Possibly, the Danes were named after the river
which they predominantly used to trade with the eastern folk. The locals would
not know of the originating location of the Danes and most probably had little
or no knowledge of their language either. I wonder if this idea has any
precedents in other parts of the world/history.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Why would the Danes call themselves
the same name as a far-away "eastern folk" used to call them? That doesn't seem
likely to me. Most peoples prefer not to borrow their own names from other
languages, for example: the Germans are called "Germans" by the English,
"Allemands" by the French, "nemeci" by the Czech, but they call themselves
"Deutsche".
Hakan