Ovida

[llama_nom]

Kemp Malone has a theory about this one too in the same article! He
connects it to a name which occurs in the Old English poem Widsith:

Mid Moidum ic wæs ond mid Persum   .    ond mid Myrgingum,
ond Mofdingum    .     ond ongend Myrgingum,

He proposes that 'ond Mofdingum' is a corruption of 'ond mid
Ofdingum', and that the Ofdingas were synonymous with the Goths, being
the descendents of Ovida. He derives Old English 'Ofd-' from an
alternative form of the name with a different ablaut grade: *Ovada,
which is actually attested as the name of a Vandal, Obadus. Malone
also notes the suffix -ada in Nidada. So perhaps I was overhasty in
equating this last with OE Níðhád, ON Níðuðr. Still, I don't think
medial -d- in Latin spellings of Gothic names necessarily rules out
Gothic -þ- (compare the names with Adel- besides Athal(a)- for Go.
*aþal(a)-, and so on).

Malone continues:

"The 'Ofd' of this name goes back to a base 'ôf' (Go. ôb) and the
a-variety of the full grade of the suffix of appurtenance. The base
'ôb' also appears in German 'üben' and related words; note especially
OHG 'uobo' "tiller (of the soil)". The name Ovida seems to mean
"worker, a man who accomplishes things", much as Fastida means
"keeper, a man who maintains things"."

OE 'ôfa' isn't attested as a common noun, but does appear occasionally
as a personal name. But the quantity of the vowel isn't certain, "and
a wholly different etymology [...] is therefore possible, for which
see Redin, p. 101 f." Unfortunately he doesn't hint at what this
etymology might be, and the website where I'm reading it seems to have
omitted the bibliography...

Kemp Malone (1933). `The suffix of appurtenance in "Widsith"' The
Modern Language Review 28:3, pp. 315-325 [
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-7937%28193307%2928%3A3%3C315%3ATSOAI%22%3E\
2.0.CO%3B2-P ].

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