The information about
Loic in this site is not correct.
Loïc is a Provençal and Languadocian ancient form of
Louis (pronounced loh-EEK) documentated since 12th century, in the ancient spelling
Loic, (with other variants as
Lois, Loys, Lozoic… nowadays Loís, Lozoïc).
In 19th century, the Breton poet Aogust Brizeug (
Auguste Brizeux in French) (1803-1858) published
Mari (1828), a book with a poem named “Loic’s song”, which was quickly popularised –also because Berlioz’s and Massé’s lieds-.
In normative Breton the name is spelled
Loig (in 19th century documents it can be found as
Loic), but it is possible to find it spelled Loïc in French, with a dieresis over the I to break the diphthong.
People usually think that Loig (pronounced loh-EEK) is a Breton nickname, nowadays used as full name, because of the ending in –ig (-ic, -ick in other spellings), which is a usual ending of Breton nicknames; and they think that it was originally a nickname of
Louis.
In fact, in Breton
Louis is Loiz (nicknames Loeizig and Loizig) and Loig seems, according the Breton philologist Gwennole Le Menn, a misreading of Laouig, a nickname of
Gwilherm, the Breton form of
William.
So Loig as Breton name is not previous to the middle of the 19th century, but a hundred of years later it was very popular among Bretons. The problem to find Loig/Loic in French documents in 19th and 20th centuries is that the French naming law before 1966 forbade not-French names (that is Breton names, Catalan names, Basque names, Occitan names…) and Breton Loigs appear under the name
Louis.
Since ‘80s and especially ‘90s Breton names were a trend among French people. Nowadays they are very popular, but they have fallen a bit in popularity in favour of Italian and Spanish names (
Leo,
Esteban).
In Loïc there is another convergent path. In French there is the name
Eloïc, probably from the Germanic personal name
Haluig, from which Loïc can be a nickname (or simply it can be related in terms of popularity).
The etymology of Haluig is not clear. It could come from
helm, “helm”, and
wig, “fight, battle”, or from
heil, “happy” (from heilig, “saint”), and wig, “fight, battle”, with attraction of
Eloi (in fact, Eloïc is often misinterpreted as diminutive of
Eloi).
Lumia
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