Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

VISIGOTHS AND BASQUE/ Urias-Urrea

49 views
Skip to first unread message

Miguel Ibarra

unread,
Apr 26, 1999, 3:00:00 AM4/26/99
to
Hi Larry,
And thanks for your reply.
I recently read that the gothic influence was most prominent in the southern
parts of Navarre, and it is there that I find an Urrea nameplace. Even if as
far as language goes, Visigoths were using only Germanic names and not
everyday Gothic but Latin, would they still adhere to the Germanic custom to
name places after the leader of their settlements? I understand that Vikings
and Normans would use this process in the middle age to name their towns (as
Amfreville for the village of lord Anfrei-Onfroi-Umfrei-Humfrei), but I don't
know if there is evidence of this process of place-name formation on Gothic
settled territories.
As far as Urias (it happens to be a surviving contemporary surname) which I
had always identified as a typical Basque name (using the same UR root as
Urrieta and many other basque surnames), do you think it might have started
as a Germanic personal name?
Last, if there are so many surnames in Basque which use the root Ur, from a
linguistic evolutionary process, and considering the Basque known processes
of name creation and evolution, would you say it is most likely that Urrea is
a name of pure Basque origin related from a semantic point of view to these
other Basque names?
Some time ago you were kind enough to reply to my inquiry about the meaning
of the name Urrea, and I believe you told me then that could be related to
the root Ur
possibly meaning Gold or Hazel (or was it Chestnut?)
I was also recently told of a bizarre story which says that the Urreas were
in ancient times traders of gold in the middle east, and that from this trade
the appelative Ur-rea was formed.
Is "Ur" an original Basque word or was it taken from Latin "aurum" (gold); is
spanish "oro" of Basque or Latin origin?

Ithank you again for your help.
Miguel Ibarra

0 new messages