About Niall's saga and the origins of the name, I asked my wife to look up what she could find in our copy. I had a feeling there was a problem with the dates. Here's what she found, interspersed in the original notes. To be brief, Njal's saga dates from oral stories told around the year 900, whereas Nial of the 9 Hostages lived in, if I remember correctly, the 400s. Would sound more like a Celtic export to Scandinavia that the other way around, based on the saga. But when was the god worshiped? Just some food for thought. John > |> 1. When I was in college, I did a research paper on the origin > |of my name > |> "O'Neal". Since I had no preconceived notions about the name, and > no > |> genealogical experience, I merely reported what I found which was > this: > |> > |> a) The name originally stemmed from a Norse god, "Njal", > |pronounced, nee-aal'. > |> The "a" has a small "o" above it, and in fact is not an "a", but > |one of the > |> three additional letters in the modern Dano-Norwegian alphabet, > |and pronounced > |> differently (ask one of your Scandinavian friends). I'm one of them. The letter is å and it's pronounced like 'aw' in saw. (I'm Swedish by the way, but the Swedes were not as involved in all this westering, the British isles, Iceland etc. as the Danes and the Norwegians.) > There is a > |famous early > |> literary work called "Njal's Saga". Yes, it dates from around 1280. Relates episodes from 300 years earlier. Just read the introduction to the saga in Penguin Classics. > |> > |> b) The name evolved over the centuries as Njall. In > |Dano-Norwegian, a "j" is > |> pronounced as "ee". Then it became Niall (an "i" is also > |pronouced as "ee" in > |> Dano-Norwegian). At one point there was a "Niall of the Nine > |Hostages" who is > |> named as the progenitor of the O'Neal/O'Neall/O'Neill name. > |Then, some time > |> later his descendants, the Irish "clan" of O'Neal's used the > |IRISH appelation > |> "Ui" to designate "descendant of" or "son of" as in Ui' Niall or > |"descendants > |> of Niall". > | > |> Bob O'Neal in Tacoma > | > |It's interesting that the Celtic language had a direct influence from > > |Norse at such an early date (c. 400). This was well before the Norse > > |invasions of Ireland. How do you sources document this connection? This is a question I've asked myself at least since John O'Neall, my husband got involved in genealogy. It seems obvious that there must have been a very close connection. But how did it work? I also tend to believe that the Norse languages had an influence on the Celtic language. I'm a linguist by the way, but not competent to do detective work on Norse/Celtic connections. My linguistic studies had nothing to do with Norse or Celtic. Siv O'Neall > | > |Anyway, I've decided to use the Soundex version of my name. > | > |Jon O540 > | > |