Etymology and origin of the name

Family Names formed from Given Names

The given name Gaston was quite popular among nobles and royalty. Gaston was the name of 7 counts of Béarn, including the famous Gaston de Foix (Gaston Phoebus) and Gaston de France, Duke of Orléans, brother of Louis XIII, son of Henri IV. In all of these cases, Gaston is a given name and not the family name (surname). The given name Gaston continues to be popular to this day. There is still, however, a great deal of confusion surrounding this name.

Let us try and see if we can clarify the matter a little.

Family names (surnames) formed from given names are very common in France and generally easy to identify in spite of the transformations and elisions that sometimes renders them somewhat hard to recognize.

Nearly all French given names are found in surnames except for those who are of foreign or erudite origins more recently introduced into France. Modern names (or their modern forms) such as Ernest and Albert (Aubert, in its ancient form) are mostly represented in family names as these given to both natural and adopted children. This is not the case for ancient given names like Henri, Jean, Pierre and Philippe, which were often taken from ancient patronyms.

Gaston became a fashionable given name because of the Béarnais and Occitan nobility.

Etymology

A very important group of ancient first names was formed by Germanic peoples; mostly the Franks but also the Visigoths of south-western France. This is also the case for the Burgondes (Burgogne, Franche-Comté, and Savoie) and the Alamans in Alsace. These well known names have been studied by German linguists for a long time with the exception on a small remnant of obscure names. Most of these well-known names are made of compound words. The determining attributive adjective of a noun or a verb precedes what is being modified in accordance with Germanic syntax, thus:

· Adal-gari (prototype of Auger) comes from noble=adal + lance=gari

But not always for example

· Gerard (lance=gar + hard=hard)

· Bernard (hard=hard + bern=bear)

· Léautier (armed=hari + of the people=liut).

The semantic explanations are taken care of relevant to Germanic linguistics thought the details are cumbersome to get into at this point. More than a few names must have already been established by the Frankish period for which the Franks themselves had lost the original meanings. These names have been the source of many false interpretations.

These Germanic names were not an indication of the family’s Germanic origins, they were simply the names made popular by the ruling aristocracy that they had taken from the most far away lands (like l’Auvergne) in the 9th century. During that era, almost all the given names in the north of France were of Germanic origin and about 50% in Provence, (a southern French region). Since that time, the original sense of these names was lost to the majority of the population, (With the exception of Flandre). Francique had ceased to be spoken or understood in France during the course of the 10th century. Hugues Capet (938-996), first King of the Capetians dynasty, did not understand it. Names from the time of the contemporaries of Philippe Auguste, when family names came into common usage they had lost their meaning.

Other family names like Guillaume, Guichard and Renaud were no longer names given an ancestor because of their qualities or flaws but rather as “tags”, names made popular during the time of the last Capetians and the first Valois. Analyses of these names are of little consequence beyond linguistic curiosity and tell us nothing of the psychology of 6th century invaders who invented them.

There are several credible possibilities concerning the etymology of the name Gaston.

Ø The (Roman) word “vastus” was adopted by the Franks who made it “Wastare” from which “guaster” (to pillage/destry) comes.

Ø Gast in Occitan is morphed into “gastaia”, “gastahlo” and becomes “gastar” in Spanish usage, a term seemingly denoting a desolate region

Ø Gast, of Frankish origin, means “guest”, much like in English

Ø “On” is a gasconism or a rendering reflecting southern origins that is sometimes written “Ou”, as in Gastou. They both come from the same root.

Ø “On” is also used in the names of people from the village of Gastes, canton of parentis in born, Department of les Landes in Gascony in the southwest of France. Gast-on or Gast-ou is used as well to signify persons whose origins are from Gastes.

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