Re: [tied] A swedish fiord

At 3:33:53 PM on Friday, October 7, 2005, prallan2000 wrote:

> I grew up on the swedish westcoast near the only fiord in
> Sweden, Gullmaren. The fiord's name is actually mentioned
> in the sagas, as Godmaren, and the explanations has been
> merely that God- means divine being and -maren is from
> latin "Mare" for sea. I think this explanation is strange,
> because why would there be a name that is some kind of
> cross-breed between old norse and latin? Does anyone have
> an alternative explanation?

I'd guess that <-en> is the article, and <-mar> is from ON
<marr> 'sea'. I suppose that <God-> could represent either
ON <guð, goð> 'a god' or ON <góðr> 'good'; there are
Norwegian parallels for both in <Godøya> and <Godvik>,
respectively.

Brian