History of Christian names

by Charlotte M. Yonge

The deification of forefathers, or the claim to divine origin, whichever it might be, led to the employment, as a prefix, of the very word that expressed them—that word which we use still at the beginning of ancestors, and that the Germans call ahnen. In old German the singular was ano, and it signified a remote forefather. The Rigsmaal, an old Icelandic poem which explains the origin of the various castes which the northern races acknowledged, represents Heimdall, the porter of heaven, as wandering to the earth, and being entertained by Ai and Edda, or great-grandfather and great-grandmother, who lived in a lowly hut; then by Avi and Amma (Lat. Avus), or grandfather and grandmother, who had a comfortable dwelling-house; and lastly by Fadher and Modher, whose abode was a splendid mansion. The son of Edda was Thrall; the son of Amma was Karl; the son of Modher was Jarl; and from these descended the three castes of the North—the thralls, or slaves; the churls, bondr, or farmers; and the jarls, or nobles.

This is an absolute mythic allegory by way of explanation of existing circumstances; but the names therewith connected mostly survived, though they refer to these mere embodiments of abstract ideas.

Ai, or ani, enters into the composition of the Icelandic Anar, ancestral warrior, and thus, no doubt, contributed to form our surname of Anson, which, like almost all our great naval names, thus traces back to some ancient viking, who has done us at least as much good as evil, by leaving us his sons to keep all other invaders from our shores.

The old Saxon histories call some of these enemies by the name of Anlaff, in particular the chief who visited King Æthelstan’s tent in a minstrel’s disguise, and betrayed himself by burying the guerdon that he was too proud to keep. The same persons whom England called Anlaff, and Ireland Amlaidh, were, in the North, Alafr, or Olafr, according to the custom of pronouncing the diphthong a like an o, and then so spelling it, e.g., Aasbiorn, Osbiorn. The latter syllable is laf or leif, from the verb lev, the Anglo-Saxon leafan, our own leave. It is a word that never is used as a commencement, and but rarely stands alone, though the North sometimes has a Leifr, and it is used in the sense of what is remaining. Anlaff, or Olaf, is thus what is left of his forefathers, his ancestor’s relic, and a very notable relic was the gallant king Olaf Trygveson, the prime hero of the Heimskringla, whose last battle is so nobly described there. Scarcely less noble is his relative, Olaf the saint, the ally of England, who fought her battles near London-bridge, and has left his name to the church of St. Olave, near the site of the battle, though, unluckily, English tongues made him St. Toly. St. Olaf was over-harsh in his endeavours to introduce Christianity to his subjects, and perished in a war with the rebels, assisted by Knut of Denmark and England; but his name continued glorious, and another royal St. Olaf, in Sweden, assisted to make it one of the most national of Scandinavian names, even to the present day.

Its Latinism is Oläus, and its contraction Ole, or, rather, this answers to the very old Aale, which, in its turn, answers to the Analo, Anilo, Anelo, of the old Germans.

Leif, or laf, we shall often meet as a termination, both in the North and in Germany, where it generally becomes leib or lip, and then the modern Germans take it for love, and thus have changed the old Gottleip into Gottleib. In the North it has scarcely fared better, especially in the case of Thorleif, or Thor’s relic, who changed from Tholleiv to Thoddeiv, or Tadeiv, on the one hand, and on the other, to Tellev, which, thanks to some classically-disposed clergyman, has been written Teleph, and referred to the Greek Telephus.

Of the other names connected with the Rigsmaal, we find Edda, the great-grandmother, giving title to the ancient poem on cosmogony and mythology that may be regarded as the parent of all the northern songs. Thrall was likewise, in spite of its meaning, used as a name.

The next generation, Avi, Amma, and the son Karl, are the prominent ones. The equivalent of Karl, Bondr, a farmer, is now and then a northern name; but it is the great Frank Karling line whose names so curiously answer to these.

Were they of the middle class of landholders, and were they proud of it, and anxious to trace their connection back to the grandfather, grandmother, and churl? Whether there were a Frank version of the Rigsmaal we do not know, but the leading name of the family was Karl, the churl (of which more in its relation to the cycle of Romance), and it is found in constant company with Amma, or Emma, and alternates with one that almost certainly represented Avi, or grandfather.

Charles, Pepin l'Heristal, Charles Martel, Pepin le Bref, Charles the Great, is the succession till the alternation was broken by the death of Pepin, the eldest son of Charles the Great. Now this most undignified Pepin is traced by the best authorities to be one of the many forms of the primitive and universal abba, father, papa, and to answer to the old German names of Bobo, Bobbo, and Poppo. And it is not, therefore, probable that Pepin and Emma stood for the northern Avi and Amma, both alike with the son Karl?