Name of the Goths

[Michael Erwin]

But the Weilbark Culture borrowed most of their burial practices from  
the earlier Oksywie Culture, and were called Goths (or Gutones, by  
Roman historians) before they borrowed the stone circles from Gotland  
or Scandinavia.

I don't doubt that there were continuous contacts between the three  
regions. Some practices spread from the Vistula, some from Gotland,  
and some from Scandinavia. I can't see why the name (Gut-) cannot  
have spread from the Vistula, beginning as a regional name on the  
Vistula and becoming a thiuda-name from Gutthiuda to Gotland.

It does lead to one question (why would Gotlanders pick it up?) but  
it does resolve another question (what is flowing?).

Of course the Goths, like the Russians, Bulgars, etc. could have  
taken someone else's name.


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