There is a race of names, chiefly German, beginning with hun, that it would seem natural to ascribe to the Huns of Attila; but the original term for this race seems to have been in their own language Hiognu, and was retained in the pronunciation by other nations before writing and Latin had made the word Hun. In old Germanic poems, the Huns figure as giants or Titans, so that some translate, huni, or hiune, as a giant. The word hun, however, also means a stake, and it is most according to the ordinary analogy of nomenclature to suppose the names thus commencing were used in the sense of a stake, meaning either the weapon or that the bearer was strong and straight as a stake or a support, like the staff in Gustav.
| English. | French. | Italian. | German. |
| Humfrey | Onfroi | Onufrio | Humfrid |
| Humphrey | Onofredo | ||
| Humps | |||
| Numps |
The names of this commencement are Huno, Hunnerich, latterly lost in Heinrich, Hunold, the French Hunaud, Hunibert, which was corrupted in France into Humbert, and belonged to various counts of Savoy and dauphins of Auvergne, Hunigar, in Hungeir and Hunifred, which the French much affected in the form of Onfroi, which belonged to one of the short-lived kings of Jerusalem, and was Latinized as Onuphrius. In the form of Humfrey it was much used by the great house of Bohun; and through his mother, their heiress, descended to the ill-fated son of Henry IV., who has left it an open question whether dining with Duke Humfrey alludes to the report that he was starved to death, or to the Elizabethan habit for poor gentility to beguile the dinner-hour by a promenade near the tomb of Duke Humfrey Stafford in old St. Paul’s. From being a noble and knightly name, Humphrey, as we barbarously spell it, came to be a peasant’s appellation, and now is almost disused.
The northern Hundolf, or Hunnolf, and Hungerdur, are in some doubt between the dog and the stake.
The helmet is the most popular piece of armour in Germany. It comes from the word meaning to cover, the very same that furnished hol, whole, hale, and holy. To heal a wound is to cover it, and health is soundness. The Teutonic languages teem with derivatives from hulyan and helan, of which all that shall be here mentioned are our own; heel, the covered part of the foot, the hold of a ship, its hull, and the provincial hulls (chaff), and hillier (a slater).
The Latin galea was nearly related to the helm of the German, and may be from the same source. Indeed, it is, as has been said before, doubtful whether Galeazzo Visconti was the offspring of a classical or of a Gothic helmet. The only popular northern helmet is Hjalmar, the helmed warrior, apparently in honour of one of the heroes of the Orvarod Saga; but Germany has Helmar, Helmerich, in Friesland Elmark, the helmed king, Helmund, or helmet protection, Helmbold, Helmut, Helmich, Helmtac; besides numerous helms at the end of words, of which Wilhelm is the most notable.
The sword figures in northern and German nomenclature as Brand; but not from the verb to burn, but from brandr, an elastic staff, transferred to the blade of a sword. It would also mean the staff of a bow, and a short straight stripe of colour, whence a cow so marked is brandet in the north, branded with us. The Brands are many, with German and Frank commencements, such as Hildeprant, Liutprant, &c., but seldom common; though Brand sometimes stands alone in the North, and Brandolf, or sword wolf, is an old name. Perhaps the Zetland Brenda may be the feminine.
Degen, a blade, is another sword name of rarer use, and exclusively German. It also is compounded into Degenhard, then contracted into Deinhard; but the primary meaning is the hero, as it comes from the same word as tugend, virtue or valour.
Another very old term for a sword was hjøru, or hiru, in the North; hairu, heru, in the Gothic; heoru, in Anglo-Saxon. Here we see that the Heruli and Cheruschi, as the Romans called them, were both sword men. Heoruvard, or Hereward the Saxon, was the sword guardian; Heorugar answered to the northern Hjørgeir; there was a Gothic Hairuwolf, or Heruwolf; in the North, Hiørulf, Hiørleif, and Hiørdis also occur; but the syllable gets contracted into Her, and the names are not easily distinguished from those beginning with her, a warrior. Hjaraande is another northern form.
Boge, the bow, is sparsely found alone, and as Bauggisel in Iceland, and now and then in Norway at the end of a name. Bogo was Old German, and the surnames in Denmark Bugge, in England Bogue. But its English fame rests upon a champion called Bogo, who was supposed by our ancestors to have been Earl of Southampton at the time of the Norman Conquest; to have fought a battle with the invaders at Cardiff, and to have left his sword as a relic at Arundel Castle. Whether this ever occurred or not, Boge was rendered by Norman tongues into Bevis, or Beavois, and was the subject of an old metrical romance, where his great exploit is killing the tremendous giant Ascapart, who had carried off his wife, the converted Saracen princess Josyan. He lives to a good old age, sees his twin sons kings, and dies happily on the same day as his wife and his good horse Arundel, once doubtless Hirondelle, or the swallow.