Vidiago
Principado de Asturias
Possessive toponym of Germanic root. The most widespread reading derives it from the Gothic anthroponym Vidiacus (a Latinised variant of Witiwald or Vediakos, with the Germanic base witi-, 'forest, wood'), in Latinised genitive. It documents an early-medieval rural villa owned by a Visigothic or Suevic lord of the Asturian cornice.
Classical Asturian onomastics identifies Vidiago with the pattern of possessive toponyms in -ago / -aco, the Castilian-Asturian evolution of the Latin genitive -aci. The Germanic anthroponymic base witi- ('forest, wood') was productive in Gothic and Suevic names: Witimer, Witiza, Wittewald. The settlement attested in epigraphy as Vidiacus documents one of the many rural villas that the Suevic and Visigothic kingdoms left scattered across the Cantabrian cornice when they settled after the 5th-century invasions. The hamlet of Vidiago belongs to the council of Llanes, about half a dozen kilometres from Pendueles. Its parish church of Santa María, Romanesque reformed in the Baroque, preserves a notable altarpiece. The toponym is one more of the dense Germanic layer of Asturian onomastics —alongside Ribadesella (Ribadesilla, possibly from a Gothic Sila), Cangas, Gozón.
Evolution of the name
- Witiwald / Vidiacus Latinized Gothic 6th — 9th centuries
- Vidiago medieval Asturleonese from the 12th century
Glossary
- Anthroponym
- A personal name, often used as the base of toponyms (Lucronius → Logroño, Sigerici → Castrojeriz, Sacavus → Sacavém).
- Attested
- A form or word documented in writing in historical sources; opposed to "reconstructed" (forms proposed by comparative inference but not actually documented).
- Onomastics
- The linguistic discipline that studies proper names — of persons, places and institutions. "Onomastic readings" are competing etymological hypotheses about a name.
Sources
- García Arias, X.Ll. — Toponimia asturiana
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Camino del Norte