At 6:19:24 PM on Tuesday, March 25, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:
> In 'Warist, Werstine und Werstein' Kuhn tries to show that
> many Germanic names in ending in
> -stein/-steen/-sta:n/-sten are reinterpretations of pre-
> and non-Germanic names in ending in -st-, and that this is
> shown in the sets of matching -st/-stein etc of personal
> names, etnonyms and toponyms:
> "
[...]
> To corrobsorate this I have to digress shortly into the
> history of personal names with st-suffix. On the continent
> they enjoyed more importance than the ones on -stein. In
> the North, however, where these latter were rather
> frequent, the former are not documented, and also in
> England there are only a few tangible ones. Without
> support in the genuine vocabulary seem only Ribrost and
> Unust, but those two might have been Celts. The well-known
> Hengest is a native appellative and only semi-legendary.
> To my knowledge there remains only Leofusta, which might
> or should be understood as superlative to leof "dear", and
> Fregist/Frigist which seems to contain OE gist "guest",
> although this is very rare in the old English personal
> names. Among the few -gist names I noticed there are
> Friþe-/Fryþe-gist which could be reshaped from Frigist,
> and Ere-gist, with a completely isolated first element.
Olof von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of
Domesday Book, p. 255, n. 2:
<Fryðegistes> (gen.) c. 965 BCS 1168; <Frithegist
minister> 970 BCS 1266; <Frithe-, Friðegist> 971 BCS 1270
(2 persons); <Fr(i)þe-, Friþegist> 973 BCS 1297 (2
persons); <Friðe-, Fryðgistes>, <Fryðegystes> (3x),
<-gistes> (3x) 972-92 BCS 1130, the father of <Æðelwald>
and <Osferð>; <Friðegist> ASC (E, F) 993, <Fryþegyst> ib.
C, D, who was of Danish descent according to FlW i. 151:
»duces exercitus, Frana videlicet, Frithogist, et
Godwinus, quia ex paterno genere Danici fuerunt»;
<Friðegist minister> 1005 KCD 714; <(Arkil filius)
Fridegisti> 11th c. Sim. Durh. i. 220. Post-Conq examples
are <Friðegist>, <Frithcigt>, mon. Chester, Wm I (Brooke
16); <Frithegist magnus> 1088 LVD 77 (YNR); <Fredegesti>
(gen) late Hy II DCh 269 (Li); also in the Li field-name
<Fred(e)gestdaile> 1312 ChR (Lindkvist 32). For a
possible instance in the list of bp Ælfric's festermen see
Lindkvist AB 33.135. In spurious charters (Ingulph) we
find <Fregistus miles> 806 BCS 325, 819 ib. 365,
<Frigistus miles> ib. 365, <Eregisti militis> 823 BCS 409,
851 ib. 461, 868 ib. 521, <Erithegistus minister> 966 ib.
1179. Since <Thorold de Bokenhale>, the 11th c. sheriff
of L (< Þóraldr q.v.) and <Geolphus filius Malti> (DB
Iaulf Maltesune < Iólfr q.v.) appear in the majority of
these charters, it seems reasonable to assume that
Ingulph's <Fregist> is identical with the 1066 L tenant
and with <Fregistus> on the »Guthlac scroll» (c. 1150),
one of the benefactors of Crowland Abbey; cf. F.M. Page,
The Estates of Crowland Abbey, p. 5 ff. and plate I.
The name appears in DB as <Friguist>, <Fredgist>, and
<Fregist>, in Lancs., Yorks., and Northants. It appears to
be a borrowing of ON *<Friðgestr>, ODan <Fredegæst>; while
<Friðgestr> isn't recorded in OWN sources, several other
names in <-gestr> are. The late <Fred-> spellings are
influenced by WFrank. names in <Fred(e)->, doubtless
including <Fredegis>. <Eregist> and <Erithegistus> are
apparently just errors for <Fregist> and <Frithegistus>.
Brian