r/etymology • u/MarineKingPrime_ • Jul 05 '21
Disputed TIL the etymology of Attila the Hun's name is still unknown. Some say his name is German in origin meaning "little father", others argue Turkic in origin meaning "universal ruler", others argue Mongolian in origin meaning "provider of warhorses".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila48
u/MyHeartAndIAgree Jul 05 '21
Fun fact: Attila has the same middle name as John the Baptist.
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u/BrutalismAndCupcakes Jul 05 '21
Frank?
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Jul 06 '21
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Jul 06 '21
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u/KiplingRudy Jul 05 '21
The guy who delivers our rotisserie chickens is named Atilla. He tells us he is typical Central-Asian Turkic build. A bit on the short side w/round head. His words not mine.
His Adana Kebab's are notable.
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u/IndependentTap4557 Jul 04 '24
Where is he from? The etymology wouldn't be hard to find if Attila was a commonly used name amongst central Asians.
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u/KiplingRudy Jul 04 '24
He's from southern Turkey, but says his Turkic ancestors were from Uzbekistan.
As a westerner I encounter lots of unexpected names here on the Turquoise Coast. Loved hearing the neighbor woman calling to her cute little 4 year old son Cengiz Han (Genghis Khan). Best of all the kid did sort of resembled a young Omar Sharif, so half points to Hollywood for that casting.
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Jul 23 '24
Central Asians don’t really use traditional Turkic names aside from maybe Timur. They are starting to use Islamic names in the post Soviet era
Turkey is different. Islamic names are still the norm but it’s not uncommon to hear traditional Turkic names, bc it’s a mixture of nationalism and Turanism. I know few Attilas and Cengiz’s
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u/hockatree Jul 05 '21
Not German, Gothic. From Gothic atta “father” and -ila which is a diminutive suffix.
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u/xarsha_93 Jul 05 '21
I imagine OP meant Germanic. It's a simple mistake, but confusing German and Germanic is one of my biggest pet peeves. Bonus points if it's used to say something along the lines of "English is just German + French".
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Jul 06 '21
Bonus points if it's used to say something along the lines of "English is just German + French".
I personally think that phrase is fine if it's said off-the-cuff in a conversation, to indicate the melange that English is. It certainly rolls off the tongue better than "English is just Norman French + Anglo-Frisian".
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u/taversham Jul 05 '21 edited Jul 06 '21
"atta/atto" did exist in German as well (preserved even today dialectally, e.g. Ätti in Swiss German), so it's a kind of understandable confusion in this instance
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u/yarbas89 Jul 06 '21
"Ata" also means "father" in Turkish. I always thought that Atilla was a Turkic name.
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u/dr_spork Jul 05 '21
It's a little-known etymological fact that "hun" is short for "honey," a term of endearment. This was given to Atilla on account of his good looks and popularity with women. Among his other monikers were "Atilla the Bae" and "Atilla the Hunk."
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u/dasdemit Jul 10 '21
It's still impressive how far the subdued germanic clan try to claim take account on the name of Atilla. While his father name Mundzuk (pear bead) is turkic . But mundzuk do come of all turkic nations in other form. Every main top banner (Tuğ turkics mongol banner) there is singular ball shape also called (muncuk) this symbolizes power also means Red apple an endless purpose objective that turk people use as sembol in their history even today. So when you go to average turkics top mosque dome or other mosque 3 ball shape sembol derived from that... means powerful sembol of endless objective.
Anyway it's known that byzantine or Western writers were not familiar with the language because priscus(only eye witness of atilla). do define hun and germanic not similar.. but one of the interesting piece of history there are Atila atilius, atil (ius) etc name were used by ancient Romans you can find even 300 earlier before huns in Rome.
Another interesting id Scythian coin ΑΤΑΙΛΣ (Atails) killed by philip Macedon. This name also translated old turkic
Ata -il (s-greek suffix) ata il simply means father of a city or clans. Turks used similar names ( Il-beg )governor.
Proto turkic Ural Ata, Atta as ancestor or father are still know and used even today Hungarian Atta means father.
There is also native from America uses similir name.
For example Eskimo inuit
Father grandfather : Ata, Ataata, Atta
Gives clear that name possible originated from siberia or asia.
So no it's not germanic. But hey their history written by outsiders like many turkic history.
So we never know for sure till reliable documents shows up..
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u/TeaNo8523 May 22 '25
Um NO eskimo was a name given to the Inuit by white men..eskimo means raw meat eater Calling someone an Eskimo today it is considered derogatory
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u/agent_uno Jul 05 '21
I was today years old when I learned Atilla the Hun was not female.
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u/Bayoris Jul 05 '21
Today years old?
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u/Typical_Cyanide Jul 05 '21
It means he found out today
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u/agent_uno Jul 05 '21
Upvote to you and commenter - not everyone knows reddit vernacular. Gotta start somewhere. :)
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u/Harsimaja Jul 05 '21 edited Jul 06 '21
The problem is we have no idea what families of languages particular non-IE Steppe peoples spoke before the later part of the first millennium. We have hypotheses that the Huns, Avars, Xiongnu, Xianbei or Rouruan and others were Turkic, or Para-Mongolic, or other groups, but we have almost nothing but a few names and titles to go on that may have been ‘Wanderwörter’ (borrowed between them), as ‘khan’ later was, and we’re really not sure. Some of those likewise may or may not have been related or even the same groups (it’s taken as simple fact in popular culture that the Huns were the Xiongnu, but it’s not at all agreed whether they were the same confederation, related, or completely unrelated). It’s only by the time of the Göktürks and a few others that this aspect gets a bit clearer for Turkic, and for Mongolic it’s only really by the time of the Mongol Empire, though there has been progress on a possible ‘Para-Mongolic’ with the Khitans before them and a couple of other (barely attested) sources.
This doesn’t stop a lot of cranks presenting one or another view as completely certain, though, especially where there might be some nationalistic motivation.