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ArchivesAva - desired?
Can anyone tell me why Ava is thought to mean "desired"? I can't see the connection between the element "avi" and any Ancient Germanic words with that meaning...
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Neither do I. Forstemann plausibly suggests most of these names are from Ancient Germanic *agwjo (lit. "watery" in reference to land by or surrounded by a body of water), Ouw-, Aw-, Au- in High German, and Ig- (ighere, Igulf) in English (with is- to represent *iȝ- in island); however a few of these names may be a root only recorded prosaically in Gothic Awa, Norse Ai "grandather" (the other languages have the suffixed form represented by English eam "maternal uncle", but reportedly an unspecified German dialect also has Awwe "grandfather" and there are cognates in Hittite, Armenian, Latin, and in the sense "uncle" in Celtic and Balto-Slavic), which could also supply the extended forms Awan- and Awin- from the oblique declensions.
This message was edited 8/15/2018, 3:36 PM
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No. In almost all languages the i causes umlaut of the a to either æ or e, nor is there any indication of loss of l before ƀ, and in the southern Germanic dialects Ava is presumed to originate it isn't alfi, as the original b of the root alb- "white" usually becomes p (note that the Elbe [presumably in reference to the tributary now known as the "White Elbe"] is the same word with different gender). If anything aside from the above (with the common misinterpretation of Latin V (u) as modern v) it could be a short form of names such as Averil, Aver- from the root represented by Gothic abrs, High German abar-, English afor, West Norse æfr "strong, forceful, vehement" (medial b and f are pronounced |ƀ| or |v| [ƀ almost indistinguishable from and usually replaced by the easier v], e.g. elf, elves; dwarf, dwarves).
This message was edited 8/15/2018, 4:02 PM
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