I think this is an interesting question.
Sviatopolk seems to be the same name as South-Slavic, I think Serbian,
Svetolik ('white face', 'white effigy'). Of course, svet could also
mean 'world, holy, sacred, sacremental', but all these meanings are
derived from the word svetlo 'light' (cf. Eng. white).
Slavic lik is an aphaeresis of ob-lik (Russ.
о́блый 'round'; пухлый 'plump, rotund'; Cz. obličej 'face', Serb-Cr. oblik 'shape, form, effigy', lik, lice,
лицо 'face'). This may be a very important evidence that Old Slavic
плъкъ (plUkU; pluk, polk) is not a Germanic loanword; cf. Lat. vulgus, po-pulus, plenus, Gr.
πλέως, οἱ πλέονες 'crowd, people'; Slavic *poln-o- 'full', velik, Russ.
великий 'big', Russ.
большо́й 'great, big'; Eng. bulk.
All of the above-mentioned words look as if to be mutually related and, if they are, then the etymology of folk/polk is going to be much simpler than we have believed until now - (crowd, mass, heap, pile, bulk).
Personally, I allways suspected that /f/ to /p/ substitution in loanwords from Germanic was possible in Slavic.
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
From: gabaroo6958@...
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:19:18 -0700
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Afro-Asiatic substrate (re "folk" "polk" "pulkas")
One of the early tsars was a certain Sviatopolk -- I suppose sviato ="light, holy, vel sim" but -polk?
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