Re: ON Totemic personal names

From: Doug Erickson
Message: 9882
Date: 2009-01-12

You nailed it, Konrad!

 Totemic, I think. Asbjorn 
is from Proto-Norse *Ansubernuz, a u-stem, and is simply the man's 
name Bjorn plus a prefix As- (before about 1150 still Os, long hooked-
o from u-mutation), meaning 'god', one of the aesir (the ON gods that 
came with the Indo-Europeans to Scandinavia about 4000BC). Remember 
that in ON inherited compound names, the second element is the main 
element, even if the second element is partly or fully obscured in ON 
due to linguistic loss. 

-Konrad




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