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that sounds even more dubious then, since vizkr seems to be the normal form, and the normal rules of dithematic names would require the disyllabic fem. noun vizka/vizku- "wisdom, knowledge" before reduction of unaccented syllables, for which the alt, spelling is vitska, not viska. On the whole though Guiscard seems just a western variation of Guisard, and not Norse at all. I can't find VISC- in Forstemann, a different edition? He does list a Visichart, which would explain both Guiscard and Guisard, in which case the first element is probably Visi- "leader", not Vis- "wise" which being long would not require an extra syllable only to be elided later.

This message was edited 1/18/2021, 9:52 AM