This Ari, be he eagle or hearth, seems to conduct us to the source of the first syllable of Arabella. The first lady so called, whom I can detect, was Arabella, the granddaughter of William the Lion, of Scotland, who married Robert de Quinci. Another Arabella, with her husband John de Montpynçon, held the manor of Magdalen Laver in the thirty-ninth of Henry III., and thus it was evidently a Norman name. The Normans made wild work with all that did not sound like French, and their Latin secretaries made the matter worse, so that I am much tempted to believe that both Arabella and that other perplexing name, Annabella, may once have been Arnhilda, cut down into Arbell, or Anable, and then amplified. “My Lady Arbell” was certainly what the lady was called, in her own time, whose misfortunes are so well known to us, under the name of Arabella Stuart, and from whom Arabella has been adopted in various families, and is usually contracted by Belle. Some have made it Arabella, or fair altar, others the diminutive of Arab, both equally improbable.
The most common form of Arn at present used in Scandinavia is Arnvid, the eagle of the wood, often contracted into Arve.
With much doubt I question whether the name of Ernest should not be added to this catalogue. It is obvious to take its native German form, Ernst, from ernst, earnest, grave, or serious, but this is quite unlike the usual analogy of such names. Arnust was the older German form of the name, and some even think that this was the proper name of Ariovistus, the German chief who fought with Cæsar, though others consider this to be Cæsar’s version of Heerfurst, or general, and others think they detect the universal root ar, husbandry.
The more certain form of the name begins in Lombardy, where Ernesto, lord of Este, was killed in battle by kinFg Astolfo, in 752. Is not Ernesto just what Italy would make of Arnstein, after fancying that Arnstino was a diminutive? Then, over the mountains, comes Arnust I., duke of Swabia, in right of his wife, in 1012, and Arnust the Strenuous, Markgraff of Austria, from whom Ernst spread all over Germany, especially after the Reformation, when Ernst, Duke of Brunswick, had striven so hard to spread Lutheranism among his subjects that Protestants called him the Confessor.
This is now one of the most national of German names, and it is working its way into England, though not yet with a naturalized sound. Its German feminine, Ernestine, is one of the many contracted by Stine and Tine, or by Erna. Bohemian has Arnostinka.
| English. | French. | Italian. | German. |
| Ernest | Erneste | Ernesto | Ernst |
| Dutch. | Bohemian. | Lettish. | Hungarian. |
| Ernestus | Arnost | Ernests | Erneszt |
One or two instances of Hauk occur. Hauk Habrok was a noted pirate; and there are two Haukrs in the Landnama-bok. The bird is now called hog in Denmark, and most of our families named Hogg are supposed to rejoice in Hawk as an ancestor.
As to Folco and his kin, though it is often attributed to the falcon, it has, as we shall see, quite another source.[[125]]
[125]. Grimm; Munch; Pott; Michaelis; Butler; Landnama-bok; Chalmers; Essex Pedigrees; Dugdale; Anderson, Genealogies.