Re: celtic tinco

Hi,

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "patrick" <dicoceltique@...> wrote:

> somebody knows the meaning/etymology of celtic word * -Tinco
> like personal name :
> Tinco-maros = atrebate chief (maros = great)
> Masue-tinca= ?
> Tinco-mara = the great.... ?
> Tinco-rix = The king of ..../Wealthy on....
>
> [...]
>
> Tincus Moccus = God (Moccus = wild pig)
>
> and town name Tincollo/Tinconium and Duro-tincum = Lemovices Capital
>
> In celtic = Fate/Destiny ? But not well appropriate
> Irish Tocad
> Welsh Tynged
> Breton Tonkat
> Proto-celtic = Tonk-eto ?
>
> Tench ? = Fish ?

From C.E.A. Chessman, 'Tincomarus Commi filius', Britannia 29 (1998), pp. 309-315:

<< The ruler of the Atrebates [a Belgic tribe of southern Britain -- Francesco] previously known as Tincommius was in fact, it appears, called Tincomarus. [...] An equivalent female form, Tincomara, is attested elsewhere: an inscription found in 1933 at Au am Leithaberg in Austria (ancient Pannonia) records one of this name, [perhaps Boii in origin]. [...] Apart from Tincomara, [...], a single-element name Tinco is known from Noricum, and perhaps from Domodossola in Northern Italy. The form Tinco also appears on a series of Iron Age coins from Noricum, perhaps a full name but more likely an abbreviation. Tinca is recorded as a masculine cognomen from Placentia in Cisalpina in the late Republican era. It is doubtless from uncompounded forms such as these that Tincius, a relatively common gentilicium in Gaul, was formed. Southern Gaul also produces Tincorix, an instance where the element is apparently combined with the classic 'Celtic' name-termination generally explained as cognate with Latin rex.

If it is indeed the same element appearing in all these names, it naturally occurs to ask what it might mean. Seeing in Tincorix a doublet of a different name, Tancorix, Birkhan suggested the significance 'safety' or 'peace'. A simpler option appears to be that taken by Holder, who considered the name equivalent to the common noun tinca, surviving in Latin but apparently a Celtic loan-word. Perhaps cognate with English tench, Celtic/Latin tinca is the name of a sort of fish.

[Cf. also at http://www.celtnet.org.uk/gods_t/tinco.html, on tinco = a fish (tench) -- Francesco] .

Anthroponyms formed from a compound of an animal name with an adjective or epithet were not unknown in Gaul and ancient Britain. Names in epo- (horse), tarvo- (bull), and banu- (pig) are recorded with some frequency. It must be said, however, that it is hard to find an instance of an animal name of this sort paired with the -marus termination. The most frequent context for the latter appears rather to be in combination with another epithet, such as nerto-marus ('strong-great': cf. Welsh nerthfawr 'strong'), dago-marus ('good-great'), sego-marus ('bold-great'). A few instances combining an animal name with the marus element do perhaps survive however. One, in which the elements are reversed in respect of the paradigm cases given above, is the relatively common. Maroboduus, the second part of which seems to be the widespread onomastic element boduo-, a crow. The names Matomarus and Matumarus, also attested in the intensified form Comatumarus (fem. Comatumara), may well incorporate an initial element matos, 'bear', but it is also quite possible that this is the i-stem mati-, meaning 'good' or 'excellent'. >>

Regards,
Francesco