Saturday, December 3, 2011

Úllakan (Hooligan)


The surname Hooligan derives from Irish Uallach, which means 'proud'. Because of the sufficient phonetic similarity with Ceallach, the root of the old Hiberno-Icelandic personal name Kjallak(u)r, it is possible to create an exact Icelandic version of the name without the need of a validating lexical artifact in the Old Literature: Úllakan

http://www.libraryireland.com/names/oh/o-huallachain.php
http://www.libraryireland.com/names/on/o-nuallachain.php

The pronounciation of the root of the surname Hooligan: ullach (proud) is OOlakh (Icelandic: ÚLLAK). http://namenerds.com/irish/trad.html

The 'l' is written twice because of the doubling of the character in the root uallach (compare: kjALLAK(u)R (from ceALLACH) 'O huALLACHain - ÚLLAKAN (the ending -ain is the diminutive ending -an, -án in Icelandicized Irish personal names: Kjartan, Kvaran, Dufan, Brjánn).
The 'h' in Hooligan is formed by adding the patronymic prefix 'O' as in O' Hara. But I decided to keep 'Ú' as the initial character because there isn't one existing Icelandic name or word of Irish origin beginning with húl-, but we do have one beginning with Úl-: Úlaðstíri (Ulster) and because of this example, the force of folk-etymology would always make people favourize the version without the initial 'h'. Morover, variants of the surname do exist: Oolihan, Oolahen, see
http://www.houseofnames.com/hooligan-family-crest?a=54323-224
An example of this folk-etymology in Icelandic names of Irish origin is mentioned in the book 'Keltar á Íslandi' by Hermann Pálsson: ROÐÍAN: Hinn gáfaði höfundur Göngu-Hrólfs sögu hefur ekki gripið slíkt nafn úr lausu lofti. Mér hefur komið til hugar að það sé með einhverjum hætti tengt við nafnið ROTHNÍAN í MetDinn. og kunni að eiga rætur að rekja til orðsins ruithen, kvenkyns 'ljósgeisli', EN VITASKULD HEFUR ÍSLENSKA ORÐIÐ 'ROÐI' ÞÁ ORKAÐ Á MYND NAFNSINS.

I propose Úllakan as the Icelandic equivalent of Hooligan.

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