Regular Patronymics Being a Reply of Distant History
We go on with our publication of a research regarding the origin of European names globally used at present. Next part is devoted to names that arrived from far-away past.
• Old Mainland Germanic: Several very known forenames, that are William, Robert, Richard, Roger, Geoffrey, Guy, Hugh, and Matilda – all of which have well-established ties in German, Dutch, French, and other linguas – borne in Germanic pre-history. It is possible to utilize translation agency Poland to find more. Names approached English by a circuitous route. The paperwork language of the judges of the Merovingian and Carolingian France (5th – 9th centuries) was Latin, however their vernacular language was a Germanic variation, and their given names were mostly of Germanic etymology. These Frankish personal names appeared to be established in ancient France and in due course were accepted by the Normannes who lived in Normandy in the 9th century. After the Norman invasion of England in 1066, these given names were taken to England, where they noticeably replaced usual Anglo-Saxon given names like 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 ancestor of an Anglo-Saxon father and a Viking mother, who was revered by Anglo-Saxons and Vikings alike. A rather different case is that of Alfred, an Anglo-Saxon patronymic that fell out from use under the Normans, but was restored in the 19th century in honor of the famous 9th-century Royal of Wessex.
• Ancient Norse: Ancient Norse is, certainly, a Germanic language, but its naming custom is quite original from that of mainland Germanic, and many traditional Norse forenames are still used in Scandinavia nowadays, for example Olaf, Harald, Hakon. There has been much borrowing from German (e.g., Helga, Ingeborg). Some Nordic patronymics such as Ingrid have been adopted much more broadly. Many looked for service of Polish translation into Slavic. In the latter case, the film star Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) was a powerful influence.
• Old Slavic languages: Names that are Wojciech (Vojteˇch), BogusLaw (Bohuslav), and StanisLaw (Stanislav) are unlikely used in the English-speaking environment except among Slavic immigrants, but demonstrate a vital and flowing Slavic tradition, with cognates in different Slavic languages. A lot of such names are pre-Bible, whereas others have been accepted by use as a saint’s name. Except where a saint has been participating, these names are not much used in Russia, because there the Orthodox Church has strongly insisted on using names associated with Christian saints, such as Fyodor (Theodore) and Dmitri. These are mostly of Greek etymology. Within the Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks) and Southern Slavs (Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, Bulgarians, etc.), each linguistic county of Slavic natives has its own characteristic list of traditional personal names, most of which are of Slavic etymology.
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