Ludwig

The Slavic forms are probably another example of "folk-etymology"—the assimilation of an unfamiliar name or word (archaic or foreign in origin) to a form more familiar to the speaker. E.g. Celtic Cunorix (hound-king) to Saxon Cyneric (royal-king), or the re-analysis of Staniel (stone-yell-from its cry) to "stand-gale" (from its habit of "standing" in the wind).

---

The -wig element should probably read as the simpler "fight, battle, war", rather than the derived -wiga "warrior", which has a different form in most of the formation-languages. The root is that of weigh, way, wagon—weg-, wig, wag- carry, move, shake, a cousin of Latin veh- in vehere, carry and vehicle. The sense formation parallels that of -lac move, dance, play, fight.

In Slovakia, if I'm not mistaken, "Ľudovít" is considered a native form of Ludwig. This is also sometimes true for "Ljudevit" in Croatia, even though these two names are clearly Slavic in origin: in both cases the first element is Slavic lyud "people" and the second is Old Slavic vitb "lord, master".