Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/Wōdanaz

Etymology
Related to, from. Compare 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬 and, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬.

English (in ) is not an exact cognate but rather continues, pre-Germanic. (🇨🇬, however, due to its lack of umlaut, appears to continue *Wōdanaz and the replacement of the suffix vowel appears to be secondary, (compare Proto-Norse and, from  and , respective past participles of  and ). )

This suggests a variation of the theonym in early Germanic, vs. . The form with -i- as attested in 🇨🇬 appears to have been present in Frisia (cf. also similar 🇨🇬). The situation in Old English is unclear. The attested Old English forms point to, but i-umlauted forms surface in records after the end of the Old English period. Thus, is replaced by continuations of  around AD 1200. The same transition to the umlauted form of the theonym during the 12th or early 13th century (early Middle English) is also found in English placenames, such as ( ca. 1212, earlier ),  ( 1227, earlier, ),  ( 1251, earlier ).

Based on an Old English form Ōdon, which appears to have been borrowed from Old Danish, Schaffner deduces that the original shape of the theonym was likely rather than.

The oldest attestation of the theonym, Proto-Norse from the Vindelev bracteate X13 (c. 5th century), suggests a fourth possibility,, although this would require independent i-insertion in both Proto-/Old Norse (after i-mutation had run its course) and proto-Anglo Frisian (before i-mutation had begun). It is conceivable that such a change could have originated in one of the two groups and spread through diffusion to the other (since these are the two northernmost branches of Proto-Germanic).

Proper noun

 * 1)  Woden or Odin, the Germanic supreme god. Identified in later times with the Roman god Mercury.