On Names Part II – Confirmation Biases and the Like

The trouble with showing Slavic names in antiquity is that there are virtually no Slavic names that would not also be claimed by scholars as Germanic names.  We have made this point here but it is worth reiterating because the standard approach to this matter has a predetermined result.  What do we mean by that?

Let’s assume the question is whether there were Slavs (or their ancestors) west of the Elbe prior to the 6th century.  Let’s say we find a data point – a personal name from an area west of the Elbe dated to pre-6th century.  If the name were Slavic it would show the presence of at least some Slavs in that area during that time.

So how will we know whether that name is Germanic or Slavic?  Presumably we would have to compare it to known Germanic and Slavic names…

The problem is that the standard approach to such classification must either (A) anticipate the answer (creating a tautology) or (B) fail.  Typical assumptions in performing this task anticipate the answer whereas changing these assumptions creates an answerable question.

Typical Assumptions & Why They Predetermine the Result

Assumption 1

One assumption typically made is that there is a relatively healthy number of prefixes and suffixes that appear in “Germanic” languages but not in Slavic ones.  A corresponding assumption is that there are very, very few prefixes and suffixes that are exclusive to Slavic languages (and of those even fewer that appear in all Slavic languages).

Assumption 2

A second usual assumption is however even more problematic.  There is a set of prefixes and suffixes that – once the Slavs make their “documented” entrance on the world stage appear among the Slavs.  But these same prefixes and suffixes also appear among the various Germans.

Putting aside theories that claim that Slavs were led by Germanic (or Iranian in some tellings – see the conundrum of the Antes) elites, we have a vast set of names that could be either Germanic or Slavic.

So how does a historian know whether a given person was Slavic or Germanic?  Typically, the answer is context dependent.  That is to say a historian has no idea.  But, if he finds such a name among territories and times typically associated with the Slavs, he assumes the person must have been a Slav.  If, on the other hand, the name surfaces among the territories assumed to have been held by the Germanics during a given time period, the name is further confirmation of the Germanic possession of the territory.  In effect, absent some other analytical tools, you see what you assume you should be able to see.

Results

Given the above assumptions, what are the results?  Well, what can the results be?

Assumption one tells us that, say, nine names must be exclusively Germanic.  It also tells us that – maybe – one name is exclusively Slavic.

Assumption two then says that those prefixes or suffixes that are proven to have been used both by Slavic and Germanic peoples are automatically ascribed to the Germanic basket if they appear in a name either (1) dated to a time prior to the 6th century or (2) dated at any time but appearing west of the Elbe.  So put 90 names in a Germanic basket and zero in a Slavic.

Then someone pulls out a name (pre-6th century west of the Elbe) out of a hat… What are the odds that the name out of that hat is Germanic versus Slavic?

If you answered 99-1, you would, of course, be right.  If for a given space and period we assume a priori, that 99% of  names in the set are going to have to be Germanic and 1% Slavic then it will be very difficult to find a Slav.  If every –mir, –gast, –suav is Germanic then it’s not even clear who could ever be found to be a Slav?

Assumption Questions/Problems

Assumption 1

Why is that the Germanic peoples should have had such a variety of “their own” names and name forms whereas the Slavs (a people of comparable numbers throughout history) such a poverty?

In other words, are the Germanic names “inflated” by attribution to the Germanic names of other names that may or may not have been Germanic (including names that may have been Celtic or, in fact, Slavic?)

Assumption 2

The obvious problem with this assumption, as we’ve already pointed out, is that it assumes the answer to the question being asked.

If we are trying to answer the question of  “Who was Ukromir? A Germanic or a Slav?” then we might proceed as follows:

Statement A: “Only Germanics lived in Germania prior to the 6th century”

Statement B: “Ukromir lived in Germania prior to the 6th century”

Conclusion C: “Ukromir must have been a Germanic.”

Answering the matter as above is all well and good but how does one answer that same question if Statement A falls away as an assumption?

Thoughts

The answer, of course, is that there is no answer.  The best that can be said is that some people that lived in a region described by the Romans as Germania had names that could indicate either a Nordic or a Slavic origin (the name “Germanic” becomes meaningless here as well).  The same can be said of other people of pre-6th  century Europe.

What’s more this is true even if we assume that language is the chief criterion of telling whether someone is a Nordic (aka Germanic) or a Slavic person (a criterion whose discriminatory relevance we find “lacking”).

The reason for this is that we have no idea what language or languages the people of Germania actually spoke prior to the 6th century.  Perhaps the Vandals – in the 6th century – spoke the same language as the Goths and Gepids.  But what about other inhabitants of Europe?   Outside of a few late Gothic texts we have no idea about the language of the Suevi, Batavi, Ubii, Jaziges, Nemetes, Lugii, Morini, Cotini, Veneti, etc.  Tacitus suggests that there was a “Pannonian” language and that the Aestii had their own language – similar to “Britonic” (or Bretonic?)  But what were those languages?

In the absence of texts, the only way to guess at the language of a people are the names of those people.  But how can we tell the names are Germanic, Slavic or something else?

We’ve already discussed many of these:

• Veleda
• Ariovist(us)
• Ucromir(us)    

In fact, even those that have traditionally been associated with “Germanic” speaking peoples.

• We know that Vidimir was a Goth. But must Vidimir be a Gothic name? “Vid” seems terribly close to Vit as in seer (“to see”) or the Slavic God Svantevit (on that name, see below).

• If -mir was a Germanic or Slavic suffix, it is more of a Slavic prefix, e.g., Miroslav or Mirosuav (short version Miro or Mirek).  But then what do you do with Miro the king of the Suevi?

• If Ardagastus was a Slav why was his name prefix Arda not Rada?  And if we are going to accept that Ardagast was a Slav then what about the “Frankish” Roman general Arbogastes?
  • And if we somehow weasel out of that one, and say now very definitively that it should have been Rada- instead, what do we say about the Gothic “true Scythian” Radagaisus?  After all wasn’t there a Slavic God (or, in Brueckner’s view town – but, nevertheless, a Slavic town!) named Redegast?
  • And what of the four authors of Frankish law: Wisogast, Arogast, Sidogast and Widogast – the prefixes Sido-, Wido– and Wiso– are all easily explained via Slavic.  But these were Franks…

• The same holds true for the prefix Mil– where Eberhard Graff speculated that Milgast (Milegast of the Wiltzi) was a Germanic name (Althochdeutscher Sprachschatz)

• It gets better:
  • Germanic languages apparently contained (though, oddly not anymore) words that we would think of as quintessentially Slavic.  Take the above Svantevit – “Holy Seer” if you will in Slavic.  Vit, however, may be an Indo-European name (e.g., Vitautas in Lithuanian or Saint Vitus – a third century SIcillian Christian martyr) so nothing inherently Slavic.
  • Better yet, however, take the prefix “Svante” – holy – an undoubtedly Slavic word and yet in “Germanic” we also supposedly have similar names.  Take, for example, Swentibold (aka Zwentibold) – the Lotharingian king; now, here, we know that he received his name from his godfather the Slavic Moravian king Svatopluk I (aka Sventopluk); But what do you do with Amalaswintha (aka Amalasuintha, Amalswinthe, Amalasuentha, Amalasuntha or Amalasontha), the queen of the Ostrogoths; Swinthila – the king of the Visigoths?  Are these “swint, swiþ” names really “strength” designations or do they have something to do with “holiness”? Or for that matter with “excellence” (świetność)?

Lovbagast

Take the name Laubegast.  This is the name of a part of Dresden (itself derived from Slavic) – first mentioned in 1408 as Lubegast.  In fact, we think we know exactly how the (then) town got its name.  It got it from Lubogost, the founder.  Lubogost the founder bore a Slavic name.  And so the name is Slavic in origin.  In that it differs little from other similar names in Germany such as Lübeck or in Poland such as Lubin (formerly in German Silesia) or Lublin.

This comes from Manfred Niemeyer’s Deutsches Ortsnamenbuch:

Lubomir or Lubogost – each of which is mentioned above in the description of Lubin – are Slavic names.  So, we would think too is Laubegast/Lubegast.

But the below is interpreted differently:

This Roman inscription (see Corpus Inscriptionum Rhenanarum) was found in 1858 north of Grimlinghausen around Düsseldorf.

It is typically read to mean “Louba Gastinasi F(ilia) Vbia H(ic) S(ita) Q(uintus) Cornelius Q(uinti) F(ilius) G(?)al(us) Coni(?)ugi Sva [or S(uae) Va(le)].”  That is: “Louba the daughter of Gastinas [or Gastus Nasus] of the Ubii is buried here.  Quintus Cornelius son of Quintus, a Gall for his spouse (or “his farewell”).”

So what is the explanation here?  Well, Luba may be a Slavic word but there is also the “Greek” Lubia and so it should not be surprising that there is too a Gothic liubs.  Of course, we also have lieb and Liebe as in “love”.   And a 954 Spanish document does speak of a “uitiza et leuba“.  Further, there is a claim of an Old High German lioba.  And, further down the line, we have Lob as in “praise” (which, incidentally, is Ros in most Scandinavian languages…).  Finally, in the world of science fiction  you also have the “reconstructed” (or constructed) *leubaz meaning “Proto-Germanic” “dear” or “lovely”.

Now one might ask some questions:

• What is the evidence for a Germanic luba* especially since:
  • (A) the word is not attested in that form in North Germanic languages,
  • (B) the word is attested in that form in all Slavic languages, and
  • (C) the Goths (Nordics) are known to have conquered a populous nation of the Veneti (Suevi?) with whom they in some form interacted?

* Even lioba seems to be attested in Germanic only twice and one of these is as a gloss for the Latin gratia – but then who was the glosser?

• Even assuming the word luba existed in a Germanic language and actually had Germanic roots, what is the evidence of it being used by Germanic peoples (with a “b” so no Leovigilds or Leofrics please) as a name or prefix or suffix of a name? (and no, you can’t answer by pointing to the above – no circular reasoning; further Ieuba mentioned above – even if that is a Germanic name (?) – does not equal Louba))?

• Even if one were confined that liubs (or luba) is Gothic or even East Germanic and that the Goths did not “acquire” it after coming down from Scandinavia and that they used it as parts of names, what is the reason for believing that an Eastern Germanic tongue like the Gothic should instruct us as to the nomenclature used by Western Germanic tribes such as the Ubii?

One can ask other questions too:

• why is the “I” after “Gast” so strangely large?
• same question for the “I” after “vg”?
• Is “Nasi” really a continuation of “Gasti…”?  Or is it a case of a separate name? (Nasua?)? Or is it a separate non-name word altogether?
• is the “Ubia” really “Ubia or is it a “Vbia”?

About the only thing that can be said of the above inscription is that the name Cornelius is a Latin name.

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