As in the two previous cases, so also in this case, there is an ancient
Celtic name, Geio, to take into account, and to this may be placed the
names _Keogh_ and _Keho_, if these names be, as I suppose, Irish and not
English. Also the Kay and the Kie in _McKay_ and _McKie_. Lastly, in
this, as in the other two cases, there is also a name on Roman pottery,
Gio, which might, as it seems, be either German or Celtic. Can there be
any connection, I venture to inquire, between these ancient names,
Celtic or Teutonic, and the Roman Gaius and Caius? Several well-known
Roman names are, as elsewhere noted, referred by German writers to a
Celtic origin.
It will be seen then that, in the case of all the three names of which I
have been treating, there is an ancient Celtic name in a corresponding
form which might in some cases intermix. And there are many more cases
of the same kind among our surnames. _Wake_, for instance, may represent
an ancient name, either German or Celtic; for the German a sufficient
etymon may be found in _wak_, watchful, while for the Celtic there is
nothing, observes Gluck, in the range of extant dialects to which we can
reasonably refer it. So _Moore_ represents an ancient stem for names
common to the Celts, the Germans, and the Romans, though at least as
regards the Germans, the origin seems obscure.[3]
Now it is quite possible, particularly in the case of such monosyllabic
words as these, that there might be an accidental coincidence between a
Celtic and a Teutonic name, without their having anything in common in
their root. It is possible, again, that the one nation may have borrowed
a name from the other, as the Northmen, for instance, sometimes did from
the Irish or the Gael, one of their most common names, Niel(sen), being
thus derived; while, on the other hand, both the Irish and the Gael
received, as Mr. Worsaae has shown, many names from the Northmen. So
also the Romans seem to have borrowed names from the Celts, several
well-known names, as Plinius, Livius, Virgilius,[4] Catullus, and
Drusus, being, in the opinion of German scholars, thus derived.
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