From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 18482
Date: 2003-02-06
----- Original Message -----
From: <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 3:02 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: [tied] Latin versus *Proto-Romance
> What are the names that are composed with Karl- (or Swain-, a parallel example)? Anyway, if something was once down, now up, it must have changed position at some time. Are you saying the word had become meaningless at that time?
No, what I'm saying is that a name identifies its bearer but is not supposed to "mean" anything even if it has an etymological meaning. We know virtually nothing about early Germanic slang. I would not exclude the possibility that *karl- stood for something like 'buddy', 'fellow' or 'lad', cf. Scots carl(e), carlie, Ger. Kerl, and simply stuck to some individuals as a nickname before being formalised (same with *swain-).
Piotr