What's In A Name: Gustav, Hannah, Anna

"Gustav," is the more typical spelling for German (somewhat for English), but also spelled "Gustaf" in Swedish (somewhat in English), and "Gustavo" in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese (also somewhat in English, especially in the U.S. for Latino-Americans), and "Gustave" in French. The origin of this name is "generally thought to be" from Old Swedish for, "staff of the Geats or Goths;*" thus also perhaps, "leader of the Geats/Goths."** This is "presumed to come from a contracted form of "Gautr," the Norse word for the "Geats," or "Gutar," Norse for "Goths. The second part is from Old Norse "stafr," meaning, "staff," and yes, a relative of the English word.*** The further history of the name is also sketchy, but "presumably," the name was borrowed by Latin or a Latin-based language, from which it then spread to other Latin-based languages. Did the branches of the Goths; that is, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, spread the name into Latin speaking areas?

Hannah (also commonly spelled Hanna) goes back to Hebrew for "grace," and it was a Hebrew female given name ("Channah"), including for the mother of Samuel, of biblical fame. "Anna," "Ann" and "Anne" are all forms of  "Hannah." In English, the name became far more popular with the rise of Protestantism.

I consulted the following, so for more information on any of the names see, "A World Of Baby Names" by Teresa Norman, published by Perigee/Penguin Group, New York, 2003. Also, babynamespedia.

* The Geats were a Germanic tribe that lived in what is now southern Sweden. This tribe "may" have been a part of the far better known Goths.

** Polish has the name "Gostislav." Is this a form of the same name? Or is it a borrowed form from Swedish (the Swedes were involved in the eastern Baltic area in what became Poland. Or did the Swedes borrow the Polish name? Lots of questions, not many answers.  

*** Besides English "staff," other relatives include: German "Stab," Low German Saxon "Staff" (although some dialects have "Staav"), Dutch "staf," Norwegian, Swedish and Danish "stav," Icelandic "stafur." 

WORD HISTORY:
Rostrum-This word, distantly related to both "rat" and to "rodent," goes back to Indo European "redh," which had the notion of "scraping," and thus "gnawing."This gave Latin the verb "rodere," meaning, "to gnaw, to eat away at." This then gave Latin a noun form, "rostrum," which meant, "animal's snout and beak of a bird (the part of an animal or bird which gnaws)." As the prow (front part) of a ship or boat looked like a snout or beak, this gave the word the additional meaning of, "prow, front part, of a ship." In Ancient Rome, the platform set up for speakers to acclaim Roman sea victories had the front part of captured enemy ships decorating it; thus, the platform came to be called "rostrum." English borrowed the word from Latin in the first half of the 1500s.

Why Do We Call Them These Names? Part Three

This will be the last part on the Germanic tribes and terms I've chosen to cover. There were many, many more, but these tribes and terms covered in Parts One, Two, and Three are the names most people are familiar with in some context.

Burgundians-These were people from a Germanic tribe that spoke what is classified by linguists as being "East Germanic." I included them because their name gave us the name of the famous red wine, Burgundy, which was derived from the province in France named after the Burgundians. I had some difficulty finding much on the tribal name, but it "seems" that the "burg" part equates with German "Berg," which means "mountain." (Of course, in English, we have "iceberg," a borrowing from German "Eisberg," [pronounced as if ice-bear with a "g" on the end]which literally means "ice mountain.") This would give the notion that this tribe lived in the high country. Old English had "Burgenda." They seem to have lived in southern Scandinavia, in what is now Sweden, and then moved to an island, Bornholm, in the Baltic Sea, before moving into eastern Europe. In Old Norse, the island of Bornholm was called "Burgendarholmr;" that is, "the island of the Burgundians," and the Old Norse form has now been contracted into "Bornholm." The Romans picked up their name and thus Latin had "Burgundiones." The name was given to the wine from "Burgundy" during the 1600s.

Goths-This was another East Germanic speaking tribe. Old English had "Gota" ("Gotan," plural). Some sources feel that the term simply meant "men," as Old Norse had "gotar," which meant "men," but this is not certain. The Romans used the term "Goth" for these people, and the "th" of Latin was later adopted to the English form. During the Middle Ages, the term "Gothic" was used interchangeably with "Germanic," and this in turn brought the use of the term "Gothic" to the art and architecture of northern Europe, and later, to the writings of authors who used these settings for their works.

Frisians-While there are differing dialects for Frisian, many, if not most, linguists say that Frisian is the closest living relative of English, followed by Saxon, the Low German dialect in the north of Germany (see Part One for "Saxon"). In Old English they were "Frisa" (sing.), "Frisan" (plural). Frisian, German (both Low and High), Dutch, and English are all classified as West Germanic. The name seems to come from their hair style (but only their hairdresser knows for sure), as in Old English, "fris" meant "curly" (we still have "frizzle") and Old Frisian had "frisle," "curly hair." The general area they inhabited* (and still inhabit, to some extent) is really something of the ancestral home of English, as this was the same area occupied by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes before their invasion of Britain. Some Frisians also participated in this invasion. I wonder if they had the "frizzies?"

* Stretching from the southern part of modern Denmark, across northern Germany and into northeastern Holland, and all of the offshore islands. The Germans call the area "Friesland," the "land of the Frisians." Interestingly, just as their close English cousins, the Frisians, more especially the East Frisians, are known for their tea!!!