History of Christian names

by Charlotte M. Yonge

The name has been much used by all the Teutons, and it was not inappropriately chosen by Fouqué, as that of the old knight in the Magic ring, whose character he has sacrificed for the sake of making him the representative parent of all the chivalry of Europe, except the English, which he considers as independently typified by Richard Cœur de Lion. This roving knight appears at home as Hugo; Hugur in the North; Hugues, in France; Uguccione, in Italy; and even as Hygies, in Greece, which last is, however, only a resemblance, not a translation.

English.	Scottish.	Gaelic.	French.
Hugh	Hugh	Uisdean.	Hugues
Hugo	Hughie		Hues
Hutchin	Hutcheon		Huon
			Huet
			Hugolin
			Huguenin
			Ugues
Provençal.	Italian.	German.	Norwegian.
Oc	Ugo	Hugo	Hugr
	Ugolino		Hugi
	Ugone
	Ugotto
	Uguccione

Part of the popularity of the name was, no doubt, owing to the Cymric countries having adopted it as the nearest resemblance to the mighty Hu Gadarn, from whom the national Hugh of Wales almost certainly sprung. A Frank saint, Archbishop of Rouen, and one of the many canonized cousins of Pepin, first made Hugo current among his own race; but the only person who wore it on the throne was the Gallican Count of Paris, who may have had it as a compromise between the Cymric Hu and Frank Hugr; at any rate, it was long spelt without the g in France, and declined as Hues, Huon. The old Cambrai form was Huet, with the feminine Huette.

Hugo is very frequent in Domesday Book, and the name was much more common in earlier times than at present. In Scotland and Ireland it has been pressed into the service of Anglicizing the native Aodh, or fire; but the Gaelic name Uisdean, pronounced something like ocean, is most likely intended as a rendering of Hutcheon, the form in which the Scots caught the Hugon of their Anglo-Norman neighbours, who revered the name doubly for the sake of the good bishop of Lincoln, and for another St. Hugh of Lincoln, i.e. the child murdered by the Jews, as in the Prioress’s Tale in Chaucer. St. Hugh of Lincoln is revered in the north of Italy as well as at home; and Ugo is common there in all manner of varieties, the most memorable, perhaps, being that of the terrible Genoese, Ugolino de Gherardesca, whose fearful fate has been rendered famous by Dante. In Dutch, it is Huig. Huig Groot was the home name of the author whom the world hailed as Hugo Grotius, and the Walloons use the contraction Hosch.

Hyge was the Low German form, and Hygelac is the sea-king of the Geats, the friend and lord in the poem of Beowulf. The latter syllable lac is the northern leik, and Gothic laiks, signifying both reward and sport, the same word that in some parts of England has become lake, meaning to play or to be idle, and in slang, to lark. It is rather a favourite termination, but only a commencement in the Norse feminine Leikny, fresh sport.

Hygelac is thus the sport of thought, or it may be, the reward of thought. Hugoleik was thus not an inappropriate name for an old Frank chronicler, who has had the misfortune to descend to the world by the horrible Latinism of Chochilaicus. Hugleik was current in Norway, was transformed by the Danes into Hauleik and Hovleik, and in Ireland seems to have turned into Ulic, a favourite name, but latterly transmogrified into Ulysses.

Hugibert, or bright mind, belonged to the bishop of Liege, to whom attached the Teutonic story of the hunter’s conversion by the cross-bearing stag, making him the patron of hunters, and his name very popular in France, Flanders, northern Italy, and probably once in England, since it has left us the two surnames of Hubbard and Hobart.

English.	French.	Italian.	Portuguese.	German.
Hubert	Hubert	Uberto	Huberto	Hucpraht
				Hugibert
				Hubert

It used to be wrongly translated bright of hue.

Hugibald became the German Hugbold and the Italian Ubaldo, the prince of thought; Hugihard, or firm in mind, is the French Huard.