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Author: Victar Mas
Email: victarmas at hotmail dot com
Date: 2005-09-16 16:23:38
Subject: Re: Etymology of a Gothic name
Okay, so after doing some research, I know believe I was wrong about mer, mir. As it turns out, the mer, mir in Slavonic personal names comes from the PIE base *mér meaning "large, great". The same source states that the word also gives rise to OHG personal name Hlodo-már, and the OI word már meaning "big".
This set off a couple of bells but I first looked up már in the Cleasby Vigfusson dictionary and found this:
-már, m., in the latter part of pr. names, Bjart-már, Hreið-már, Gran-már; it is derived from mær, famous, O. H. G. mári, and formed at a time when the umlaut had not as yet taken place.
So if the OI word már "to be famous" originated from the PIE *mér- "large, great", that must mean that Gothic word mérs meaning "known, famous, renowned" also came from the same root.
Do you following me? Now remember when they mention the OHG personal name Hlodo-már. Hlodo comes from the Ger. *hluda- "heard of, famous", akin to OHG huld "praise, fame". Now either this name is redundantly "famous and famous" or "famous and great". I suppose the context would rely on what the word meant at the time.
Now if you recall, I said the first elements in the Slavonic personal names Vladimer and Velimir come from the same PIE root *wal- "to be strong" Thus, they are constructed from *wal- "to be strong" *mér- "large, great" giving them the combined meaning of "strong and great". However, as we see, *mér- mutated towards a meaning of "famous" so the name may also mean "strong and famous". I would probably go with the latter in finding the meaning to their Gothic relative Valamer.
I may be completely wrong about everything so please let me know if I am.
Victar