History of Christian names

by Charlotte M. Yonge

Section VI.—Power.

Magan is the Gothic and Saxon to be able, whence our defective may, and a number of other words in all the various northern tongues, in especial main or chief. The names from it are chiefly of German origin. Maginfred, or Powerful-peace, was a fine Old German name, which, by the time it came to the brave but unfortunate Sicilian, son of Frederick II., had been worn down to Manfred, whence he was called by his subjects Manfredi, by his French foes Mainfroi, and by his English contemporaries Mainfroy.

Meginhard, main power, was a chronicler of the early ages, and in 1130 appears in the Cambrai registers. The Germans used it as Mainhart, and the English surname Maynard is from it. Meginrat made Meinrad, or powerful council, and Maginhild is still in use in the North as Magnild.

The main land is, in fact, the chief land, the main, the chief sheet of water, or sea, and might and main are so closely connected together, that Maginhild is the most natural step to Mahthild, Main heroine to Might heroine; for maht is really the modern German macht, and our own might, and both these mighty names were in early use in Germany. Mahthild was the wife of the emperor Henry the Fowler, and afterwards became the sainted abbess of Quedlingburg. Another Swabian Mechtild was canonized after being abbess of Adilstetten; and so fashionable did the name become, that all the French maidens, who were not Alix, seem to have been Mahthild; and in Italy it was borne by the Countess Matilda, the friend of Gregory VII., whose bequest was one of the pope’s first steps to the temporal power, and who is introduced by Dante in the flowery fields of Paradise. The Flemings call it Mahault, and thus term the lady, who, as the wife of William the Conqueror, brought it to England. Molde, as the Normans were pleased to term it, was regarded as so decidedly a Norman name, that the Scottish-Saxon Eadgyth was made to assume it, and it continued the regnant royal name until it sunk beneath the influences of the Provençal Alienor. It seems as if Matilde had been freshly introduced in Flanders when Count Philip married Matilda of Portugal; and this, and the old traditional Mehaut, went on side by side, just as in England did the full name Matilda, and the Anglicized Norman contraction Maude. Of late years Maude has been fashionable, though not so near the original, nor so really graceful in sound as Matilda. The earlier Mall and Moll were from Matilda, not Mary, which came much later into use.

English.	French.	Italian.	Bavarian.
Matilda	Mathilde	Matilda	Mechtild
Molde	Mahaud	German.	Mechel
Mall	Mehaut	Mathilde	Melchel
Maud		Hamb.
Tilda		Tilde
Tilly		Tille

Maatfred and Maatulf were old masculines.

From may and might we pass to our other defective auxiliary can. ‘Knowledge is power,’ is an idea deeply rooted in our languages, for the difference between I ken and I can is well-nigh imperceptible. The Sanscrit gna, forming the Greek verb γιγνώσκω (gignosco), reappears in the Latin nosco, and the Anglo-Saxon cnawan. Another Anglo-Saxon form is cunnan, answering to the Danish kjende, Iceland kunna, German kennan. Thence our word cunning, knowing, and cuth, the past participle, known, noted, or dexterous, whence came several North-Anglian names, Cutha, Cuthwealh, Noted power; Cuthred, Noted council; Cuthwine, Noted friend; Cuthburh, Noted pledge; and chief of all Cuthbryht, the great saint of Lindisfarn in his lifetime, of Durham after his death, when the wanderings of his relics rendered his fame so great that Cuthbert is still national among the peasantry of Northumbria and the Lothians.

Kann seems to have been originally a past tense of ken, and the Teutonic mind concluded that to have learnt is to be able, for all adopted the word can without an infinitive, and varied it into past tenses. To be able was likewise to dare, whence the old Teuton kuoni, Frank chuon, Saxon cene, German kuhn, bold.

Be this as it may, a large class of names has arisen from these words of knowledge and action, earliest of the bearers of which should stand Kunimund, king of the Gepidæ, and Chunimund, king of the Suevi, both meaning Able protection. Chuonrath, Able council, or Bold-speech, was also Suevic, and in the form of Konrad, afterwards a world-wide name in the Swabian house of Hohenstaufen, till the last of their generous though impetuous blood was shed on the scaffold of Corradino, as Naples fondly termed its unfortunate young heir, the Conradin of history. Pity for his untimely fate assisted to spread the name through all the German dependencies, and it has become so common that, like Vasili, Tom, and Heinz, Künz has descended to cats. It has the feminine Cunzila; and our old Mercian King Cenred represented it in England.

English.	French.	Provençal.	Italian.
Conrad	Conrade	Cohat	Corrado
Cenred	Quenes		Currado
German.	Bavarian.	Swiss.	Swedish.
Konrad	Kadl	Chuedli	Konrad
Kunz	Kuenl	Kudli	Netherlands.
Kurt	Kuenz	Chuedler	Koenraad
Kuno	Kunl	Kored	Court
		Koredli
		Chuered
Danish.	Russian.	Bohemian.	Slovak.
Cort	Konrad	Kunad	Kunsch
	Kunrat	Lusatian.
	Kondratij	Kunat