Offhand, I can only propose *kwa:d < PGmc.(?) *kwe:da- 'wicked, bad, hostile' (e.g. ME quead, Du. kwaad), whose attestation in Germanic is unfortunately limited to English, Frisian, Dutch and Low German. Perhaps there's some kind of relation to Pokorny's *gWedH- 'destroy' (he cites Ger. quetschen) and/or Slavic *gadU 'reptile, something repulsive'. I don't know of a single reliable source book discussing Germanic onomastics; at the following URL you'll find the interpretation of common "nymic" elements in Gothic (compared with OE ones).
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Salon/2385/gothnames.html
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
From: Ben McGarr
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 5:46 AM
Subject: [tied] Quadi
I'd like to ask if there is an accepted or even halfway decent etymology for the Germanic tribe of the Quadi? What would this word sound like without the Latin transliteration?