Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1976, Page 72

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Faroese Bird-Name Origins (VI)
A Note on Names in -us
In FBN, 46, we characterised gneggjus and pippus as agent
nouns from gneggja ‘neigh’ and pippa ‘chirp‘ — and later
(Fróð., xix, 125 f.) explained meyrus as lit. ‘prodder’ from a
lost *meyra — referring these and comparable formations
(hvinus, gánus or kánus) to the influence of Latinate proper
names in -us, as Dan. Rasmus, also Far. Hanus, Janus.
One will not doubt that the common nouns are morphologi-
cally akin to the proper names. Nevertheless, it is still not
entirely clear how the ending, distinctive though it is, actually
came to function as an agent suffix. One can deduce, however,
that there was probably, at some stage, a special point of con-
tact between the foreign names in -us and indigenous Norse.
One of the most popular names of this type, and by far the
oldest, is Magnus which according to Heimskringla came to
Norway as a royal name in 1204 (Fróð., xxi, 113, 148). It is
apparent that this foreign name could be brought into close
association with native Scandinavian magn ‘strength’, magna
‘strengthen’, so that Magnus could then, by folk etymology, be
interpreted as ‘Strengthener’, a very appropriate explanation
of a name borne by so many of the high and mighty, and of
course not so far removed from the literal meaning of the Latin,
i. e. ‘great’, an item of knowledge which would not be lost on
some. This we therefore indentify as the crucial point of con-
tact from which -us emerged as an agent suffix and became
moderately productive.
Turning now to the proper names in -us, one notices that
these are prominent in Faroese, the number of those taken
over directly, as Rasmus, being augmented by others created
by sound substitution; thus Klaus and Landres were naturalised
as Kláus, Landrus. Similarly the very common Hanus for
Hanes, whence analogically the also ubiquitous Janus. Indeed,
-us has on occasion helped to assimilate quite exotic forms, as
Mórus for Mourits, thus perhaps setting a precedent for such a
word as klappus ‘hooded seal’, Dan. klapmyds. The presence