of the court of the Merovingian and Carolingian France (5th – 9th centuries) was Latin, however their vernacular language was a Germanic dialect, and their personal names were predominantly of Germanic etymology. These French given names appeared to be established in medieval France and in due course were accepted by the Normannes who settled in Normandy in the 9th century. After the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066, these personal names were taken to England, where they noticeably replaced traditional Anglo-Saxon given names such as Ethelred and Athelthryth. A very insignificant Anglo-Saxon given names preserved, for example Edward, which was borne by King Edward the Confessor (c. 1002–1066; ruled 1042–1066), the offspring of an Anglo-Saxon man and a Viking mother, who was revered by Anglo-Saxons and Normans alike. A rather different situation is that of Alfred, an Anglo-Saxon patronymic that disappeared of use because of the Normans, but was revived in the 19th century in commemoration of the famous 9th-century Royal of Wessex.
• Ancient Norse: Ancient Norse is, certainly, a Germanic language, but its naming custom is rather different from that of continental Germanic, and many traditional Norse names are still used in Scandinavia nowadays, for example Olaf, Harald, Hakon. There has been much brought from German (e.g., Helga, Ingeborg). Some Nordic names such as Ingrid have been adopted much more widely. Many looked for linguistic services into Slavic. In the latter situation, the film celebrity Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) was a strong influence.
• Ancient Slavic languages: Names such as Wojciech (Vojteˇch), BogusLaw (Bohuslav), and StanisLaw (Stanislav) are unlikely used in the English-speaking world except among Slavic immigrants, however demonstrate a vital and flowing Slavic tradition, with cognates in different Slavic languages. Many such names are pre-Bible, whereas others have been sanctified by recognition as a saint’s name. Except where a saint has been involved, these names are not much used in Russia, because there the Orthodox Church has long stood for using names associated with Christian saints, such as Fyodor (Theodore) and Dmitri. These are predominately of Greek etymology. Among the Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks) and Southern Slavs (Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, Bulgarians, etc.), each linguistic community of Slavic speakers has its own characteristic list of traditional personal names, most of which are of Slavic etymology.