# Does Diego have a Visigothic origin?



## Alturlie

It is clear that the Spanish name Diego (sometimes apparently spelled Diago) is NOT a variant of Jacov/Iago. So too it is highly unlikely to be a vernacular form of the Latin(ised) Didacus. [I think it is unlikely to be Arabic, but it could just be Jewish - like Jacov.]

The earliest extant record of Diego is in the mid 900s, so it occurred to me that it may be Visigothic in origin. It is generally believed that surnames such as Diaz derive from Diego - but the similarity of Diego and Iago makes me wonder whether Diego may be a derivative of Diaz rather than the "normally understood" way round.

Can anyone suggest a word (preferably a name) from an old Germanic/Norse language which might be represented as Diaz or Diego and which might reasonably be supposed to be Visigothic? And what might that name mean?


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## Segorian

Starting from your suggestion that Diego derives from Diaz, one possibility is that the latter comes from Gothic _Dagis Sun[us]_, ‘Son of Day’, assuming that the word for ‘day’ was used as a given name in Gothic, as it was in Old Norse.

_Sun_ rather than _sunus_ is my speculation that Gothic may already have used a short form of the word in this specific context in the same way as the Nordic form was (and is) _Dagsson_, not _Dagssonr_.


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## Alturlie

Thanks for this helpful suggestion. 

There is something of a parallel in the name of St Kentigern's mother Thaney (niece of "King" Arthur). She was of the Gododdin tribe and in my book "Arthur: Legend, Logic & Evidence" I do suggest that this means "New Day" - or, I suppose, "Dawn". But I had not been aware that "Day" could be incorporated into male names also. Conceptually I can see a read across to the famous Scottish name Macbeth ("son of light").

As an alternative, looking at Bosworth Toller for hints I did find "deág" from "Dugan" - in effect meaning a good or virtuous person - but I do not know how close the relationship  between Visigothic and Anglo-Saxon may be.

Another problem we have is that even in the case of the original Diego, because he was a bishop, we cannot be sure whether this was his given name or a name he adopted eg when he took holy orders.


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## berndf

Alturlie said:


> It is clear that the Spanish name Diego (sometimes apparently spelled Diago) is NOT a variant of Jacov/Iago. So too it is highly unlikely to be a vernacular form of the Latin(ised) Didacus. [I think it is unlikely to be Arabic, but it could just be Jewish - like Jacov.]
> 
> The earliest extant record of Diego is in the mid 900s, so it occurred to me that it may be Visigothic in origin. It is generally believed that surnames such as Diaz derive from Diego - but the similarity of Diego and Iago makes me wonder whether Diego may be a derivative of Diaz rather than the "normally understood" way round.
> 
> Can anyone suggest a word (preferably a name) from an old Germanic/Norse language which might be represented as Diaz or Diego and which might reasonably be supposed to be Visigothic? And what might that name mean?


One, if not _the_ main reason why the derivation of _Diego _from _Didacus _is considered problematic is the shift from_ ía_ to _ié_ in the sequence _Didacus > Didaco > Diaco > D*ia*go > D*ie*go_, which remains unexplained. Your alternative theory has the same problem. on top of being more far fetched. I can't see any advantage.


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## Alturlie

*Diego/Didacus:* The idea Didacus => Diego, proposed on the Jacobus => James thread, was, so far as I understand it, a misrepresentation of Becker who suggests Diego => (Latinised as) Didacus - ie the opposite way round. However what may appear as simple Latinisation may not be so: many people took a different name when they took the cloth (as indeed Popes do to this day). So to seek an 'evolutionary' onomastic 'explanation' of an apparent linkage may prove to be a fool's errand - in this case born of the coincidence of the initial "Di-" (which may have been chosen for its alliteration and perhaps no more than that). The other problem is that while St Didacus belongs to the 1400s, there was a Diego in the 900s.
*
Diego/Diaz:* It is not my theory..... It is not I who propose a linkage between Diego and Diaz - I am merely examining what appears to be an accepted "well known fact" within the names community - and if Berndf wishes to challenge that then let him set out his case. I have no dog in that particular fight.

*Vowel Shifts: *As for the "-ia-" vs "-ie-" variance, while I do not dismiss this out of hand, we need to keep in mind that people in Dundee call a "pie" a "peh" and locally in Spain, inter alia, Caesaraugusta became Zaragoza (note at least two major vowel shifts). And we should not forget Jaime/Jaume over which Berndf seems to adopt a Gallic (or is it Jewish?) insouciance! So methinks this indignation is just a little selective! Here is an off the wall idea (I would not call it a proposition): the shift from Diago => Diego may have been prompted to maintain the distinction by the increasing weight of the widespread use of Iago for Jacov!

*Gothic Origin:* However it IS my theory that it is worth examining whether "Diego" may have a Visigothic origin and if Berndf has anything constructive to offer in this regard then that might be interesting. And if he wants to propose an entirely separate origin for Diaz then that is fine too. It is ridiculous to write off as "far fetched" the idea that in a land peopled by Visigoths a name may have a Visigothic origin.


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## berndf

Alturlie said:


> It is not my theory..... It is not I who propose a linkage between Diego and Diaz


The linkage is indeed a common assumption. But not the way you proposed it, i.e. that _Diego _should be a derivation from _Diaz_.


Alturlie said:


> As for the "-ia-" vs "-ie-" variance


It is not simply _a_ vs. _e_ it is _ía_ vs. _ié_. The by far bigger issue is the shift from two syllables with stress on _i_, _*Di*.az_, to one syllable with a semi-vowel _*Die*.go_, which would have to be explained.


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## Alturlie

> Alturlie said:
> 
> 
> It is not my theory..... It is not I who propose a linkage between Diego and Diaz


The linkage is indeed a common assumption. But not the way you proposed it, i.e. that _Diego _should be a derivation from _Diaz_.



> Alturlie said:
> 
> 
> As for the "-ia-" vs "-ie-" variance


It is not simply _a_ vs. _e_ it is _ía_ vs. _ié_. The by far bigger issue is the shift from two syllables with stress on _i_, _*Di*.az_, to one syllable with a semi-vowel _*Die*.go_, which would have to be explained.

The variance of vowel and stress is inherent in the Diego/Diaz linkage whichever way you work it - and I agree that this is worthy of exploration - so in this respect I have added nothing new. However Berndf is entirely correct that I have offered (also) the suggestion that it may add fresh light to stand the problem on its head and consider whether Diaz=> Diego may be a better fit than Diego=> Diaz (inter alia I have pet forms in mind).

I am taking an increasingly robust attitude to stress when I see the way that, in England particularly, the language is being mangled currently by people who are not native speakers - or, without any classical background, have done all their learning from books. Thus we have people saying "pastORal". "sectORal" and even "adAGE". And then there are "criterias"!!! While I deplore all this it has already crept far too far up the social ladder and looks as if it is unstoppable. So while I would like to be able to be as purist as Berndf - it would make life much easier - I fear that this is - or can be - over the top.

The scope for simple error to creep in - particularly in a multi-ethnic milieu (Arab. Jew, Visigoth, Basque, Frank...) - should not be discounted.


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## berndf

You cannot simply argue because this and that stress variation happened in English it is also plausible in Spanish. Especially stress changes in the process of loaning from a different language family as in the English examples you stated are a completely issue than a stress change in the development history within a language. It is quite normal that languages that borrow words adjust their pronunciation to their own language and that includes stress patterns.

And we are talking here about Spanish and not about English and we are talking about a development within Spanish and not about a change that happened in the process of changing.

Another thing: Where did you get the information what _Diego _can be traced back to 900. I cannot find anything. To my knowledge, the form first appeared 200 years later.


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## Alturlie

Another thing: Where did you get the information what _Diego _can be traced back to 900. I cannot find anything. To my knowledge, the form first appeared 200 years later.

Diego (bishop of Oviedo) - Wikipedia


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## merquiades

Why aren't you convinced by the traditional explanation that it comes from _Iacobus_?

Iacobus > Sant Iacob > Sant Yago > Santiago > Sandiago > San Diego

_Iacobus_ loses the Latin -us, then final -b is rejected in Castilian, the [k] is voiced intervocalically to [g], it combines with _Sant_ forming _Santiago_ then voiced to _Sandiago _after n.  The diphthong iá is uncommon in Spanish, but ié is commonplace in thousands of words from short Latin e, so the name is popularly modified.  Then _Sandiego_ is reevaluated and split into _San Diego_.  _Diego_ then becomes a standard name.

The complicated part is none of these stages ever completely died out.  We still have Yago, Santiago, Diago and Diego.  Plus we can find the Latinism _Jacobo_ as well.


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## berndf

Alturlie said:


> Another thing: Where did you get the information what _Diego _can be traced back to 900. I cannot find anything. To my knowledge, the form first appeared 200 years later.
> 
> Diego (bishop of Oviedo) - Wikipedia


No, I was asking for *actual *occurrences around 900, not about historical figures born at that time and called Diego today. People referred to as _Didacus _in medieval records are customarily referred to as _Diego_ today. This Wikipedia link tells us nothing about his name at his lifetime.


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## Alturlie

Well I think you have put your finger on it precisely! And different people are arguing their corners fiercely!
I had been making the (lazy) assumption that what you suggest was the case until it all kicked off.

Not only are all these forms current - but they and more were current 1000 years ago when, I think, there had not been time for the "evolution" proposed (see the thread about Jacobus => James). I think there has been misunderstanding between ethnic groups and I think there are too many variants for comfort. Thus you will see the problem regarding Jacomus (does it really exist? has it ever? how can we tell?). So I think that Iago and Diego are too close to be lineally related - particularly given the time scale. And then there is the Diaz problem. So it is time to stand the problem on its head and think again. And to think about the Visigoths seems like a sensible place to start.

Because my root interest is in "James" I am not satisfied by the assertion of those who say that the "c" was merely "lost" - and this throws everything up in the air.

And we can see that people are arguing from a basis of relative ignorance when even Berndf had been unaware of the Diego in the 900s (of course I too had been unaware until two weeks or so ago).


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## Alturlie

"No, I was asking for *actual *occurrences around 900, not about historical figures born at that time and called Diego today. People referred to as _Didacus _in medieval records are customarily referred to as _Diego_ today. This Wikipedia link tells us nothing about his name at his lifetime."

There is nothing here to suggest he was (or, indeed, they were) called Didacus at the time - or anything else but Diego.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Alturlie, you made a claim concerning Diego. It's up to you to provide proof therefore that he was called as such _at the time_, not berndf to prove that he wasn't.


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## berndf

Alturlie said:


> I am not satisfied by the assertion of those who say that the "c" was merely "lost" - and this throws everything up in the air.


"Lost c" is such a common phenomenon in all Romance languages that this if the smallest of all issues. But we are discussing _Diego_ here. For your theory to be plausible you would really have to find significantly earlier occurrences of Diego than those we know today.


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## Alturlie

In reply to Pedro y la Torre: Well the claim is on the Wikipedia page and it is referenced. I have no reason to believe that the author of the Wikipedia entry played fast and loose with his/her source in the way you imply. I am comfortable relying on this source until it is demonstrated otherwise.


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## berndf

Alturlie said:


> There is nothing here to suggest he was (or, indeed, they were) called Didacus at the time - or anything else but Diego.


The opposite is the issue: there is nothing to suggest he was called _Diego _at the time. The onus of proof is here on your side. I have only to point out that the name by which he is known today tells us nothing.


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## Alturlie

Palomeque Torres, Antonio. 1948. "Episcopologio de la Sede de Oviedo durante el siglo X," _Hispania sacra_, *1*(2):269–298, see pp. 288–91 Is not a text to which I am ever likely to gain access. I started this thread with a question and not with a prearranged answer/assertion. The extent to which people are now on very high horses instead of engaging suggests to me that I have touched a nerve and am heading in a good direction. At this stage I do not have to prove anything. And then there is the matter of Diaz...... What I see is two people genuinely engaging in the issue and two more desperate for the issue to go away...


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## Pedro y La Torre

Alturlie, you started off by saying that the reference in Wikipedia makes it quite clear that the individual in question was known as Diego in the 10th century, now you say that you are not likely to ever gain access to it so in reality, you've no idea what he was called.

If you want to make a claim, you need to provide evidence to back it up. No-one is trying to "make the issue go away", as you put it.


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## Penyafort

merquiades said:


> The diphthong iá is uncommon in Spanish, but ié is commonplace in thousands of words from short Latin e, so the name is popularly modified.



Not only that, but the fact that there was a long stage of hesitation between diphthongs ia/ie and ua/ue/uo is quite well known. The final vowel being -o and not -a could also be reason enough to influence the closing of the diphthong.


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## Alturlie

In answer to Pedro de la Torre: If you had read this thread then you would have seen that I am making no claim. In the first instance I am asking a question and in the second instance I am quoting someone knowledgeable about a book. The fact that you start my claiming that I am making a claim makes me question your motive in intervening. It is possible that the author has deliberately misrepresented his source, but I think it is for you to pursue that allegation. The tone of the article gives me enough confidence.


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## Alturlie

In answer to Berndf: the author of this page makes this claim. I am content to accept this unless and until it is shown otherwise. Perhaps the text calls him Diego but to his friends he was Bernard - or David or whatever you like. But I suspect not.

You have NO evidence that Diego of Oviedo had any other name in his lifetime - indeed you did not even know of his (and his contemporaries') existence until I pointed this out to you. So it ill behoves you now to assume that Diego was not his name. Irrespective of the truth of the matter you have no basis for that assumption. And if he did have another name (Diego could be a name he took on ordination, depending on what it means) you have no idea what it might have been.


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## Alturlie

In comment on Merquiades' helpful approach: I do think it is ridiculous that Latin Jacobus should end up as Latin Didacus. Of course being ridiculous does not by itself make it untrue, but I do think it tilts the balance of probabilities - making the exploration of alternatives worthwhile - and the purported link to Diaz offers us the best chance of turning up something interesting.


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## Alturlie

In reply to Berndf "And we are talking here about Spanish and not about English and we are talking about a development within Spanish and not about a change that happened in the process of changing."

That is exactly what we are NOT talking about. Clearly you did not read my introduction calmly, you were looking to pick holes. The point is that this is a melting pot of many languages. To focus on Spanish is tunnel vision.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Alturlie said:


> In answer to Pedro de la Torre: If you had read this thread then you would have seen that I am making no claim. In the first instance I am asking a question and in the second instance I am quoting someone knowledgeable about a book. The fact that you start my claiming that I am making a claim makes me question your motive in intervening. It is possible that the author has deliberately misrepresented his source, but I think it is for you to pursue that allegation. The tone of the article gives me enough confidence.


You said:



Alturlie said:


> Well the claim is on the Wikipedia page and it is referenced.


It isn't. The Wikipedia page makes no claim about the name of the Bishop _at the time _and you have just said yourself that you have no access to the referenced work. Indeed, Wikipedia claims:



> The identification of a given "Bishop Diego" in the contemporary documentation is therefore difficult and often uncertain. This is only compounded by the numerous errors of dating and outright falsifications (especially by Bishop Pelagius in the twelfth century) of charters



Throwing about claims willy-nilly without hard evidence then demanding that people disprove your claims is very poor form.


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## berndf

Alturlie said:


> To focus on Spanish is tunnel vision.


You asked a question about a Spanish name so of course we have to talk about Spanish.



Alturlie said:


> You have NO evidence that Diego of Oviedo had any other name in his lifetime


That is not how science works. You made a claim and it your job to make sure there is evidence to support it. If I have evidence or not to the contrary is immaterial. I have only pointed out the fact that the reference to Wikipedia constitutes in no way evidence and I have explained why.


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## Alturlie

> The identification of a given "Bishop Diego" in the contemporary documentation is therefore difficult and often uncertain. This is only compounded by the numerous errors of dating and outright falsifications (especially by Bishop Pelagius in the twelfth century) of charters


OK.... now you are beginning to be helpful rather than merely carping. Following this link through to Diego Gelmírez - Wikipedia we find:
*Diego Gelmírez* or *Xelmírez* (Latin _Didacus Gelmirici_) (ca 1069 – ca 1140).

First of all this demonstrates that Didacus was a name freely used in the Catholic Church 300 years before Diego of Acala - and relatively shortly after Diego of Oviedo. So we have some questions:
1. Was "Diego" regularly Latinised as Didacus or
2. Was "Diego" a regular "pet"/vernacular form of Didacus and hence nothing to do with Jacobus?
3. If Diego WAS a pet form of Didacus then presumably we have no idea what his real given name was.
4. Errr.... are there other potentially alternative explanations?
Either way this is powerfully in support of the idea that Diego and Iago have nothing to do with each other.

It is all very well dissing Pelagius, but I think this does not affect the name Diego in relation to
"The early years of Diego's episcopate are made murky by the presence of bishops named Diego in Ourense and Valpuesta at the same time." So we are still back to the 900s for Diego - or at least Didacus. I am assuming that Pelagius' writ did not run that far.


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## Alturlie

> You asked a question about a Spanish name so of course we have to talk about Spanish.



Wrong. I asked about a name which is now Spanish and which was current in what is now Spain at a time when there is good reason to suppose that the name might NOT have been "Spanish". Surely even you would accept that "Spain" did not exist at the time in question.


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## berndf

Alturlie said:


> Wrong. I asked about a name which is now Spanish and which was current in what is now Spain at a time when there is good reason to suppose that the name might NOT have been "Spanish". Surely even you would accept that "Spain" did not exist at the time in question.


No. It is about a Spanish name. All the developments we are discussing are post-Gothic. All the developments have taken place within Spanish and within its predecessor languages. If we want to promote the theory of a Gothic origin we need to establish the earliest form in Spanish before we can speculate where this earliest form came from.


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## Alturlie

For several hundreds of years "James" was Latinised in official documents in England and Scotland as "Jacobus".
If "Diego" was an evolutionary descendant of "Jacobus" then I think Diegos would be referred to as Jacobus in Latin.
This tells me that "Diego" comes from somewhere else altogether.
I am dubious that a father would give a newborn son the name "Didacus".

I can imagine a name which would Latinise as Didacus and which would vernacularise as Diego. Such a name is unlikely to be from a Romance language - and we are back to Hebrew, Arabic and Gothic. In Scotland there is the surname Diack. According to Black ("Surnames of Scotland" p 207) "tradition amiong bearers of the name is that the family came from Denmark" - but there is no indication as to meaning.


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## Alturlie

> If we want to promote the theory of a Gothic origin we need to establish the earliest form in Spanish before we can speculate where this earliest form came from.


Well I think we can speculate at any stage - and that was what I was inviting when I initiated this thread. However I held no view as to how likely such speculation was to be productive - but I am now strengthened by the Diack connection.


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## berndf

What _Diack_ connection?


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## merquiades

It is the other way around.
Yes, by 900 we have Diago and Diego already being used as given names.  Patronymic surnames were also being formed from these names:  Diaguez and Dieguez which were contracted to Diaz and Diez as intervocalic [g] is unstable in Spanish.

In the Middle Ages the "cultivated" Spanish population, especially the monks, believed that the languages in the Iberian peninsula were little more than Latin gone haywire. They went about latinizing everything they could without really knowing Latin.  Diego, Diago and Díez, Díaz were relatininized as Didacus and Didaci. It's also good for the Diegos that it mean "instructed".  Putting in a d, reconstructing g with c, adding a -us is a real easy thing to do. It's the most salient feature when you compare the two languages. All documents back then were written in medieval Latin, and the names were always transliterated one way or another.  Rodrigo or Ruy Díaz (El Cid) was written down in documents as Roderici Didaci.

Obviously, I agree the secrets to this name are found in Spanish, old Castilian, and Iberian vulgar Latin.
If you can understand Spanish, the origins of the last name Díaz is described in this wonderful video.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> by 900 we have Diago and Diego already being used as given names.


How do we know that? I am open to the idea. I have just not found any evidence so far.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> How do we know that? I am open to the idea. I have just not found any evidence so far.


I am basing that only on the video I linked here.  The narrator shows texts from that era.  In the video on minute 2:26 he says "En los escritos parroquiales de los siglos diez y once se toma la costumbre de latinizar los nombres vulgares y en consecuencia el nombre Diago comienza a escribirse Didacus del griego _didachos_ que significa instruido".


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## Penyafort

Whether Didacus was or not a later Latinisation, the form must have existed, otherwise Catalan Dídac and Italian Didaco would not exist.



Alturlie said:


> I can imagine a name which would Latinise as Didacus and which would vernacularise as Diego. Such a name is unlikely to be from a Romance language - and we are back to Hebrew, Arabic and Gothic.



Interesting how you left Basque completely aside, given that it's the only exclusively Iberian, the only which has interacted with Castilian since the beginning, and that the genitive prefix -ko might even hint at it.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> I am basing that only on the video I linked here.  The narrator shows texts from that era.  In the video on minute 2:26 he says "En los escritos parroquiales de los siglos diez y once se toma la costumbre de latinizar los nombres vulgares y en consecuencia el nombre Diago comienza a escribirse Didacus del griego _didachos_ que significa instruido".


Maybe my Spanish too poor but I understand the same as I have found elsewhere, namely that the forms _Diego_ and _Diaz_ first occur at the time of El Cid, i.e. 200 years later.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> Maybe my Spanish too poor but I understand the same as I have found elsewhere, namely that the forms _Diego_ and _Diaz_ first occur at the time of El Cid, i.e. 200 years later.


No, he says the 10th and 11th century.  He explains that Díaz comes from Dieguez (son of Diego) and shows it in 898 in the monastery San Pedro de Montes in León. After that he jumps to talk about El Cid in 1074.


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## berndf

Ah OK. The idea is that _Diago_ existed around 900. It is just the (minor) variant _Diego_ that is 200 years younger. Right?

What astonished me a bit was that they still start of with the theory that _Diago/Diego_ is from _Yago < Iacobus_. I thought this has long been debunked.


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## Alturlie

> Interesting how you left Basque completely aside, given that it's the only exclusively Iberian, the only which has interacted with Castilian since the beginning, and that the genitive prefix -ko might even hint at it.


Quite right.... my oversight. By all means this too should be in the mix. But no.... not actually interesting.


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## Alturlie

> They went about latinizing everything they could without really knowing Latin.  Diego, Diago and Díez, Díaz were relatininized as Didacus and Didaci. It's also good for the Diegos that it mean "instructed".


Thanks to Merquiades for this. Now there seems to be a bit of traction.
There seems to be little debate about the suggestion that "Didacus" has to do with "learning" and "doctrine" - so broadly meaning either "a learned man" or "an earnest student" etc. Not a particularly good name to give a baby boy at birth even if this is the desire of the father - but highly suitable whether as a name or, perhaps more likely, a term of respect (like, but not meaning the same as "venerable").

Now here is the tasty bit: Old English Dictionary: Find Old English Words | Old-Engli.sh shows "Diegol" meaning


> *1*. _adj_ secret, hidden, private, dark, obscure, unknown, deep, profound, abstruse; [*1*. _adj_ secret; *of that which might be seen*, hidden *from sight*; *2*. *of thought, action*, concealed *from the knowledge or notice of others*; *on díeglum*_ in secret_; *3*. hard to get knowledge of; (1) *of a fact or circumstance*; (2) *of things to be understood*, abstruse, occult; ]* 2*. _n_ (díegles/-) concealment, darkness, obscurity, secrecy, mystery, secret; a secret place, hidden place, the grave


So perhaps "Diego" really signifies an initiate into secret knowledge - with the "obvious" resonance with Didacus. On this basis I am prepared to accept that Diego and Didacus are intelligently connected.

However if this is the correct understanding of "diego" it too is not really an appropriate name for a father to give a baby boy (unless anyone has any examples, which would be great) - which leaves wide open the matter of what these early "Diego"s may have been called at birth.


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## Alturlie

> Yes, by 900 we have Diago and Diego already being used as given names.   Patronymic surnames were also being formed from these names:  Diaguez and Dieguez which were contracted to Diaz and Diez as intervocalic [g] is unstable in Spanish.


Thanks again Merquiades. Under these circumstances I do not regard the pursuit of any possible "Diack" connection as relevant.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> Ah OK. The idea is that _Diago_ existed around 900. It is just the (minor) variant _Diego_ that is 200 years younger. Right?
> 
> What astonished me a bit was that they still start of with the theory that _Diago/Diego_ is from _Yago < Iacobus_. I thought this has long been debunked.


The purpose of the video was to show the origins of the surname Díaz, so Diego was touched on as it is the origin of Díez.
Though he says Tiago, Diago and Diego were all around in the tenth century, the examples he shows are with Diago.  It makes sense to me that Diego could be a somewhat younger version, but then becomes the most popular.

Debunked?  Why should it be debunked?  I'm pretty convinced by this theory and see how it could happen during the "Dark Ages".  Yago comes obviously from Iacobus.   The old word for Saint was Sant, so Sant Yago/ Santiago is logical. Then once the word for saint, Sant, loses the "t", people see it as San Tiago/ San Diago......Diego. (see my first post). Saint James is usually translated both Santiago and San Diego, São Tiago in Portuguese.
Monks going about relatinizing see Diago/Diego and wonder where the hell that came from.  So they do the obvious Di *D* a *C* *us *and are content because it means something virtuous in Latin < Greek.  Then, they go about inventing a new name, Jacobo, which is translated as Jacob rather than James.


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## Circunflejo

In the Wikipedia in Spanish, a Celtic origin is quoted among other theories: Diego - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre


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## merquiades

This Spanish Wikipedia page seems really complete to me:   Jacobo.  It's a pity that the corresponding Wikipedia page in English does not give the same detailed information.  Maybe if you can't read Spanish you could have the browser translate to English?


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## Alturlie

Thank you Circunflejo and Merquiades. It had not occurred to me that the texts of the Wikipedia pages in different languages would vary in the way you point out. Fortunately I do have some Spanish (I studied it many years ago and visited Zaragoza on an exchange holiday) - albeit very rusty now (the last time I used it in earnest was in Geneva at the UN HQ in 1975).

I find the Celtic suggestion interesting - and this has evaded the Welsh online and hard copy dictionaries and I cannot find any resonance in Scots Gaelic either - however I think that there is a primacy for a didacus/diego link and this does not work with the meaning offered.

As for the Jacobo page I will not rehearse here why I do not believe "Jacomus" and it certainly cannot be proved (for which see the relevant thread on this site). [However I do like the mention of "Jacobel" which I have never seen before and which makes so much more sense than "the supplanter" or any connection with a heel etc.] The influence of the Jewish community in the area has been ignored for too long.

So my working hypothesis is now with Anglo-Saxon "Diegol" (see above) with an assumed Germanic ancestral form which found its way to Iberia with the Visigoths. As a parallel one of the goddesses of Ireland is called "Fotla" (there are minor variant spellings). In essence this means "wisdom/learning" - whence the Scottish placename Atholl (from Ath Fotla) means "the ford of the learned man" (see my paper here).


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## Lamarimba

Hola @Alturlie 
No sé si has oído hablar de las numerosas pizarras visigodas halladas a mediados del siglo pasado en Ávila,  en un lugar llamado, curiosamente, Diego Álvaro...


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## Alturlie

Thank you Lamarimba. I regard your contribution as apposite. I a baffled by the idea that examining why language evolves is considered "Off-topic". On the contrary it is  the attempt to see such changes devoid of any context which leads to the blind alleys we have seen.


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> It is not simply _a_ vs. _e_ it is _ía_ vs. _ié_. The by far bigger issue is the shift from two syllables with stress on _i_, _*Di*.az_, to one syllable with a semi-vowel _*Die*.go_, which would have to be explained.


This thread is too full of arguing from conclusions for me to have any desire of reading it, but this one I can easily explain. To quote Steriade 1988 in relation to precisely the same thing happening to Latin MVLIEREM /mu'li.e.rẽ > mu'ljɛːrɛ̃/, FILIOLVM /fiː'li.olũ > fiː'ljɔːlũ/: "stress shifts within a binary foot from the desyllabified foot head onto the remaining foot syllable." The fact that Asturian Aragonese to this day has both variable vowel quality and variable stress in these dipthongs (Ĕ > /iə, ia, ie/, Ŏ > /uə ue ua uo/) has been widely interpreted as a stage that Castilian also went through. In short, _Diago~Diego_ had the same vowel as _ciego_, of variable stress and quality.


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## Alturlie

Thank you for your input Sobakus. This is very helpful and fits well with the general line of what I had been thinking.


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## berndf

Alturlie said:


> Thank you for your input Sobakus. This is very helpful and fits well with the general line of what I had been thinking.


Not really. Because @Sobakus' argument makes _Didiacus_ the most likely etymon again.


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## Alturlie

Yes really. This thread started with me asking a question. I am not big on rhetorical questions. When I ask a question it is because I am hoping for an answer. 

As the constructive responses have come in my understanding has improved. My working hypothesis (doubtless you would regard a refutation of your view of "the scientific method" to be "off topic") is now that Diego and Didacus are indeed good enough translations of each other and that Diego does indeed have a Visigothic background (ie Didacus is Latinisation rather than vice versa). I am now of the view that Diego did NOT start out as a personal name. Rather it was a term of respect or perhaps even a title/rank/indication of "membership" etc. So that, as you hinted earlier, we will probably never know what these early Diegos were named at birth (and this does not matter). However it is also possible that Diego was a name adopted on taking the cloth (like Boniface etc.).

The subsequent use of this sort of name as a personal one is reflected in English personal names such as "Dean" and Gaelic ones such as "Gillespie". It would be interesting to know the earliest example that can be found of the use of "Diego" (or even Diago) outwith a clerical context. Please could anyone offer examples?


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## Rocko!

Alturlie said:


> It would be interesting to know the earliest example that can be found of the use of "Diego" (or even Diago) outwith a clerical context. Please could anyone offer examples?



The ecclesiastical context is important and unavoidable. In the following image you can see that the oldest exampe of the name "Diego" (on Internet) is from the year 800, but it appeared after the Goths adopted the Catholic religion:






The image, almost complete:



Book: Salazar y Castro, L. (1646)._Historia geneaógica de la Casa de Lara_. Madrid, España.


Alturlie said:


> Didacus is Latinisation rather than vice versa



Yes, but the Latin translation is almost as old as the name in Spanish:



Serrano, L. (2012). _Fuentes para la historia de Castilla_. Editorial Maxtor. Valladolid, España.
Gonzalo, Count Diego's son

What that sentence says is: *Gonzalo, Count Diego's son*...

There are also other ancient texts called "Anales castellanos primeros" that says: _In 882, Count Diego founded Burgos and Ubierna by order of Lord Alfonso_.
Anales castellanos primeros - Wikipedia
Diego Rodríguez Porcelos - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

Apparently, in ancient times the name "Diego" became the surname "Díaz", and occasionally the other way around.


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## Alturlie

Thank you so much, Rocko!, for this very interesting evidence. The fact that Catholicism was already well established is also extremely helpful to know.

Experience from elsewhere tells me that names in one language can indeed survive that language's submersion under another. One good example is the Gododdin tribe of north east England and south east Scotland who were ethnically Goths (having migrated at least as early as 250BC). Although they adopted P-Celtic as their language, at least a significant number of their names continued to be of Gothic origin even as late as 500 AD (they had probably retained a good degree of ethnic identity at least up to the Roman invasion). So too many Scots are given Viking names to this day (Freya, Torquil, Lachlan etc.).

However your evidence does prompt a rethink for me: When "John" came to Ireland they did not attempt to translate it, they simply picked the word which sounded nearest to it - in this case "Sean" - which means "old" - on the face of it a really silly name to give a baby boy. So too when "James" came to Ireland it became variously "Seumas" (meaning "beak") and  "Seamus" (which I see as a variant of "Seamasan" meaning lazy (curiously like Gaulish Dieg!)).

So I can see the possibility that a very early eg monk/priest who had adopted/been given the name Didacus (eg on taking the cloth) could have influenced a local family of Visigoth ancestry to name their son Diego(l). Perhaps the monk was godfather to the boy, perhaps the monk had converted the family to Roman Christianity. In this case it WOULD have been a translation - and this even if the family's "working" language was a proto-Spanish of some sort.

Thank you again for your helpful contribution.


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## Circunflejo

Rocko! said:


> In the following image you can see that the oldest exampe of the name "Diego" (on Internet) is from the year 800


It's even older. Diego González de Iguña was born in 704 and his father, who was named Diego too (and nicknamed El Celta, the Celt), was born in 680... See: Diego González de Iguña - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre


Rocko! said:


> Yes, but the Latin translation is almost as old as the name in Spanish


In the VII Century we already find a Didacus, a son of the Conde Agila. See here:Agila (conde) - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre


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## berndf

Alturlie said:


> I am now of the view that Diego did NOT start out as a personal name. Rather it was a term of respect or perhaps even a title/rank/indication of "membership" etc.


On what grounds?


Alturlie said:


> Gododdin tribe of north east England and south east Scotland who were ethnically Goths


Goths have nothing to do with Gododdins.


Alturlie said:


> So too many Scots are given Viking names to this day (Freya, Torquil, Lachlan etc.).


Nor have Goths anything to do with Vikings. Gothic (more precisely Visigothic) is the longest surviving member of an extinct branch of Germanic languages that evolved in Baltic sea area call East Germanic. East Germanic separated from common Germanic before North Germanic (the language of the Vikings) and West Germanic (the group to which English and Scots belong) separated. North and West Germanic underwent common developments that cannot be found in Gothic, e.g. the rhotacisation of [z] (the is the effect that is responsibly for English _I wa_*s* but_ we we*r*e_).

Back to _Didiacus/Diego_: So many languages were spoken in the Iberian peninsula, Punic, Basque, Celtic, Greek, Latin, different Germanic languages, Arabic and various Latinate vernaculars. There are so many possibilities where the name may be derived from but no concrete evidence.


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## Alturlie

Thanks again Circunflejo for the early record of Didacus. I find it interesting that it occurs in the same context as a Benedictus which I see as parallel to Boniface. I think this suggests that these Latin based essentially priestly names were adopted into the lay population even earlier than I had dared to imagine.

Not only that but I also see the name Gotina in the same family. That is just great.

Do you have a view as to whether the Didacus mentioned here was really named Didacus or Diego?


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## Lamarimba

Sobre un tal Diego González, confirmando diplomas regios en la corte de Alfonso VI:

1091, noviembre 3.  Alfonso VI dona a la abadía de Chaise-Dieu el monasterio de San Juan en Burgos: _De scola regis:...Diago Gonçaluez. _

1094, febrero 28.  Doña Juliana ofrece al monasterio de San Millán todas  sus pertenencias desde Oca a San Millán: ... _sennor Didaco Gonzalvez testis._

1099, febrero 2. Alfonso VI dona a la catedral de Burgos el monasterio de Santa Eulalia de Muciehar: _Didagus Gonzaluiz conf_.

1100,  agosto  20. Alfonso  VI  dona  a  la  iglesia  de  Burgos  el  monasterio de Santa Eufemia de Cozuelos: _Didago Goncaluiç conf._


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## Alturlie

Thank you Lamarimba for that useful demonstration of equivalence dating to the 1090s


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## Rocko!

Circunflejo said:


> It's even older. Diego González de Iguña was born in 704 and his father, who was named Diego too (and nicknamed El Celta, the Celt), was born in 680... See: Diego González de Iguña - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
> 
> In the VII Century we already find a Didacus, a son of the Conde Agila. See here:Agila (conde) - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre


In one of the Wikipedia links you gave, it says that "Quevedo" became "Zepeda" in Mexico. So, anything is possible.
There is also Diecco, Dyego, Diaco, Dieqo, Diacus, Diecos, Dieggo, etc.
I do not support any hypothesis, but it must be said that there are also authors who say that "Diego" has a Gothic origin. For example:




Santos Vaquero, A. (1998). _Vicente Díaz Benito: El mercader-fabricante sedero más poderoso de Toledo en el siglo XVIII_. Anales toledanos XXXVI. No.36. Pag.133. Diputación provincial de Toledo. España.


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## Alturlie

Thanks so much Rocko! for this further contribution. The depth of your knowledge is exactly what I was hoping to mine when I started this thread and I am delighted to see that what was no more than a hunch is actually nothing new, but rather was already taken as fact well over 20 years ago.


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## Marc Aurelio

Didacus might be equivalent to ”of Dacus”, meaning ”the son of...Dacus”, like Beniamin (Son of Amin), Bin Laden (Son of Laden) etc. Dacus is latin refference to the dacians - the habitants of actual Romania (ancient Dacia). Gothic, gaelic and celtic tribes settled temporarily on that territory during ancient times and after their relocation, they could be surnamed ”dacians” even because their breeding with dacian women. In XVIth century, the ruler of Romanian Country (Vallachia by then) - Michael the Brave, was still surnamed Malus Dacus („the Evil Dacian”). So, the name of El Cid as Didacus might betray a dacian origins of his parents/ ancestors, seeing that ”Dacus” nickname survived for over 15 centuries in Europe.


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## Sobakus

Marc Aurelio said:


> Didacus might be equivalent to ”of Dacus”, meaning ”the son of...Dacus”, like Beniamin (Son of Amin), Bin Laden (Son of Laden) etc. Dacus is latin refference to the dacians - the habitants of actual Romania (ancient Dacia). Gothic, gaelic and celtic tribes settled temporarily on that territory during ancient times and after their relocation, they could be surnamed ”dacians” even because their breeding with dacian women. In XVIth century, the ruler of Romanian Country (Vallachia by then) - Michael the Brave, was still surnamed Malus Dacus („the Evil Dacian”). So, the name of El Cid as Didacus might betray a dacian origins of his parents/ ancestors, seeing that ”Dacus” nickname survived for over 15 centuries in Europe.


I'm afraid you're completely off the mark here on every point.

Firstly, Goths Celts and others have indeed settled in Dacia, but the name is Iberian, and no Dacians are known to have settled in Iberia. Secondly, a descendant of Goths who settled in Dacia would be called "son of a Goth", not "sun of a Dacian".
Next, no Iberian language to my knowledge has _di_ as the descendant of Latin _dē_ - _di_ is the Tuscan form not even found in other Italian dialects.
Next, _Didacus_ had a short second vowel _(Dīdăcus)_ and was therefore stressed on the first syllable, while _Dācus_ had a long vowel; and neither medieval Romance nor Latin stressed prepositions followed by nouns whose first syllable was short any way (it even stressed prefixed nouns and verbs on the stem regardless of vowel length, so e.g. _compàdre, compère_ for _com-pătrem_).
Next, the grammatically correct medieval Latin form of "from/of Dacus" is _dē Dāc*ō*,_ and the correct form of "from/of the Dacians" is _dē Dāc*īs*_ (cf. all those Italianised surenames like _de Angelis_).
Next, I know of no cases where such a preposition phrase would be interpreted as a nominative - rather the opposite is likely (a name in _De-_ losing this syllable).
_Dacus_ the nickname has not survived for 15 centuries - the ethnonym "Dacian" has survived, at least among those who could read Latin. The other thing that has survived is the practice of nicknaming people by their place of origin (cf. all those German _von_'s) - but even saying this is a stretch, because it's a practice that is bound to be reinvented in any society where people have any geographic mobility.
In this connection one is unfortunately reminded of Protochronism, a particularly silly form of Rumanian nationalism.


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## Marc Aurelio

Sobakus said:


> I'm afraid you're completely off the mark here on every point.
> 
> Firstly, Goths Celts and others have indeed settled in Dacia, but the name is Iberian, and no Dacians are known to have settled in Iberia. Secondly, a descendant of Goths who settled in Dacia would be called "son of a Goth", not "sun of a Dacian".
> Next, no Iberian language to my knowledge has _di_ as the descendant of Latin _dē_ - _di_ is the Tuscan form not even found in other Italian dialects.
> Next, _Didacus_ had a short second vowel _(Dīdăcus)_ and was therefore stressed on the first syllable, while _Dācus_ had a long vowel; and neither medieval Romance nor Latin stressed prepositions followed by nouns whose first syllable was short any way (it even stressed prefixed nouns and verbs on the stem regardless of vowel length, so e.g. _compàdre, compère_ for _com-pătrem_).
> Next, the grammatically correct medieval Latin form of "from/of Dacus" is _dē Dāc*ō*,_ and the correct form of "from/of the Dacians" is _dē Dāc*īs*_ (cf. all those Italianised surenames like _de Angelis_).
> Next, I know of no cases where such a preposition phrase would be interpreted as a nominative - rather the opposite is likely (a name in _De-_ losing this syllable).
> _Dacus_ the nickname has not survived for 15 centuries - the ethnonym "Dacian" has survived, at least among those who could read Latin. The other thing that has survived is the practice of nicknaming people by their place of origin (cf. all those German _von_'s) - but even saying this is a stretch, because it's a practice that is bound to be reinvented in any society where people have any geographic mobility.
> In this connection one is unfortunately reminded of Protochronism, a particularly silly form of Rumanian nationalism.


I might be ”off the mark”, but you didn't understand (by rush, I like to suppose) entirely what I said. Nobody said the Dacians were in Iberia! Nobody referred to what a goth living in Dacia would be called! I said about goths that lived on Dacia that ”after their RELOCATION they could be surnamed <dacians>” - it was and it is a common practice EVERYWHERE in the world. - Then, ”di” is found, in fact, in, probably, every part of Italy (I don't know about the Magna Greciae part in southern Italy, where they speak a very different dialect) - I lived in Rome for years, and ”di” is the common particle used there and all over Italy. And only if you want to say ”of dacians” you say DI dacis; if you wanna say ”of the dacian (singular)”, you say DiDacus. - Your ”italianised de Angelis” is the plural form; the singular is Angelus - it even exist till today in Italy the name DiAngelus. 
- The form _dacus_ is typically used as substantive that means ‘a Dacian’. _Dacus_ is a demonym for an inhabitant of the region. _Dacicus,-a,-um_ is an adjective. As an example: _Dacia, Dacus, Dacicus – _Britain, Briton, Britis.
- and the idea that Dacus was still used in XVth century, you can check it as I pointed above about the ruler Michael the Brave surnamed Malus Dacus.
I don't pretend that FOR SURE, DiDacus name of the Cid was rooted or linked to the dacians. It is just a theory, and I wanted to clarify some unfair or incorrect objections to it. Cheers!


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## Sobakus

Marc Aurelio said:


> I might be ”off the mark”, but you didn't understand (by rush, I like to suppose) entirely what I said. Nobody said the Dacians were in Iberia! Nobody referred to what a goth living in Dacia would be called! I said about goths that lived on Dacia that ”after their RELOCATION they could be surnamed <dacians>” - it was and it is a common practice EVERYWHERE in the world.


So the Goths settled in Dacia, some of them mixed with the Dacians, got surnamed "of a Dacian" - in Gothic! - then relocated to Iberia and several centuries later, when no memory of any Dacians likely survived among them, the phrase "of a Dacian" pops up... in Latin/Romance? As a given name? This sounds like a very implausible scenario even if every other piece of evidence pointed to the Dacian connection.


Marc Aurelio said:


> - Then, ”di” is found, in fact, in, probably, every part of Italy (I don't know about the Magna Greciae part in southern Italy, where they speak a very different dialect) - I lived in Rome for years, and ”di” is the common particle used there and all over Italy.


This is because Tuscan is the basis for Standard Italian, which is spoken in every part of Italy today. 150 years ago, before the Italian unification, it was purely a literary language outside of Tuscany. They also say _di_ in those dialects of southern Italy where all Latin _ē~ĭ_ and _ō~ŭ_ > _i, u_ instead of central and northern _e, o_. In any case, this form doesn't exist outside of Italy, specifically in Rumania. Actually, _di_ is the Aromanian form, but it's due to unstressed vowel raising which it shares with many surrounding languages. The _di_ of _Didacus_ is stressed.


Marc Aurelio said:


> And only if you want to say ”of dacians” you say DI dacis; if you wanna say ”of the dacian (singular)”, you say DiDacus.


No, as I've already explained you say _de Dac*o*_, with the name in the ablative. In the late Latin of Gaul _de dacus_ was equivalent to _de dacis,_ where _dacus = dācōs,_ the accusative plural. In late Latin the accusative was used after most prepositions which in classical Latin went with the ablative, and in Gaul _us_ and _ōs_ sounded the same.


Marc Aurelio said:


> - Your ”italianised de Angelis” is the plural form; the singular is Angelus - it even exist till today in Italy the name DiAngelus.


No, it's not the correct singular form and it probably doesn't exist in Italy - I only see it as an American surename in Google, where it's just a graphic variant because -is and -us sound the same in AmE.


Marc Aurelio said:


> - The form _dacus_ is typically used as substantive that means ‘a Dacian’. _Dacus_ is a demonym for an inhabitant of the region. _Dacicus,-a,-um_ is an adjective. As an example: _Dacia, Dacus, Dacicus – _Britain, Briton, Britis.


In Latin you can use these forms as substantives or adjectives, or at least in apposition: _Dācus = homō Dācus ~ homō Dācicus,_ with the latter sounding the least natural (you would say _fīcus Dācica_ "dacian fig"). Any way, I don't understand what you say this in relation to, nobody mentioned substantive or adjectival uses.


Marc Aurelio said:


> - and the idea that Dacus was still used in XVth century, you can check it as I pointed above about the ruler Michael the Brave surnamed Malus Dacus.


It was not "still used", it was preserved in writing in the language of education that was Latin. It was almost certainly unknown to anybody else. According to this, the actual expression used in connection with Michael the Brave is _atrōx Dācus_ "horrible Dacian", and it was used by the chronicle writer Istvan Szamosközy in a mock epitaph alongside recherché insults like _Cācus_ (the name of a cyclops) and _Nero vērus _"a true Nero", both of which are pieces of ancient lore.

A 16th century Latin chronicle refers to someone with an ancient ethnonym in a literary derogatory context. This cannot possibly be connected to what we're discussing here, or be used as evidence that a reflex of _Dācus_ had survived (either as a surename or an ethnonym) in Rumanian or any other Romance language. There is no hint of a suggestion that this was his surename. The 16th century Renaissance saw the revival of many ancient ethnonyms that were used, especially in poetry, to highlight the continuity between the past and the present, and this seems to be one such instance.


Marc Aurelio said:


> I don't pretend that FOR SURE, DiDacus name of the Cid was rooted or linked to the dacians. It is just a theory, and I wanted to clarify some unfair or incorrect objections to it. Cheers!


That's fair; I think my objections to it are also entirely fair. One further fundamental problem with your theory is that _Didacus_ is a name and not a surename at all. I would say that it would be unheard of for a prepositional phrase meaning "of X" to be used as a given name, but again, there's clearly no preposition involved here.


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## Circunflejo

Marc Aurelio said:


> the name of El Cid as Didacus


The name of El Cid was Rodrigo (Rodericus in Latin). It's his surname Díaz that is said to has its origins in the name Diego.


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