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[Facts] Galswinthe, Fredegund and Brunhaut
What do the female Frankish names Galswinthe, Fredegund and Brunehaut mean? They probably ceased to be used after the Middle Ages.Claire
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GALSWINTHE: The forst element GAL is not clear. Most probably it's a romanised form of Germanic GAIL* ("frisky, randy"). SWINTH is Middle High German "swinde" or "swint" ("strong, fast").FREDEGUND: Old High German "fridu" ("peace", roughly) + "gund" ("fight, combat")BRUNEHAUT: OHG "brun" ("brown", usually meaning the bear, which the Teutons didn't dare call by its "real" name for fear it might turn up) + "hadu" (?**) (same as "gund") * This is taken from H.Kaufmann, Ergänzungsband zu E.Förstemann, Personennamen, 1967
** The hadu part is just an educated guess
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Hallo Andy,I read somewhere (don't remember where...) that Brunehaut is an Old French form of Brunhild - but I don't know if that is true.Regards, Satu
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Brunhaut as Brunhilde/French...... e.g. in Britannica:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9016782

This message was edited 2/3/2005, 12:02 PM

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